Jennifer Furr

January 19, 2015

Reading Review #2 Historical shifts in American Art Ed. from the late 1800s to the
mid 1900s
Summary
Art education developed in 19th century American schools as a program for
industrial drawing because Massachusetts businessmen and factory owners thought it
would be cheaper to hire machinists at home than to outsource work. The factories
needed men with technical drawing skills. A mechanic could draw the parts and show
their relationship through a series of drawings (Stankiewicz, 2001, pp.6-7).
The historical shift in Art Education from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s started
with Walter Smith. Besides establishing the Massachusetts Normal Art School, he
lectured, and most importantly, organized student exhibition of drawings in Boston
(Stankiewicz, 2001, p.14). The shift continued on with Louis Prang, Smiths publisher,
whose Art-education series in the 1880s focused on three types of drawing known as
constructive, representational, and decorative. Then in the fall of 1880, G. Stanley Hall
started pushing for Art education that would be pedocentric adapted to meet the
needs of children (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.18). Hall believed in the child study movement
and thought Art educators should all value childrens feelings.
However, the biggest shift occurred in 1899 with the Massachusetts 11th State
Drawing Exhibition. Speakers concluded that in spite of nearly 3 decades of regular Art
instruction, the work was generally disappointing (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.20). As a result
of this exhibition, art teaching in the first three decades of the twentieth century was
influenced by artistic modernism and progressive social reform (Stankiewicz, 2001,
p.25). Art educators were beginning to rely on psychological research on childrens
unschooled drawings, as well as skills learned from contemporary artists, to plan the art
curriculum (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.29). Progressive artist-teachers thought that
psychological research would show them the right sequence of artistic development to
follow. They emphasized teaching to each childs individual needs (Stankiewicz, 2001,
p.38). Most Progressive educators thought they needed to help young children keep

their ways of free self-expression, prevent them from having inhibitions, and keep
painting fun (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.38).
Some of the key figures in the early history of American Art education included:
James Hall, Irene Weir, Ruth Faison Shaw, Viktor Lowenfeld, and Florence Cane. They
all had different contributions to Art education theories and practices of their eras.
James Hall and Irene Weir were some of the first Art educators to use (Japanese)
brushes and watercolor paint with their students in the 1890s. Hall declared that
respect for each childs individuality, encouragement of self-expression, and support for
seeing and creating beauty should permeate art teaching (Stankiewicz, 2001, pp.2728). Irene Weir encouraged art teachers to create art themselves and thought that Art
educators could not really be effective if they were not practicing themselves. Ruth
Faison Shaw believed in playful sensory experiences with simple materials and
thought a simple medium should be made to encourage unconscious visualization
(Stankiewicz, 2001, p.34). She invented finger paint and was largely responsible for the
idea that Art education should be free from restrictions (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.34).
Viktor Lowenfeld emphasized the teachers role as an observer and diagnostician who
should intervene sensitively and flexibly to encourage each child to develop
intellectually, emotionally, physically, perceptually, aesthetically, socially, and creatively
through art-making ((Stankiewicz, 2001, p.38). And finally, Florence Cane encouraged
children to create freely by painting from imagination rather than visual models
(Stankiewicz, 2001, p.36).
Personal Reflection
There are several ways the justification of inclusion of Art education in the 19 th
and early 20th century American schools is similar to contemporary arguments for Art
education in our nations schools. One similarity is that Art integration was being pushed
back then the same as it is now. Art teachers back then didnt like it any more than Art
teachers do now. Art teachers complained as they still do- that art had become merely
a servant to other subjects (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.40). Another similarity was that mural
painting was used in early 20th century American schools as one solution for integration,
much as it still is now.

There are, as well, many differences in the ways Art education is included in
todays schools than the ways it was in the late 19 th century and early 20th century.
Todays Art educators have returned to more structured discipline-centered approaches
to instruction, often attacking the weaknesses of the ideology of laissez-faire selfexpression (Stankiewicz, 2001, p.41). Todays Art educators still believe in selfexpression, but are more likely to provide structure in helping students find ways to
express themselves, and are more likely to research developmental stages to help
children with their art in that respect, and of course, teachers today are all about best
practices.
The most interesting insight I made was the idea that even 100 years ago Art
educators were facing some of the same challenges that we are today. They were trying
to integrate Art with other subject areas, sometimes unsuccessfully, and really not very
crazy about doing so, much like today. Another thing I found interesting was the
statement Critics believed childrens lives were darkened by routine and convention;
technical instruction throttled their straight forward expression (Stankiewicz, 2001,
p.31). This made me think first of all, about Common Core and teaching to the test, and
other things that have darkened childrens lives. Second, it made me wonder about
what Im doing in the Art room. I do have basic procedures and routines, it is a
necessity, but I really started considering how to make instruction less technical and to
assign things that will hopefully not dampen their creativity.
Duncum, P. (2002). Children never were what they were: Perspectives on childhood. In Y. Gaudelius & P.
Spiers (Eds.)Contemporary issues in art education (pp. 97-107). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Ivashkevich, O. (2006). Drawing in childrens lives. In J. Fineberg (Ed.), When we were young:
Perspectives on the art of the child (pp. 45-59). Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Stankiewicz, M. A. (2001). Freeing the Child Through Art. In M. A. Stankiewicz, Roots of art education
practice (pp. 6-43). Worcester, MA: Davis Publications.