Texas Trends in Art Education, Volume 3, Number 1, Fall 1985 Page: 8
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Historical Focus
Art activities play a significant role in the
art classroom, but often we are not fully
aware of the effects and benefits of these
activities. This article describes two little-
known outcomes of artistic activity.
Air, food, water, and shelter are the
basic needs required for man's survival. In
addition to these basic needs, if one is to
function even minimally in our society, he
also needs to be able to communicate ver-
bally, read, write, and compute. However, if
one had only these basic life sustaining
needs and minimum educational skills life
would be indeed dull and unexciting. In fact,
within the past few years psychologists who
have observed the effects of environment on
behavior have made us increasingly aware of
something that we may have sensed all
along-that we have a seemingly insatiable
/8 desire-perhaps even an absolute need for
much more than the basics. We continually
seek to be stimulated and intrigued by expe-
riencing what is new, nonredundant, unique,
exotic, beautiful, pleasureful, and fantasy
laden.
Experimental studies of extreme forms
of sensory deprivation (Solomon, 1957) have
shown that when individuals are deprived of
the usual incoming sensations they soon suf-
fer undesirable effects. It was found that
when subjects with a mask covering their
eyes and ears to reduce their auditory and
visual sensation were floated in tepid water
to reduce their tactile, thermal, and kines-
thetic sensations, their reasoning and per-
ceptual abilities were soon impaired, they
suffered wild hallucinations, they were un-
usually susceptible to suggestions, and were
disoriented in time and space. Even outside
the experimental laboratory it has been ob-
served that infants who receive minimal at-
tention and stimulation during their early
months are generally retarded when com-
pared with infants who received more atten-
tion and stimulation.
Value of Sensory Experiences
Of course most children today receive a bar-
rage of sensory data and they are in little
danger of suffering from extreme forms of
sensory deprivation. Nevertheless, some-
times they do suffer from a shortage of
intriguing, vivid, and intense sensory expe-
riences. Perhaps too much of their time both
in and out of school is taken up by the mun-
dane, routine, and the sensory unexciting.
This shortage may leave the child somewhat
insensitive and bored because he is missing
the very aspects which give flavor to life and
make it enjoyable and meaningful. In fact one
might speculate that when there is a short-
age of vivid and pleasureful sensory stimu-
lation that young people, like infants who
are deprived of stimulation, develop more
slowly and less completely than they might
otherwise.
But how does a shortage of vivid sen-
sory experiences relate to child art? Simply
this, art activities and experiences hold the
possibility of being one of the richest sources
of stimulation and pleasure which are so im-
TRENDS / fall 1985This is a revised article originally published in Mid-
land Schools, March-April 1970. The article repre-
sents Brent Wilson's early investigations prior to the
time when he became interested in the narrative
dimensions of children's art. It is being republished
for its historical significance.( I1
portant to the development of children.
Works of art have two characteristics which
make them especially intriguing to children
as well as to the rest of us-sensory quali-
ties which are present in all works, and as-
pects of fantasy which are present in many
works. The sensory qualities of color, tex-
ture, line, and shape, when combined in
particular ways, give rise to our aesthetic
experiences. Works of art are those objects
which have been put together with a con-
cern for how sensory qualities relate to one
another, how one part will fulfill the de-
mands of the other parts, and how all of the
parts will present a vivid and intense feeling.
For example, when one pleasurefully notes
how colors are arranged, or when he ar-
ranges them carefully and sensitively, he is
experiencing aesthetically. The aesthetic ex-
perience is characterized by a concern for
the way things are and what they are like
rather than what things are or what they can
be used for.
Our experiences are usually concerned
with the mere recognition of objects and
events so that they can be used or acted
upon in some way. We distinguish between a
piece of chalk and a pencil so that we can
use the pencil for writing on paper. In this,
as in so many of our every day activities, we
are not especially concerned with how the
pencil looks so long as it write's, But in mak-~~ L13sse~WT~ii~~~isr~~ liir*rPi--~l~ie~-- l Yic:"~""~*~ ""~ 'ly~s~ '~ --
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Texas Art Education Association. Texas Trends in Art Education, Volume 3, Number 1, Fall 1985, periodical, Autumn 1985; Dallas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth279681/m1/10/?q=architectural+drawings: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Art Education Association.