The Comparison of Kamhi’s and Duncum’s Thinking About Art
I read Kamhi’s article first, and I found her critical thinking about art to be very interesting and concluded that exploring her ideas would be of value. Based on my present knowledge, it seems to me that her view does not represent the mainstream of the current values of art education although I may not be correct in that assumption. In regards to this topic, Kamhi makes the claim that “pop art” “installation art,” and “video art” should not be classified as art. Actually, in my undergraduate study in filmmaking, I did not consider “video art” as a traditional visual art. Moreover, it seems like commercial art, video art and photography are separate from fine art in China, because the disciplines of video art, commercial art and photography are combined into the school of film study, while fine arts, including painting, sculpture, drawing etc, are in the discipline of visual art. Based on my previous educational experience in China, I did not consider myself as an artist in the beginning of last fall semester. Ironically, fine art students in China do not regard filmmaking students as artists, because they do not think of video art as a visual art, needless to say, a traditional visual art. However, my views have changed since I am proceeding along my path to becoming an art teacher. I guess Kamhi’s view of art might be of traditional classic art from the ancient world, while in a broad sense, today’s art is more encompassing, including pop art, video art, and photography . Broadly speaking, I don’t think her ideas are that inclusively defined in scope. Although Duncum’s ideas do not intend to define how fine art differs from other kinds of art (imagery), she proposes seven principles which provide art educators a method of organizing a curriculum and basically how to teach art. Personally speaking, Duncum’s principles are more persuasive to me in some degree. Based on what I have learned from Gude’s article, I definitely gained a more in depth knowledge of the seven principles from Duncum, including Power, Ideology, Representation, Seduction, Gaze, Intertextuality, and Multimodality. I have a strong sense that these principles are not independent but actually are interactive, supporting and affecting each other. In some instances, they mutually influence according to what Duncum claims. Each principle is a practical application of her research with her students which is a more convincing argument than Kamhi’s characteristics of visual art works. In terms of these principles, they are not the result of “anger, resentment, and moral outrage”, in fact, educators and students can dive into the space of art within multimodals and multidisciplines. Back to Kamhi’s point, she thinks that visual art methods stress political issues while ignoring the human values and concerns. Is that true? I doubt this. Her views of interpretation of art are critical too. I agree with the idea that “what is involved in the authentic experience of art is a deepened sense of life, oneself, and a mental and emotional grounding”, however, I guess Duncom mentioned this idea in the principle of “gaze”. “Considering the gaze is a way in which to understand ourselves as individuals and as a society”, and it also “tends to focus on describing, interpreting, and evaluating their work without necessarily considering themselves as viewers.” To some extent, those ideas are similar to those which are concerned with people’s own ideas. Today’s art education lays stress on meaning-making, as Kamhi’s claims, “the principle that works in visual art meaning is conveyed primarily through depictive and expressive means, rather than through symbols”. I strongly agree with that. However, I did not gain the knowledge of symbolism from my previous art courses, so I am curious to know whether today’s art education provides this kind of lesson? Also, I doubt her claim that “symbol” may be in the sphere of commercial art. In addition, the idea she illustrates in the end of the paper “natural” is beyond my scope of understanding. Natural subject matter “can be factual and expressive”. She believes that “symbolic meaning requires culture-specific knowledge which is extrapictorial.” It may be concluded that all interpretation of art should be intrinsic, natural, and purified? So what is the meaning of art education if everybody interprets art naturally? I doubt this idea is too ideal. To sum up, Kamhi opposes today’s art education approach to interpretation, and proposes critical and radical methods to distinguish the works of visual art. However, Duncum proposes seven principles which provide art educators ways to teach art and develop the art curriculum in terms of the world where we live now. Although these ideas, in some measure, are different, the study of these two different ideas is productive in that I gained new insights. Certainly, as a pre-service teacher, I agree with Duncum much more than with Kamhi. What is the value of visual art and design education today? I believe that nowadays’ the world is like a screen which is a pervasive aspect of modern human life. It is more visual and visualized than ever before. Definitely, visual art is expanding right now and will be an indispensable part of future life. Nothing is more expressive in seconds than a visual object. Nothing is more condensed and refined than art. When the two elements converge together, it is very difficult to measure its perception in peoples’ minds. I believe that visual art helps people perceive, understand, and appreciate all meaningful ideas which may be invisible. Visual art makes the meanings of people’s lives and worlds visible. I do not think the value of art education is to cultivate more and more artists, but instead to teach us to know people, life and the world from small to big.
2 Comments
|