Ralph Smith's Concept of Aesthetic Experience and Its Curriculum Implications

Abstract

Based on the aesthetic philosophies of Monroe Beardsley and others, Smith has shaped view of art education based on the excellence of aesthetic experience afforded by exemplary works of art. Although aesthetic experience is valuable, it may not provide grounds to justify the teaching of art. Four difficulties are noted: (a) determining whether students are having quality aesthetic experiences, (b) attention to exemplary works limits opportunities to judge artworks independently, (c) tendency to exclude problematic works, and (d) tendency to limit study to modern or premodern works. In 1986, Ralph Smith's essay Excellence in Art Education was first published by the National Art Education Association, with revised version appearing the following year. Smith's essay dealt with the role of the arts in general education at time when the schools were being criticized for their seeming lack of intellectual rigor. Noting the spate of publications, includingA Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) which documented steady decline in the quality of American education over the last twenty years, Smith felt it was both timely and appropriate for the arts to be included in this discourse. The arts are certainly areas of human endeavor where the excellence of human achievement has been exemplified. Yet, overall, these reports paid scant attention to the arts. In Smith's words the reports were a mixed bag: acknowledging the importance of the arts, yet placing greater stress on the teaching of mathematics, science, and computer programming as areas where the curriculum needed remediation. The arts were grouped with other important curriculum matters. In Smith's view this was lip-service. To remedy this oversight, he argued for conception of excellence in the arts grounded in the notion of the excellence of aesthetic experience as fundamental value. In the last twenty-five years, Smith has built an elaborate and persuasive philosophical edifice of his views on the arts in which his idea of aesthetic experience is prominently featured. At issue here is whether his concept of aesthetic experience constitutes sufficient reason to warrant the teaching of art in the schools.