Jessica Barry

Jessica Barry
History of Goals and Methods in Art Education
Fall 2010
Major Project

TAMING THE WILD BEAST:
Aesthetic Instruction of Taste and Order

To breed good taste and order, art educators restricted the use of color for children in Massachusetts schools, from 1875 through 1925. In  America drawing was an exclusive activity of the refined and cultivated upper class citizens, until it was deemed necessary for the common creature to have drawing skills. When color gradually made its way into schoolrooms, students use of color was restrained to quiet tame colors.
According to Stankiewicz, in1827 drawing was introduced as a permitted study for the elite in Boston’s English High School, and ten years later drawing became a required subject.  By 1860 Massachusetts permitted the teaching of drawing in common schools (Stankiewicz). In 1867 as the Industrial Age emerged and the need for skilled draftsmen arose, fourteen Massachusetts merchants and manufacturers petitioned the state legislature for an act requiring drawing to be taught in free evening classes for workers and in common schools, and as a result in1870 Massachusetts legislature passed an act which authorized the teaching of drawing in public schools (Stankiewicz).  A year later, Walter Smith moved from England to Massachusetts to supervise drawing instruction for the state and in Boston Public Schools (Stankiewicz). Soon after, in 1873 the Massachusetts Normal Art School was established to train art teachers (Stankiewicz).
Wygant describes early 1800’s classrooms where young children drew on slate with white chalk, and older students copied outline drawings in pencil.  Wygant explains that shading was not approved of though sometimes flat tints might be rendered in parallel lines.  This controlled method of instruction and materials remained the practice for many years.
When art instruction was mandated, and the Normal Art School set in motion, there were several publications regarding the instruction of art for children.  According to Stankiewicz, Louis Prang began publishing Walter Smith’s art education textbooks in 1875 which teachers were expected to use with their students. Later, in 1880, Mary Dana Hicks revised Walter Smith’s American Text-Books of Art and also prepared a Teachers Manual.  The text books and instructions were extremely formal and rigid in their goals and methods focusing on industrial design and decoration. Wygant states that Smith strongly opposed children’s interest in color, and that children were not permitted to use color until high school, and then only sparingly.  Smith (Smith) believed in a system of harmonies of complimentary colors according to natural laws. Smith wrote that primaries should be used in ceiling decoration because red, yellow, and blue were found in nature in the heavens. He also said that the secondaries; green, purple, and orange could be found midway between the heavens so these colors could be used in wall decorations, and since the earth is full of russet, citrine, and olive these colors would be suitable to the ground.  Besides these publications, a handful of books were written which addressed the new possibility of color in the art curriculum in 1883 (Wygant).
When the manual arts movement emerged a new focus on theory and color began. In 1907, A Theory of Pure Design was published by Denman Waldo Ross. Ross’s book says that students need knowledge of all colors, and that the way to teach them is through
exercises in scales, and set-palettes. Tone Relations in Painting by Arthur Pope was published in 1922, fifteen years later,  reiterated Ross’s theory of teaching color by using the same terms and instruction through the practice of scales. According to Nickerson, Albert Munsell published A Color Notation in 1905, patented his first charts of the color atlas in 1906, followed by the publication of The Atlas of the Munsell Color System in 1915 and A Grammar of Color. Munsell (Munsell, A Color Notation) had several achievements in the field of color; he invented the Munsell photometer for measuring value, he adapted Maxwell’s disk spinning apparatus for hue and chroma measurement, he designed a color sphere, and constructed a color tree all corresponding to his color theory.  In his book A Color Balance, Munsell describes his difficulties teaching color to students and his desire to create definite terms for the teaching of color.  He wanted to devise a system of color names and terms for matching or duplicating color for industry, education, science, art, and business (Munsell, A Color Balance). He believed,   “ . . .color guesswork was loose and fluctuating, and that they should be corrected by measured scales, so as to free the mind from false tradition and lead to straight color thinking. Beauty of color flows from balance and measure.” He claims, “The eye enjoys balance between excess of color and its absence, and, when the mind is satisfied by the relations of light and color, we call the result beautiful.” For Munsell measure and balance are learned and lead to good taste (Munsell, A Color Balance). Like Smith his theory draws upon nature, he discusses the balance of sunshine and shadow, the contrasting fiery sunset and grey day, yellow sand and purple-blue sea.  These examples in nature teach a great law, which is that strong colors should be used as only small accents to balance wide fields of grayer color. In contrast to other color theories, Munsell’s color system consists of five colors which include red, yellow, green, blue, and purple. And because of the five colors the complimentary colors differ (red – blue, green), (yellow – purple), (green – red, purple) (blue – yellow, red) (purple – green, yellow). Munsell believed that students should only use the middle hues.  His rule for design was to have students use a hue and its two neighbors for likeness (or its two opposites for contrasts).  Students were not allowed to use all five colors together ((Munsell, A Color Balance)
