Art Appreciation of Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour)
Masayuki Ishi
View of Teaching Material
As an art course is required to achieve its targets through “the broad activities of expression and art appreciation”, art appreciation has equal importance as expression. The national curriculum contains the following description of art appreciation.
Art appreciation lessons aim at familiarising the pupils with nature, art work and cultural heritage, etc. to develop the basic ability and attitude required by pupils for art appreciation. To be more precise, these lessons are designed to develop the following three abilities.
Sensitivity to understand the good points and beauty of art and creative wisdom, etc. Sympathy for the way of life and creativity of humans who live in pursuit of beauty and higher spiritual awareness Understanding of local, ethnic and national culture and the inheritance and creation of art and culture
It is important for art appreciation lessons for first year pupils to interest the pupils in nature and art work, etc. They should also be guided to feel the wonder of unique artistic expression and to understand what the appreciation of art work is all about and its methods through encounters with art work without prejudice and with sensitivity as well as creativity to enjoy the good points and beauty of such work.
However, it cannot be confidently stated that the teaching of art appreciation in art lessons for first year pupils of junior high schools is allowed the hours and contents it deserves as the teaching of art appreciation has second place behind the teaching of expression. Even though any efforts to improve the status of art appreciation must be made within the very limited teaching periods of 1.3 periods per week for art lessons, it is still necessary to firmly establish the status of the teaching of art appreciation. The teaching of art appreciation has conventionally focused on understanding the meaning of art work and the sentiments of the artists and also on the transfer of knowledge regarding the history of art. In these lessons, pupils find it difficult to understand the significance of art appreciation. What is required today is art appreciation education which adopts the viewpoint of the learners and which capitalises on the particular sentiments as well as unique viewpoints of individual pupils.
For many pupils, the act of appreciating or subjectively viewing art work will be a new experiment. Using Las Meninas, it is intended to make pupils realise the difference between the vague viewing of art work and the subjective viewing of the same art work relying on their own viewpoint. Through this exercise, it is hoped that they will think more deeply about art work. Moreover, as the act of subjective viewing is conducted as a group activity, pupils are expected to learn and share the different viewpoints and particular sentiments of others. As a result, the width and depth of their thinking should be broadened. For this purpose, the teaching of art appreciation using the visual thinking strategy which emphasises the interest of the viewer and which values group learning will be conducted.
The second lesson will be presided by Ms. Yuko Fujiyoshi, a researcher at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, as a guest teacher to deepen the experience of the pupils of encountering art work.
6. View of Pupils
Pupils of the age of first year junior high school show considerably different levels of individual physical and mental growth. It is, therefore, difficult to place them in a single category as the subjects of their personal interest are diverse. What appears to be common, however, is their tendency to show interest in new things and to actively try to deal with them.
Many first year pupils have a positive stance towards learning and are actively engaged in learning. They are, therefore, actively involved in art lessons and enjoy themselves through cooperation. However, as individual pupils have a strong sense of being good or not good at art based on their technical ability, their attitude towards art lessons greatly varies from one pupil to another. Some are quite reluctant to start work because of a sense of the inferiority of their drawing or craftwork.