Through the lens of a realist conception of artworks as artefacts, this research investigates the underlying ontological constraints governing childrens aesthetic understanding in art. Challenging structural conventions of research into aesthetic development in art, a realist philosophical framework provides a neutral space within which the ontological basis for children's aesthetic concepts of pictorial meaning and value can be analysed, and developmental differences mapped. The study employs an analytical schema which brings together analytical tools borrowed from Feldman's ontic dumping and Wollheim's twofolded seeing-in. This schema is used to classify qualitative changes in concepts of pictorial value and meaning in three groups of children aged 6, 9, and 12, and two teachers, as employed in the experimental curation of an exhibition of portrait paintings. The curatorial policy developed by children from each group, in justification of their choice of eight pictures and accompanying exhibitions, are interpreted using quantitative and qualitative methods. Characteristic-to-defining shifts from na??ve accounts to more autonomous aesthetic judgements of value are identified relative to the ontological stance children adopted in their critical reasoning about the portraits they chose. Findings include differences in the level of conceptual integration in justification of portraits chosen, differences in the breadth and autonomy of identity brought to bear in choices of portraits, but few differences in the representational abstraction of the images chosen by different age groups. The authenticity of the experimental tasks, as well as the rich characterisation of the developmental differences described in the study have significance for pedagogical explanations of critical practice in art education.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/215679 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Maras, Karen Elizabeth, Art History & Art Education, College of Fine Arts, UNSW |
| Publisher | Publisher:University of New South Wales. Art History & Art Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright |
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