Color media such as crayons, watercolors, colored paper and tempera were accessible in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  In 1902 Crayola crayons were introduced by Binney and Smith (Stankievitz). Accordingto Wygant, Milton Bradley and Prang sold strips of colored paper which could be pasted into workbooks to illustrate elements of color theory, such as graded tones, simultaneous and complimentary contrasts, and various color harmonies.  Nickerson mentions that Munsell crayons, water colors, color spheres, colored papers, and high grade tempera colors were available.
As new inventions developed and the industrial age churned along, American business wanted to create its own products, rather than have its raw materials shipped overseas to be refined and imported (Korzenik). Business needed skilled American draftsmen, and wanted to cultivate good taste in order to produce and sell its own products to Americans.  To foster a cultivated society of taste, Massachusettes sent its children to school, where at this time children adhered to a strict code of conduct.
These theories of good taste, goals of industrial design, and methods of rigid instruction persisted with restricted rules of color. No one has tried to identify or explain psychologically the reason for the pedagogical control on color.  However, I believe, educators were purposely keeping a tight rein on color use because they wanted to tame children to be orderly and tasteful.  In Munsell’s book, A Color Balance, he poses a teachers question and responds to it, “Why begin with such quiet colors, if the child craves the strongest obtainable?” ‘A child craves many things beyond control, and they are wisely withheld until he is trained to their proper use.’ ”
Childrens’ inclinations to use bright color had to be controlled to keep them from damaging their perception and love of color. Both Smith’s and Munsell’s methods of teaching color restrained the use of color, and bright color in particular.  Munsell writes, “Gaudy colors are avoided by persons of good taste. They clash, howl, and swear and belong to the circus rather than the home; and, since first impressions are lasting, children should not be exposed to such crude and unbalanced effects, which must delay, if they do not destroy, the feeling and love for beautiful color.” Smith (Smith) writes that color affects the mind more powerfully than form. He says, “A man could no more live in room painted a glaring red color than he could live in a fire, or stare at the noonday sun; and though less positive colors affect the sensations to a slighter degree, every color, as well as every combination of colors, has a sensible influence upon feelings.(Smith)
Riotous undisciplined color choice was not allowed.  In Color News, an article about Indian Masks demonstrates the feeling of color associated with savage undisciplined manners, and shows the lack of growth of in the primitive world.
“The tendency both in the primitive and savage world seems to have been to use whatever pigments, stains and dyes that could be obtained. Wherever they could get brighter color – feathers, flowers, shells, and stones – they have been eagerly adopted.  The colors have been applied to their maximum intensity, for primitive and savage peoples do not seem to have known or practiced the art of mixing colors to obtain weaker chroma.  Savage art remained crude and is the same over and over generation after generation, having no or little progress (“Indian Masks”).”
Teachers wanted to cultivate a limited color palette. The extremes we seek are moderate and tempered relations, convinced that they are the basis of beauty (Munsell, A Color Balance) Tempered sensations – not extremes – are the source of refined pleasure, and in this system the crude extremes of red, yellow and blue which make the bill poster hideous are replaced by those moderate degrees of color which abound in the best decorative and fine art (Munsell, A Color Balance).  Smith said, “Nature is stronger than fashion, and an outrage of the principles which Nature’s works display will become distasteful to, and eventually disgust, even the most artificial taste.”(Smith)
Art instruction strove for order. (Munsell, A Color Balance) Munsell puts science under the art of design instead of whim, accident, and the vagaries of personal assertion (Munsell, A Color Balance).  “It must be remembered that in teaching Design we are teaching Order, order in drawing and painting, and in everything else; order in our thinking, order in our actions, order in every kind and sort of work.  Disorder, therefore, is to be avoided as much as possible. (Ross)”
The Antefix Papers, published essays by the students of the Normal Art School, spell out the desire of cultivating taste,
“ . . . we, enjoying the experience of the past ages with opportunities of the present, should endeavor as much as in us lies to contribute to make this distinguished as the era of pure taste and enlightened culture, leaving for the future much to exult in and to imitate.  Before we can originate however, anything really estimable, the mind must be instructed, capacities excercised, and enthusiasm fired by the beautiful and endless varieties of nature.  Let our standard be low, and we shall never rise to a high level; but with the glorious works of the great Creator before us, who can resist their ennobling influence or fail to do his part towards extending it toward mankind?”
Resisting the restrictions of color, Josephine Locke, a supervisor of drawing in Chicago said in 1890, “The American public are slowly awakening to the fact that color has to do with healthy, wholesome human living, that there is an eternal word in nature and in art that we must heed, for the heart of man feels the need for it (Wygant).”  Irene Weir an art educator in Brookline was criticized for exhibiting color illustrations in the Massachusetts 1899 exhibition (Stankevicz).
As the aesthetic of good taste and order slowly declined, color restraints released the spirited beast.   The technology of color in manufacture and printing excited people, and by the 1920’s color was to be crisp and lively whether in painting, cars, magazines, or home furnishing (Wygant).  New artists were experimenting with color in different ways.  The Impressionists were working in pure color, the Abstract Expressionists were using color to emotionally, and the Fauvists (wild beasts) broke all the rules.

