Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education 20 Neil C.M. Brown Studies in Philosophical Realism in Art, Design and Education Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education Volume 20 Series Editor Liora Bresler, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A Editorial Board Eeva Antilla, Theatre Academy, Helsinki, Finland Magne Espeland, Stord University, Norway Chris Higgins, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A. Rita Irwin, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada Samuel Leong, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Tai Po, Hong Kong Minette Mans, International Consultant, Windhoek, Namibia Mike Parsons, The Ohio State University, Columbus, U.S.A. Eva Sæther, Lund University, Malmö Academy of Music, Sweden Shifra Schonmann, University of Haifa, Israel Julian Sefton-Green, University of Nottingham, UK Susan W. Stinson, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, U.S.A. Christine Thompson, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, U.S.A. Scope This series aims to provide conceptual and empirical research in arts education, (including music, visual arts, drama, dance, media, and poetry), in a variety of areas related to the post-modern paradigm shift. The changing cultural, historical, and political contexts of arts education are recognized to be central to learning, experience, knowledge. The books in this series presents theories and methodological approaches used in arts education research as well as related disciplines—including philosophy, sociology, anthropology and psychology of arts education. More information about this series at h ttp://www.springer.com/series/6199 Neil C. M. Brown Studies in Philosophical Realism in Art, Design and Education Neil C. M. Brown East Balmain , NSW, Australia ISSN 1573-4528 ISSN 2214-0069 (electronic) Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education ISBN 978-3-319-42904-5 ISBN 978-3-319-42906-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-42906-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950848 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. T he use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Printed on acid-free paper This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Pref ace Artworks that meant little to me once now mean everything, and I attribute these changes of heart almost entirely to changes in my understanding. For this reason, what I want to say about education in art refl ects my desire in becoming more deeply acquainted with the elusive and enduring autonomy of art. I trust that my need for understanding grows out of a respect for art rather than a wish for its defi ni- tive control. While happy to construct, deconstruct, reconstruct and reframe my understandings of art, I oppose the imposition of these as conceits on the existence of artworks. The pretence of remaking art into a creature of one’s understanding means that you can never be wrong about the meaning of works shutting out the possibility of changes of heart that, in my opinion, nurture the integrity of arts education. B ringing together the papers for this book is the inspiration of Dr. Kerry Thomas, my joint collaborator in the exploration of philosophical realism in art and educa- tion. In her role as senior curriculum offi cer (visual arts) and then inspector (creative arts) with the New South Wales Board of Studies, Kerry made possible the practical implementation and revision of ideas elaborated in the following chapters. Then as my PhD student and currently as associate professor in the School of Education at the University of New South Wales, Kerry saw value in telling the story of philo- sophical realism as an evolutionary narrative of my papers stretching back 30 years. I am forever grateful to Kerry for her gracious and selfl ess endeavour in this regard. I also wish to thank Liora Bresler for considering this book for inclusion in the “Landscape” series. A rts education is the most eclectic of domains, and its collaborative demands are correspondingly onerous. I thank all those who have taken an interest in my ideas including those less well disposed in the early days. I have strived for consistency in my views, and I hope this is sustained over the quarter century in which they are presented. Sydney , NSW , Australia Neil C. M. Brown December, 2015 v Contents Part I The Development of Philosophical Realism in Art, Design and Education 1 Introduction to Studies in Philosophical Realism in Art, Design and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.1 Purpose of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 1.2 Philosophical Realism in Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.3 The Threat of Philosophical Revisionism and the Corrosive Effects of Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1.4 The Contribution of the O ccasional Seminars in Art Education Series in the Development Philosophical Realism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 1.5 Collaboration with the NSW Board of Studies in the Use of Philosophical Realism in Visual Arts Curriculum Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1.6 The Chapters in This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.6.1 Part I: The Development of Philosophical Realism in Art, Design and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 1.6.2 Part II: The Critical Application of Philosophical Realism to Concerns in Art, Design and Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 1.6.3 Part III: Philosophical Realism and Its Implications for Practice in Art, Design and Education . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.7 Omissions from This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 2 Constraints on Art in Education: Realism and Art Education . . . . . . 17 2.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2.2 A Framework of Constraints in Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2.3 The Wider Relevance of Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 2.4 Realism and Art Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 vii viii Contents 2.5 Paradoxical Constraints on Artistic Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.6 Constraints of Artistic Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.7 Mapping the Constraints on Artistic Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3 Making Art a Real Thing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.2 Meta-explanation in the Visual Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3.3 Constraints of Understanding on the Identifi cation of Meaning in Artworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.3.1 Example 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.3.2 Example 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 3.3.3 Example 3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.3.4 Example 4. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 3.4 Art as Visual Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 3.5 Determinate Meaning Versus Explanatory Meaning . . . . . . . . . . 33 3.6 Language and Realism in the Visual Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.7 The Visual Arts, Language and Davidson’s Event Ontology . . . . 37 3.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 4 Aesthetic Description, Realism and Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 4.1 Kinds of Aesthetic Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 4.2 Existence, Realism and Description in Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 4.3 Aesthetic Character as Real Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 4.4 Realism and the Reliability of Aesthetic Description . . . . . . . . . 51 4.5 Wiggins’ Concept of Authentic Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 4.6 Petit’s Theory of Rectifi cation and Positioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 4.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 5 Theoretical Perspectives: Research into Children’s Cognition and Knowledge in the Visual Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 6 Aesthetic Fallacies in Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 6.2 Representation and Meta-representation of Meaning in Art . . . . 66 6.3 Beardsley’s Three Aesthetic Fallacies as Representational Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 6.3.1 The Genetic Fallacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 6.3.2 The Affective Fallacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 6.3.3 The Intentional Fallacy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Contents ix Part II The Critical Application of Philosophical Realism to Concerns in Art, Design and Education 7 Art Education Curriculum Praxis: A Time for Collaboration . . . . . . 79 7.1 Dialectical Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 7.2 Autonomous Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 7.3 Consultative Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 7.3.1 The “Frames” as an Example of Collaborative Innovation in the Visual Art Syllabus of New South Wales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 7.3.2 The Function of the Frames in the Visual Arts Syllabus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 7.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 8 Coming to Terms with Visuality in the Content of Art Education . . . 95 8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 8.2 The Arts and Visual Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 8.2.1 Historical Contexts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 8.2.2 Visual Education and the Emergence of ‘the Arts’ as a Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 8.3 The Emergence of Content in Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 8.3.1 Table 8.1 Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 8.3.2 Table 8.1 Rows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 8.4 Narratives of Visuality in Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 8.4.1 Psychology of Perception, Neurophysiology, Pathology and Visual Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 8.4.2 The Arts, Digital Culture and Visual Education . . . . . . 104 8.5 A Summary of the Narrative Purposes of the Visual in Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 9 The Spectacle of the Artist in Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 9.2 The Myth of the Myths of Art Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116 9.3 The Appearance of Reality and the Reality of Appearance . . . . . 117 9.4 The Reproduction of Practice as the Production of Appearances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 9.5 The Spectacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 9.6 A Narrative of the Spectacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 9.7 The Spectacle as an Agent of Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 9.8 Change in the Society of the Spectacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123