Capitalizing Art Education: Mapping International Histories

Abstract

geopolitical entities, nationalism, networks of international influences, topics, or themes each might provide a framework or be combined to shape international history. Following Pearse’s (1997) speculation about the history of Canadian art education, one might use a geographical, political scheme (examining art teaching and learning in turn in European, North and South American, Asian, Australia and Pacific Island, and African countries) or structure a story into historical periods. Such periods might include: (1) a prehistory of informal means of art education up to the Renaissance in European-dominated nations, roughly ca. 100 BCE-ca. 1600, later in the Pacific Rim or tricontinental sites (Young, 2001, 2003)1; (2) artist education and liberal art education for elite amateurs in the context of national formation, ca. 1600–1800; (3) emerging capitalism and middle-class aspirations, ca. 1800–1850 and later; (4) industrial drawing systems, dominated by South Kensington in English-speaking countries and colonies, ca. 1850–1910; (5) ideology of the self-expressive child artist, ca. 1910–1960; (6) turn toward intellectual rigor, ca. 1960 to the present. A third way of framing an international history of art education might be in relation to forming or maintaining national identity, a theme found in a number of written histories (Arano, 1992; Boschloo, 1989; Kraus, 1968; Masuda, 2003; Petrovich-Mwaniki, 1992). A fourth approach might be to map the complex web of influences from Western to the Pacific Rim and tricontinental countries, and, in some cases, back again (Barbosa, 1992; Boughton, 1989; Chalmers, 1985, 1992b; Foster, 1992; Okazaki, 1987, 1991, 1992; Rogers, 1992; van Rheeden, 1992). Freedman and Hernandez identify several waves of European influence on international art education, and, like Efland, position art education as a school subject, making history of art education a subset of curriculum history (Efland, 1990; Freedman & Hernandez, 1998).