Sources

Korzenik, D. (1987). Art Education Here. MA: publication of the Art Education Department of the Massachusetts College of Art

Munsell, A. H. (1907).  A Color Notation. Baltimore, MD: Munsell Color Company, Inc.

Munsell, A. H. (1913). A Color Balance Illustrated and the Introduction to the Munsell System. Boston: Press of Geo. H. Ellis Co.

Munsell, A. H. (1921).  A Grammar of Color Arrangements of Strathmore Papers.  MA: Strathmore Paper Co.

N., D. and B., M. (1924). Indian Masks. Color News. June

Nickerson, Dorothy (1969).  History of the Munsell Color System. Color Engineering September-October Vol.7, No.5

Perkins, Charles C.  (1875). The Antefix Papers. Massachusetts: Printed for private circulation and read at weekly meetings at the Normal Art School

Pope, Arthur (1922). Tone Relations in Painting. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Harvard University Press

Prang, Louis. Hicks, Mary  Dana. Clark, John S. (1893) Color Instruction Suggestion in Color for Public Schools. Boston, NY, Chicago: The Prang Educational Company

Ross, Denman W. Ph.D. (1907).  A Theory of Pure Design. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company

Ross, Denman W. Ph.D. (1912). On Drawing and Painting. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company

Smith, Walter (1873). Art Education, Scholastic and Industrial. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company

Stankiewicz, Mary Ann (2001). Roots of Art Education Practice. Massachusetts: Davis Publications, Inc.

Van Dyke, John C. (1889). How to Judge a Picture. New York: Chautauqua Press

Wygant, Foster (1993). School Art in American Culture 1820-1970. Ohio, Cincinnati: Interwood Press

Jessica Barry
History of Goals and Methods in Art Education
Fall 2010
Paper #5

Early Copy Machines

Art theory, the development of rules for order and beauty, in the late 1800’s in art education, presented contrasting ideas. Bailey’s and Prang’s beliefs in the scientific academic way of learning versus Ruskin’s, Dow’s, and Fenollosa’s view of intuition, were extremely different.  Having the two schools of thought must have had educators confused.  A merging of both ideas rather than one or the other would have presented a more balanced methodology for students and teachers.
Both Smith and Bailey thought students should analyze traditional motifs and past decorative art. According to Smith (p86), art was based scientifically on natural law, and therefore he believed that students should not be allowed to invent original designs until they had learned to copy and analyze traditional motifs.  “Bailey explained that freehand drawing could not be taught without students first having some knowledge of historic ornament.  Young children should begin by arranging straight lines, imitating the linear designs of primitive peoples.  Copying examples of past decorative art would introduce students to principles of design, such as symmetry, repetition, alternation, and balance.”(p87) The academic approach of analyzing works of art in terms of art theory is beneficial to students, however copying these works does not allow for artistic expression, it just makes a copy.

On the other hand Ruskin, Dow, and Fenolosa saw art in a more organic way.  The work is student based, personal, and individual.
“Ruskin declared that design was unteachable. The design process was intuitive, the result of creative force, a part of the innate personality of the artist… Dow criticized the academic approach for providing students with facts but depriving them of the power to use those facts to make and appreciate art… Dow worked with Fenolosa to develop instructional activities that would help self-expression unfold and enable student artists to receive the transcendent gift of synthesis”(p91).
Young artists need time to play and explore with materials and ideas to see what is possible.  Looking within at the self and without at what already exists invites creative expression.  By analyzing past works of art, and allowing for students’ creative impulses, student work could be original and not merely an imitation.

