International Congress of Aesthetics 2007

“Aesthetics Bridging Cultures”

Aesthetic Understanding through Visual

Culture

Alpaslan UÇAR, RA,Turkey

Recent developments in art education, starting from John Dewey`s conception of art
experience in a theoretical framework, have tried to clarifiy interpretation and understanding
of art and visual culture created by today`s mass media. Visual culture is in reality simply
what is seen. Therefore, what we see mainly depends on what there is to see: how objects or
concepts are being received and/or manipulated in an aesthetic understanding as well as in the
imagination. Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that mainly explains the nature and value of
art experiences. It aims to identify the clues within works that can be used to understand,
judge, and defend judgments about these works.

Aesthetic understanding is concerned with issues in education, philosophical aesthetics and

art criticism at all institutional levels. In addition, it clarifies an understanding of the aesthetic
importance of the new communications, media and environmental aesthetics we face.
Aesthetic understanding is in a sense a vehicle not only to educators, but also to philosophers,
art critics and art historians.

Thus, visual images are all around and our understanding of these images is deepened by
using visual culture. Therefore, students could easily pick up the aesthetic images they need
and perceive their environment wisely for use in their art work. Now that visual culture is
expanding so quickly and changing so rapidly, students should be informed and directed by
the instructor to realize the differences good or bad and use these selected images correctly
while making art or expressing themselves.

Introduction

We face a shift from text-based communication to image saturation today. This shift is also
dramatically reflected in the field of art education today. We need to investigate these changes
from a contemporary and postmodern perspective to understand the changing forms of art
brought about by new technologies. It is important to become open to the new conceptions
about the nature of art. If we say that art education is responsible and open to new notions and
events around us, then we should reconsider the bases of our teaching understanding. It is
essential to emphasize the perspectives of visual culture in art education, purposes, methods
of art education and the prospect of a new orthodoxy. Art education differs from established
approaches to understand the arts.

In order to be aware of the visual culture and its powerful impact, creative individuals need to
develop personal enquiries on the basic practises. In a sense, creative solutions and
approaches are, therefore, expected to be sought. A primary concern for visual response is
dependent on subjective preference arising out of different visual images. As De Sausmarez
explains:

Every visual experience is at one and the same time a receiving of fragmentary information, a giving
of form to these visual sensations and the arousing of felt response. In what follows we must be
careful to remember that, for the artist, what ultimately matters is his quality of feeling which
results.1

In art education another important issue is the reconstruction of the balance between
understanding and production. Moreover, reviewing the educational function of art education
in order to determine its value and importance for social reconstruction, noted pragmatist
Richard Rorty simply articulates it as `a self-creation`. Therefore, in this perspective the
creative individual could learn to discover a new way of seeing and a different approach to
developing visual richness inside himself and around his environment. Experiencing his
personal invention and free enquiry should be more important than technical method and/or
cultivated solutions of problems. De Sausmarez describes the strong connection between
personal interaction and experience to artistic expression in this way:

Five factors in particular seem to dominate the changes that have occured in ideas about creative
activity, which must inevitably affect ideas of training. First, a rejection of conventions and an
acceptance of the idea that only information which is derived from our own experience can be
considered valid for us and for our expressive resources. Second, that information which we gain
from an appreciation of the physical nature of our materials and their formal and spatial
functioning is as important, if not more important than information restricted to the visible facts of
nature. Third, that a visual art is dependent upon the expressive and constructive use of the
specific phenomena of vision and that literary or other associations are essentially ancillary.
Fourth, that the total personality is involved in making aesthetic decisions and that personal
preferences form the inescapable basis of truly individual expression. Fifth, that art is not based on
a number of static concepts but changes and extends its boundaries in response to the shifts of
emphasis in the intellectual and emotional situation of each period in history. 2

In this way, individuals can define visual culture and art criticism. According to Arnheim`s
perception, people should develop questions to understand the necessity of concept and
practice of art education. In this aspect, when the individual encounters a symbolic event
and/or an image around him, he interprets or sees it as intentionally communicative. That
clarification turns out a code which would be observed later on as a sign event. The observer,
therefore, makes a connection with a sign event and a conversation with the images ensues.
Images occuring in life are valued by their degree of realism and truthfulness as
communicative approaches. Their appearances, fragments, faces, gestures, and sounds play an
important role in describing what is going to be perceived.

