Arts Education Connections #2: Overview of Approaches

This is an overview of the four ways of approaching the arts. (For readers who may have even less fine arts training than I do.)

Students' work in each of the arts disciplines can be categorized as:

Art-making (or production): Performing a musical composition, a dance, or a play. Creating an original work of visual art, writing a play, creating a dance or dramatic improvisation, composing music, etc. Includes a number of technical components, such as learning dance steps or proper intonation on an instrument and notating a composition, mastering paints and other media, and learning how to block a scene in a play. Includes the generation of original ideas, the involvement and expression of emotions, and the making of meaning.

Art history: Connecting art to people, places, and times. Gaining a better understanding of artworks, periods, and styles by examining them against a larger context of history and culture. Using art to better understand events, periods, and other phenomena.

Criticism: "Reading" works of art. Responding to the form of artworks (how the elements and principles have been used) or to their expressive qualities. Formulating and supporting hypotheses about the meaning, importance, or value of works of art.

Aesthetics: Examining theories regarding what makes art good, important, or valuable. Connecting works of art to bigger philosophical questions and ideas.

As you may imagine, these approaches often overlap and enrich one another. I intend in my "Arts Education Connection Sunday series" to explore how they might also overlap with and enrich other disciplines and help develop 21st century skills.