Stankiewicz, Mary Ann. (2001) Roots of Art Education Practice. Massachusetts: Davis Publications

Jessica Barry
History of Goals and Methods of Art Education
Fall 2010
Paper #4

Wanted Art Laborers

Art labor had become an economic, intellectual, religious, moral and democratic opportunity by 1880 in America.  Economic leaders realized that Americans needed to develop their aesthetics in order to compete in the global marketplace.  Instead of exporting raw materials and importing fine products, Industrialists wanted to monopolize the market place with home made products produced right here in America.  In order to do this they engaged the public by campaigning through advertisement illustrating the good child always depicted drawing, and by advocating for arts instruction for all.  As the work force moved from the countryside into the industrialized city, the need grew for trained laborers.  Because artists hired from across the sea were expensive, big business lobbied for art education in public schools and won.  To convince people to participate in arts training, Clarke writes in the The Democracy of Art, “As the Word, once spoken in Palestine, has had the power to lift up the humble and loose the fetters of the bound; so, today, Art with informing impulse, transforms toil from pain to pleasure! The message of the Art is the Enfranchisement of Man.”  Chapman promoted the arts by saying,
“Drawing has its practical uses, in every occupation of life.  It opens inexhaustible sources of utility, as well as pleasure, practices the eye to observe, and the hand to record…It does more: it gives strength to the arm of the mechanic, and taste and skill to the producer, not only of the embellishments, but actual necessities of life.”(p70)
Fueled by greed, under the guise of taste and pleasure, art opportunities expanded.

Korenzic, Diana Dr. (1987) Art Education Here: Massachusetts College of Art. Why Government Cared. Henry N. Sawyer Co.

Jessica Barry
History of Goals and Methods of Art Education
Paper #3

Appreciating What We Know?

When art is presented in a new form or style, some people do not know how to respond to it.  Most people are used to what they know and feel comfortable with what they expect.  The Radiolab discussion about Ivor Stravinsky’s “Rites of Spring” debut demonstrates how irrationally people react, when they do not understand something new, odd, and unexpected.  Chaos erupted the first time the “Rites of Spring” debuted.  There was a continuous monotonous beat and strange chords and notes mixed together.  Along with the unusual sound there were dancers performing different movements than had not ever been seen.  However, a year later, with slight alterations of the program, and some understanding of what to expect, the performance was well received.  This relates to visual art as well.  Several art movements were not well received when their work was first exhibited.   Many people could not understand how the art work could even be considered art.  The work looked unfinished, the colors were not realistic, a child could draw better than that, what is it about.  After time and through gradual understanding the art work was accepted and valued. Some people did not have a problem appreciating what was new, whether Stavinsky’s piece of music, or a Van Gogh painting.  Over time people have become more accustomed to change and the expectation is that art will be different, appreciated for its diversity.

Radiolab: Rites of Spring

Jessica Barry
History of Goals and Methods in Art Education
Paper #2

Letting Go

In the first three decades of the twentieth century earlier restrictions in art education were brushed away. Art teachers began to see that child art did not conform to traditional, rigid practices.  Modern artists and scientific research both supported individual self expression. Stieglitz (p30) thought that freedom should replace restrictive methods of art teaching found in schools.  Like many modern artists of the time, Stieglitz wanted to see the naïve, natural expression of children. Hall (p28) claimed that Walter Smith’s mechanical approach opposed the artistic spirit because it limited children’s artistic instincts. Progressive artist-teachers who followed psychological research judged children’s art by its sincerity and truthfulness.(p37)  Artists Teachers like Florence Cane and Victor D’Amico experimented with differing methodologies.  Cane (p36) encouraged students to create freely, and use their imaginations.  D’Amico (p37) thought that children should explore their external environment to wake the artist within. The goals and methods for making art in progressive thought released the child from mechanical controls. Others may say that adolescent children were lost in the sweep, that they desired a more technical approach and therefore were not progressing.  However art instruction though it claimed to be loose was technical in its teaching methodologies of older children.
Stankiewicz, Mary Ann. (2001) Roots of Art Education Practice. Massachusetts: Davis Publications