1
De Sausmarez, Maurice. Basic Design : The Dynamics of Visual Form , London: A& C Publishers, 2002.17.

2
De Sausmarez, Maurice. Basic Design : The Dynamics of Visual Form , London: A& C Publishers, 2002.13.

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The Aim of Art Education

Changes in art are inevitable and our conceptions of art are constantly expanding. Our
understanding about art is in flux and it has become necessary to develop a new
comprehension within the realm of visual culture. Visualizing our environment by using
creativity and imagination is to be an important open way for changing and manipulating the
images richly. This approach would help to understand and appreciate the culture. In this way,
individuals can define visual culture and art criticism. Visual investigation as a contemporary
academic field is concerned with the production, form and reception of past and present
images. Investigating how race, identity, sexuality and gender influences the human visual
experience is a focus of the discipline of visual culture today.

Global culture, notions and statements on aesthetics and visual culture in art education are
developing. There is no doubt that values, practices and understanding of art institutions are
being transformed. Through increased knowledge, our theoretical and philosophical shifts
emerge. Therefore, we need to work on and challenge critical theories and conceptual
dichotomies. Because of these changes we can follow the global explosion of pervasive visual
images and visual culture concepts which are vital in our social life and in art education.

Graeme Sullivan asserts that art education is based on overlooking the substantial insights
gained from decades of attention. Visual culture studies emerging from a broader perspecitve
states that the study of Western culture, with the culture of the ‘other’, should be defined. In
other words, understanding ourselves helps to appreciate other cultures. To illustrate we can
easily define the ‘ other’ Asian or African the viewpoint of another gender, race or status.

The images around us should be considered aesthetically or socially historic phenomena.

Hence, we constantly make judgments and try to understand aesthetic evaluation. To achieve
this we should decide what should be seen or bought and recommend what should be
confronted and understood. As David Hume aptly claims, by doing so we share experiences,
have dialogue and mutual education. Thus, we easily identify cross-cultural values which
explain the general agreement about art and its value by promising avenue for aesthetic
debate. That aspect not only provides freshness of visual culture but also gives benefits to
students. In teaching the philosophy of art in class, we can use examples from daily life such
as puzzles about art: For example there is a useful source book called, ‘An Aesthetic
Casebook’. By using this practical source we realize how students become aware of and use
their critical thinking skills, experience the range of aesthetic issues and discover objects in
their lives. From classical art in all genres to recent controversial work from popular culture,
students learn to develop an understanding of art through visual culture.

Art educators should avoid preaching that formalism or expressionism or other ‘-isms’ are
right or wrong because through synergy we can find out what is valuable, important and
should be observed. Learning critical thinking is not an easy job; therefore, students should
acquire the ability to distinguish images and most of the art movements they will encounter.
As Deborah L, Smith - Shank points out, visual culture in reality does not offer something
completely new but rather a new means of interpreting and analyzing classical and
contemporary symbols.

Students should be taught how to discern formative influences on art because they need to
know what they are searching and visualizing. In the classroom, art educators should follow
the relationships in visual culture which enable students to develop in depth questions on art

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criticism through devising worksheets, art games, role-plays, cooperative learning activities
and by explaining the pros and cons of major theories.

In the end, it is not expected that all students would become artists, yet by questioning
emotional expression, representational content, formal properties and aesthetic value, they
could enrich their dialogue and aesthetic understanding through visual culture and art
education in class. Applications of everyday aesthetics and visual culture contain
technological, social and economical factors. Education should concentrate on investigating
the factors that further the implementation of inclusive education in schools. As a result,
during class, art instructors should incorporate the following items for their students:

