Texas Trends in Art Education, Spring 1967 Page: 5
50 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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ways lined with billboards, jazzed up diners,
used-car lots, drive-in movies, beflagged gas sta-
tions, and garish motels. Even the relatively
unspoiled countryside beyond these suburban
fringes has begun to sprout more telephone poles
than trees, more trailer camps than National
parks. And the shores of oceans, lakes and rivers
are rapidly becoming encrusted with the junki-
ness of industries that pollute the water on
which they depend.
Important, too, are the products industry pro-
duces and the advertising industry uses to lure
the public to buy those products. Look at the de-
sign quality of the products on the market to which
the young are exposed hour after hour, day after
day, year after year. Such exposure has an edu-
cating influence on the young at a tender age and
contributes to the development of values. What
the public will buy, what they demand, industry
will produce.
The aesthetic quality of most of the advertising
on television is perhaps exemplified by Grant
Wood's "American Gothic" pleading with you to
"Please buy my corn flakes" or by Rembrandt's
"The Syndics" raising their voices to sing the
praises of Dutch Master Cigars.
The list is long and the influence is great. What
about the paint by number kits, or the "creative"
color books and mimeograph patterns available to
the parents and, I am ashamed to say, teachers who
don't know up from down concerning aesthetic
quality, creativity, or qualitative learning exper-
ience? Industry is interested in sales and profit.
Very few industries are concerned with raising the
aesthetic level of the individual.
Industry knows how to attract attention to their
product, how to appeal to the public. Some of
the short order food stands design atrocious estab-
lishments, garish in design, brilliant and gaudy in
color. They are seen for miles as they illuminate
the sky and you and I and the city forefathers
permit them to build these houses of aesthetic
disrepute smack in the middle of our cities. And
many times our cities are surrounded by them.
To this we are all, young and old, exposed.
A new development looms up on the industrial
horizon. The computer - designer - a machine.
Stephen A. Coons, Associate Professor of Mechani-
cal Engineering at M. I. T. describes some of the
functions the computer can perform.
it is possible to produce graphic images
with a computer, .... a man sketches a simple,
geometric form, intentionally crude. The com-
puter then smooths the line and straightens it
horizontally and vertically. You can draw any
shape, and with the aid of the computer, experi-
ment with it-prod it, poke and massage it, re-
duce or enlarge it, move it to any part of the
screen and tilt it at any angle. The machine can
still remember and restore the original image.You can draw separate images, and then put
them together. It would be possible to constructan elaborate drawing by making pieces and then
putting the pieces together; and if some element
of your construct didn't suit you, you could
always go back to the master picture and change
it. The computer would introduce that change
in all occurrences of that detail. If there were
thousands of occurrences of that detail, the com-
puter would make that alteration automatically
for you. It is also possible to take a conventional
top, front and side view, and have the computer
generate automatically a perspective view.
In conclusian he states:
I hope that you will not be frightened by the
computer, but that you will see it as a magic in-
strument that will contribute to, not detract
from, human beings. It will free man from the
myriad, tedious mechanical tasks that sap his
enegries and allow him to concentrate fully on
the creative act.
The computer-designer has tremendous implica-
tions for art, art education and for our aesthetic
environment. Much depends upon who is at the
controls, an engineer-designer or a person with
some aesthetic, perceptive sensitivity.
The artist too influences public taste. Art is said
to be a means of communication and this is true
only to the degree that the language is understood.
More and more viewers visit the galleries. More
art is being sold but there seems to be some ques-
tion whether the increased sales reflect improved
taste or if art is becoming "big business". At any
rate the average citizen is confused. Changes
have developed so rapidly in the last 10-20 years
that the public is at a loss to understand current
developments.
They are not sure whether the change from
"DADA" to "POP" is for real, or whether some of
the "junk sculpture" is junk or sculpture. To the
average citizen a broken gear, a piece of old pipe
or a rusty scrap of steel is a piece of junk and
doesn't belong in anyone's living room. By and
large the public is subject-matter conscious and
accesses quality in terms of content rather than
aesthetic principles. And they have no choice,
because they have not been prepared to develop the
criteria whereby valid decisions may be made.
Most adults do not like what they see in art today
and the young are subject to the values of the
adults. Perhaps the professional creative artist
will never be really understood by any sizeable
proportion of the public of his time. The artist,
though not completely at fault for the lack of
comprehension of his work has not contributed
much to the dialogue between himself and his
public.
Kepes has stated that
artists today come together in small groups in
great cities. There, in little circles that shut out
the rest of the world, the initiates share one
another's images. They generate illusory spon-
taneity, but miss the possible vital, deep dialogue
with contemporary intellectual and technological(Continued on Next Page)
TEXAS TRENDS IN ART EDUCATION
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Texas Art Education Association. Texas Trends in Art Education, Spring 1967, periodical, Spring 1967; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279663/m1/7/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Art Education Association.