Me n Art: The Science of Art

coberst · Post by **coberst** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 2:29 am

Me n Art: The Science of Art

I am a retired engineer with much formal education. Also I have five children and seven grandchildren. Thus, I speak with some extensive first-hand experience with the educational system in the United States.

Until a few months ago, when I began studying the science of art, my only educational contact with art was a few late Friday afternoon classes in third and fourth grade, which dealt with using crayons to color drawings of turkeys, pumpkins, and pine trees during the holidays. Beyond this early formal contact with “art I had only that which adhered to my mind via social osmosis.

Only after reading parts of a few books on art basics have I discovered just how deficient was my early education. From all that I can ascertain the present conditions of elementary and high school education have little improved. My evidence indicates that our (USA) educational system has perhaps deteriorated from its very low level that I personally experienced.

I have discovered that to study art is to study human nature. I have known for some time that our educational system has little regard for such matters because such matters add little to our ability to produce and to consume. Financial shenanigans are not the only means that CA (Corporate America) has used to take advantage of a naive population with little or no CT (Critical Thinking) knowledge or skills.

A recent BBC series “reveals art to be not the product of culture, but the producer and shaper of culture¦how art changed the world, our ideas, and even our humanity itself¦like science and technology, [it] has altered our environment and our identity¦We are art.

http://www.kk.org/truefilms/archives/20 ... ade_th.php

“Vision is an active grasp¦A human face, just like the whole body, is grasped as an over all pattern of essential components¦if we decide to concentrate on a particular person’s eye, that eye, too is perceived as a whole pattern¦When the thing observed lacks this integrity, i.e., when it is seen as an agglomeration of pieces, the details lose their meaning, and the whole becomes unrecognizable¦The young child sees “doggishness before he is able to distinguish one dog from another.

“The shape of an object we see does not, however, depend only on its retinal projection at a given moment. Strictly speaking, the image is determined by the totality of visual experiences we have had with that object, or with that kind of object, during our lifetime.

Non BBC quotes are from “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye by Rudolf Arnheim.

Devonin · Post by **Devonin** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 4:44 am

I'm not sure how little formal exposure to the science of art in the education system points to some severe deficiency in the education system.

I had art class all the way through 8th grade, with the option to continue taking it through all of highschool, and obviously thereinto university if I had the desire and ability.

I think it is at least a little ridiculous to suggest that in elementary school, art should be taught as anything other than a medium of creative expression. Trying to teach the actual science of artistic composition to children seems very much like it wouldn't end well. For many students, the ability to simply paint, or draw, or make some holiday creation is more like enjoyable free time, rather than yet another dreary lesson.

If anything, the informality of art in the early years would add -more- to the ability of young students to think and critically analyze. If you can go where your mind takes you, you have the impetus to have it take you to new places. If you are simply absorbing a lecture, and then producing a result that demonstrates your understanding of that lecture, that puts you more down the "input/output" road than the alternative.

Trying to bog down such a creative outlet with actual lecturing on technique and process should wait until the student is old enough to have determined that they'd actually like to move past freeform expression with no real limits or processes that need adhering to, and into the realm of the science of art.

As a musician myself, I know that if I had been shown anything past the most basic basic music theory when I learned to play on the recorder in 5th grade, and on keyboards in 6th-8th grades, I very likely would have been turned right off of it.

But by allowing the younger years to be about the freedom of the creative process without trying to put the forms into place yet, it had the net effect of making me -want- to go further in my studies of music and actually learn how to -play- instruments, instead of merely -play on- instruments.

coberst · Post by **coberst** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:07 am

The manner in which the brain constructs percepts is fundamental to the manner in which the brain constructs all thinking. To understand art is to study how we perceive and from that knowledge we can gain a comprehension of cognition.

chonsigirl · Post by **chonsigirl** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:42 am

From all that I can ascertain the present conditions of elementary and high school education have little improved. My evidence indicates that our (USA) educational system has perhaps deteriorated from its very low level that I personally experienced.

I disagree with your viewpoints about the subject of art in the American educational system. In the state of Maryland, art in it's various forms is a part of the curriculum. Every student has art, or music or an alternative fine art subject, until 8th grade. Two more classes are required to pass high school, with elective art classes available for further study.

I selected music, and had it every year until college.

Devonin · Post by **Devonin** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 2:59 pm

To understand art is to study how we perceive

Er...when you say "the science of art" I'm assuming that you're referring to the processes and methods of art creation. The theory behind drawing, painting, sculpting, how to use perspective, how to mix colours etc etc.

All the things that you'd start learning in more advanced art classes in highschool.

If that's the case, then I utterly don't understand the basis for your claim that understanding these things is studying how humans percieve. I'd consider that a subject as much for biology, psychology, sociology and philosphy as I would one for art...

coberst · Post by **coberst** » Sun Sep 28, 2008 2:38 am

Devonin;998912 wrote: Er...when you say "the science of art" I'm assuming that you're referring to the processes and methods of art creation. The theory behind drawing, painting, sculpting, how to use perspective, how to mix colours etc etc.

All the things that you'd start learning in more advanced art classes in highschool.

If that's the case, then I utterly don't understand the basis for your claim that understanding these things is studying how humans percieve. I'd consider that a subject as much for biology, psychology, sociology and philosphy as I would one for art...

I have, in recent months, been studying SGCS (Second Generation Cognitive Science). This study has made me conscious of the systems of perception, conception, and thinking structures of human cognition. An understanding of these structures has made it possible for me to comprehend the importance of visual perception and its fundamental nature in all of human thinking.

The accomplished visual artist must be a student of human visual perception in order to use that knowledge to create visual art that is in accordance with the peculiarities of our system of visual perception. The artist is using the art medium to express meaning and to communicate that meaning. Just as Shakespeare must be a student of human nature and of the English language to move the emotions of his reader. An analogy might be that the expert propagandist who must understand human nature and how the framing of issues makes it possible to best manipulate human behavior.

ddimz · Post by **ddimz** » Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:05 pm

left brain meets right brain. the ultimate paradox