1. Discussion of various meanings of culture

2. Discrimination of formative influences on aesthetic and visual culture
3. Explanation of the pros and cons of major art theories
4. Questioning significant art works that are important aesthetically and because of their
artistic nature such as: Christo’s Running fence and Duchamp’ s Ready-mades
5. Making inferences about the art work in terms of listening, restating and summarizing
it
6. Criticizing aesthetic sites such as computer art work, the internet, and digital art.
7. Development of students’ relationships with visual culture and perception--in other
words, developing the process by which they should know what to look for
8. Identification of the ranges from art criticism in the class :such as role playing or an
art game
9. Exploration of multicultural aesthetics and various functions of art such as religious,
ceremonial (Navajo), ethnic and tourist arts
10. Discussion on art concerns and aesthetics statements
11. Determination of social and political values in everyday aesthetics
12. Interpretation of a visually attractive metaphor
13. Verbal explanation about the art images

During art class, an art instructor can put forth these questions to students in order to direct
their focus on the images:

Which image is an example of visual culture for you?

Do you think that image is the real work of art?

Could you describe that image as material culture?

Answers

Answers to the questions posed above include the following:

All of them are visual culture because they are result of our visions.

All of them are art work.

All of them are examples of material culture because they involve materials.

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Specialized students can easily organize their visual experiences by utilizing their social,
scientific, crictical aspects as well as historical contexts. What kinds of images are related to a
particular culture and what are the reasons? How do students use and transform their culture
and visual inputs? How do they clarify the functions of these visual inputs?

Additionally, we can go further to suggest that our students are impacted by different forms of
visual media and visual surroundings like those found on television and computers. We can
provide some sense for the scope to illustrate: to find meaning in aesthetics, search our social
life of art, perceive our students’ artistic production and assesment in class. Consequently, this
is not a how-to-do-it approach, yet we offer powerful and insightful concepts need to be
pursued.

Conclusion

The major task to accomplish is to identify the various senses in which interdisciplinary study
is understood. The visual culture aspect stresses the questions about art itself, its definition,
genres, form, history and criticism by redefining and implying interdisciplinary studies. In
recent decades, our appreciation of the arts has grown amazingly by supporting minorities,
female artists and the art of other civilizations. Visual culture undoubtedly provides a
dialogue by using philosophy, criticism and history. It also offers a set of vocabularies and
concepts to frame and reframe current useful issues in art. This approach enables us to
characterize and evaluate the subject from a broader perspective.

Understanding aesthetic appreciation determines new ways for students to criticize gender,
and racial values. Finally multicultural unit, social and political values are revealed by
everyday aesthetics, technological, social and economic factors. During class art educators
can highlight some of the multicultural functions of art such as its religious or ethnic proposal.
By realizing and using aesthetic sites like internet sites, computer games, and advertisements,
students become aware of what is the purpose of art and what is visual culture is.

Aesthetic understanding through visual culture, therefore, has played an important role in art
education since the late twentieth century in order to emphasize interdisciplinary dialogue
which ranges from art history to anthropology.

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 WORKS CITED

Clarkin, Maura A. (1994) ‘ National Gallery of Art Activity Book, 25 Adventures with
Art’ , Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York
Abaci, Oya. (2000) ‘ Visual art education for children during the pre-elementary
period’ , Morpa Culture Publications, Istanbul
De Sausmarez, Maurice. (2002) ‘ Basic Design : The Dynamics of Visual Form’ , A&
C Publishers Ltd. , London
Freeland, Cynthia. (2001) ‘ But is it art?’ Oxford University Pres, 166-169
Genders, Carolyn. (2002) ‘ Sources of Inspiration’ , A & C Black Publishers
Limited, London
Hurwitz, Al and Day, Michael. (1995) ‘ Children and their art, Methods for the
elementary school ’, Harcourt Brace College Publishers,Texas
Katz, Elizabeth L. Lankford, E.Louis. Plank, D. Janice. (1995) ‘ Themes and
foundations of art’, National Textbook Company
Kilic, Levend. (2000) ‘ Visual Aesthetic’ , Inkilap Kitabevi Yayin Sanayi ve Tic. A.
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Mark Dobbs, Stephen. (1998) ‘ Learning in and through Art’ , The Getty Education
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Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (1999b) The National Teachers in England
Key Stages1 and 2. London: DfEE and QCA

Alpaslan UÇAR
Adres: Yuvam Apt. 12-7

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