Second Grade Students Developing Art Historical Understanding.

This paper reports on two different analyses of data from a study of second grade students' attempts at art historical interpretation. The first qualitative analysis focuses on two issues: (1) Can primary children understand an art work in the context of the historical culture within which it was made? and (2) What com parisons can primary children make between the present and the past to help them under stand artworks from other times and cultures? Part two analyzes second grade students' attempts at art historical interpretation using Parsons' (1987) account of the development of aesthetic experience. These analyses call into question the traditional assumption that primary children are not developmental^ ca pable of historical understanding. They also suggest that historical understanding may not be typical of primary children, but may rather be the result of carefully planned instruction. Is art history instruction appropriate con tent for primary school art education? Many art educators think not (Clark, Day, & Greer, 1987; Kleinbauer, 1987; Smith, 1989). Tradition tends to support the as sumption that primary children are not developmentally ready to understand his torical concepts. Some researchers have questioned this traditional assumption (Egan, 1989; Levstik, 1988; Kennedy, 1983). Specifically, in an effort to provide grounding for conclusions about the de velopmental appropriateness of teaching art history at the primary level, this study takes a qualitative look at second grad ers' attempts at art historical interpreta tion.1 An Analysis of Attempts at Art Historical Interpretation Students, Program, and Data Collection The second grade students in this study attended a suburban school serving lower to middle economic level households within a dominantly Euro-American com munity. The number of students with learning disabilities in the intact class selected for this study was higher than the average in the school. The partici pating teacher and this researcher planned the entire year's art program around ten roughly chronological, cross cultural themes (Addiss & Erickson, 1993, pp. 185-187), using reproductions (some black and white and some in color2) of 100 artworks from various eras and cul tures. The artworks used in the study included representational and non-rep resentational two-dimensional and three dimensional artwork, as well as many architectural and craft works. Throughout the school year students heard teacher presentations, took part in class discus sions, and worked on related studio art projects. Over a period of several weeks, each student studied one artwork using two packets of inquiry-oriented worksheets comprised of short answer and multiple choice questions. The first packet fo cused on reproduction, restoration, basic facts, and description of an artwork (se lected by the student from the reproduc tions). The second packet focuses on placing the selected artwork in its art world context, natural context, functional context, and cultural context. After all this inquiry, students responded to four questions: (1) Historical Artist Question (Why do you think the artist made the artwork look the way it does? ); (2) His torical Viewer Question (Why do you think the viewer back then wanted to look at the artwork? ); (3) Historical Culture Ques tion (What does the artwork tell you about what people generally thought or be lieved back then? ) and (4) Historical Con VISUAL ARTS RESEARCH ? 1995 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois 15 This content downloaded from 207.46. 13.80 on Thu, 11 Aug 2016 06:25:23 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor. org/terms ditioning of Perception Question (How do you see this artwork differently from the people back then? ). 3 Each student stud ied four different artworks in this manner during the course of the school year. Some students wrote their own re sponses. The participating art teacher transcribed some responses as dictated by individual students. Qualitative analysis of responses to these four art historical interpretation questions focused on two issues: (1) Can primary children understand an artwork in the context of the historical culture within which it was made? and (2) What comparisons between the present and the past can primary children use to help them understand artworks from other times and cultures? Historical/Cultural Understanding Can primary children understand art works in the context of the historical culture within which they were made? Many second grade students' responses to the historical artist question indicated that they were able to consider artworks from the perspective of a historical artist. Here are some of those responses: About a Cree basket, students wrote that the artist wanted "to make it special and to hold food," and "she needed to carry food"; about a prehistoric painting, "he tried to make an animal for magic"; about an Egyptian sculpture, "to worship his king"; about a medieval manuscript page, "to tell about God"; about an Islamic tile decoration, "it was a design and they could not add on people in their work"; about Boucher's Madame Pompadour, "to show the king's friend and make her pretty"; about Raphael's School of Ath ens, "he studied Greeks and Romans? they were his favorite people"; and about the U.S. Capitol, "they wanted it special like the Greeks. " Other responses were less clearly from a historical artist's point of view, such as: about a Byzantine mosaic students wrote "so it would be famous," "he wanted people to remember them," and "it was neat to look at"; about Chartres, "to look beautiful"; about a Chinese painting of ladies tuning a lute and drinking tea, "they thought it up to show people"; about a Meso-American temple, "so peo ple can look at it," and "he wanted to carve stone"; and about an African mask, "to look nice? to look like a face. " A few students do not seem to have considered an artist's point of view at all. Students wrote about a Byzantine mosaic, "it looks nice"; and about a prehistoric carving, "it's one of a kind. " Almost all of the second grade students were able to con sider artworks from an artist's perspec tive and many specifically from a histor ical artists' perspective. A number of second grade students' responses to the historical viewer ques tion indicate an ability to consider the historical viewer's perspective. Here are some of those responses: about an Is lamic tile decoration, a student wrote that a viewer back then wanted to look at the artwork "to be reminded of Mohammed"; about Chartres, another student pro posed that the viewer wanted "to learn more about Jesus and God"; about the Parthenon, "they went to talk to the gods"; about an aborigine painting, "they thought about magic and believed it"; about a Olmec sculpture, "wanted to remember the man"; about Boucher's Madame Pompadour, "it's beautiful? they knew her? she was their friend"; about the ruins at Mesa Verde, "he didn't [want to look at it], he just wanted to live there"; and about Van Gogh's Starry Night, a response indicating knowledge of Van Gogh's lack of success in the artworld of his time, "they [viewers back then] didn't get to look at it. " Other second graders responded from a viewer's perspective without reference to the historical context, for example: about a Kandinsky painting, a student responded "it's interesting"; about a carved Buddhist stone gate, "it's pretty and they wanted to see it"; about an