Aesthetic Skills Research Articles

THE CORRELATION OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL CANON OF ART (based on Vyacheslav Ivanov’s philosophical and aesthetic heritage)

The article focuses on the essence of internal and external canon of art in connection with the clearing of fundamental categories of theurgy and conciliarism. A creative personality must comply with two canons – internal («a realibus ad realiora») and external («ad realia per realiora»). The external canon is a set of artistic and aesthetic skills and rules. The internal canon consists in the acceptance of the hierarchical order of true values. The basis of the internal canon is faith. It is a way of overcoming personal principles with overpersonal principles, organization of the personality according to the ecumenical norms. The artist can be called theurgist only in case of compliance with the internal canon. Without compliance with the internal canon, the artist will be an illusionist, and art – an illusory reality, «a copy of the copy». Theurgy in art is related to the concept of conciliarism. Conciliarism, as the unity of all that exists, is based not only on mutual relations with the living, but also on mutual relations with the departed, on a living bond with the fathers. For the conciliar consciousness, there is neither the other world, nor this world, but there is some kind of wholeness, a simultaneous presence of everyone in Thou art (Ty esi). The author comes to the conclusion that theurgical art reserves for itself the ontological status and is a form of manifestation of the true reality.

Call for posters for this year's annual association conference

To showcase aesthetic nurses' vast knowledge and skills, the British Association of Cosmetic Nurses is inviting its members to submit an abstract for a poster for its yearly conference. There are several factors that can make a poster attractive to both the committee and delegates. Sharron Brown explains why this is a golden opportunity for nurses and offers them some top tips for abstract submission

The First Effort of Linguistic Analysis of the Text: V.V. Veresaev «V Koktebele...»

The necessity of formation among the schoolchildren of notional and aesthetic text analysis skills is told about in FSES of basic general education demands. The article presents the abstract of a philology lesson for secondary forms such as the effort of linguistic analysis of the literary text (slow, critical reading).

Investigating the Effect of Teaching Aesthetic Skills to Faculty Members on Development of Their Effective Teaching Performance1

Abstract This quasi-experimental study investigated the effect of teaching aesthetic skills to faculty members on development of their effective teaching performance through a two-group pretest-posttest design. The sample included 32 faculty members at a major Iranian university who were divided into the experimental (11 participants) and control groups (21 participants). The experimental group was taught to use aesthetic skills in the teaching and learning processes; however, no intervention was applied to the control group. To evaluate the effective teaching performance of the faculty members, a tailor-made questionnaire was used in two pretest and posttest stages, where randomly chosen students were asked to express their opinions about the faculty membersí performance. The sample size of the students was 1096 in the pretest stage and 935 in the posttest stage. Paired t-test results showed that there was no significant difference between the mean effective teaching scores of the faculty members in the control group in the pretest stage and in the posttest stage. However, the mean effective teaching scores of the faculty members in the experimental group were found to be significantly higher in the posttest. In addition, although there was no significant difference between the mean effective teaching scores of the two faculty groups in the pretest, faculty members in the experimental group outperformed their counterparts in the control group. Based on the findings, applying aesthetic skills by faculty members in the teaching and learning processes can pave the way for sustainable development of their effective teaching performance. Therefore, faculty members are recommended to acquire the required knowledge and skills to better use aesthetic skills in the teaching process.

СУЧАСНА ДОШКІЛЬНА ОСВІТА: ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКИЙ ДОСВІД

The article substantiates the expediency of studying European experience in solving modern problems of preschool education in Ukraine. The experience of the organization of preschool education in France, Great Britain, Germany has been analyzed. It is shown that the systems of pre-school education in these countries have their own peculiarities and their own promising experience. The main tasks of the French «Ecole maternelle» are the development of social, communicative and aesthetic skills, creating a comfortable environment for the development of the child's personality. All institutes of pre-school education in Germany are called to promote the development of the child as a responsible and independent member of society. Education is organized in such a way as to support and supplement the upbringing of the child in the family, to provide the best opportunities for its development and education. The content and methods of educational work with children in the "nursery schools" of Great Britain are determined mainly in the context of the ideas of "free education". It has been established that common for preschool establishments of European countries is a special attention to the creation of a developing environment and the organization of various activities that contribute to the overall development of the child and its preparation for school education. Preparation of teaching staff for work in pre-school institutions is carried out in each country according to its own system of vocational training (courses, secondary specialized institutions, institutes, universities, higher schools). The ideas that can be applied in the development of preschool education in Ukraine are outlined.

Breast Augmentation and Breast Reconstruction Demonstrate Equivalent Aesthetic Outcomes.

Background:There is a perception that cosmetic breast surgery has more favorable aesthetic outcomes than reconstructive breast surgery. We tested this hypothesis by comparing aesthetic outcomes after breast augmentation and reconstruction.Methods:Postoperative images of 10 patients (cosmetic, n = 4; reconstructive, n = 6; mean follow-up, 27 months) were presented anonymously to participants who were blinded to clinical details. Participants were asked if they believed cosmetic or reconstructive surgery had been performed. Aesthetic outcome measures were quantified: (1) natural appearance, (2) size, (3) contour, (4) symmetry, (5) position of breasts, (6) position of nipples, (7) scars (1 = poor and 4 = excellent). Images were ranked from 1 (most aesthetic) to 10 (least aesthetic). Analyses included two-tailed t tests, Mann–Whitney U tests, and χ2 tests.Results:One thousand eighty-five images were quantified from 110 surveys (99% response rate). The accuracy of identifying cosmetic or reconstructive surgery was 55% and 59%, respectively (P = 0.18). Significantly more of the top 3 aesthetic cases were reconstructive (51% vs 49%; P = 0.03). Despite this, cases perceived to be reconstructive were ranked significantly lower (5.9 vs 5.0; P < 0.0001). Mean aesthetic outcomes were equivalent regardless of surgery for 5 categories (P > 0.05), with the exception of breast position that improved after reconstruction (2.9 vs 2.7; P = 0.009) and scars that were more favorable after augmentation (2.9 vs 3.1; P < 0.0001). Age and nipple position (R2 = 0.04; P = 0.03) was the only association between a demographic factor and aesthetic outcome.Conclusions:Aesthetic outcomes after cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgery are broadly equivalent, though preconceptions influence aesthetic opinion. Plastic surgeons' mutually inclusive–reconstructive and aesthetic skill set maximizes aesthetic outcomes.

Experience and the artist's body: resisting the Uber-artist construct in socially engaged performance

Looking back over the past 20 years of my practice, the vista is littered with ambiguities of process and form within socially engaged performance. Sifting through the debris, one question arises: what have I been doing?; another might be: what have I been making? What feels relevant to me is the aggregate of my experiences; the who I am. With the current sector creep towards instrumentalising arts for social agendas, the value and relevance of experience ebbs. Demands on artists extend well beyond aesthetic skill, process facilitation and project management. In this essay, I critique the risk within socially engaged practice of art becoming subservient to social agendas and consider how the shift towards an uber-artist construct renders the sector unsustainable.

Is Beauty in the Eyes of the Beholder? Aesthetic Quality versus Technical Skill in Movement Evaluation of Tai Chi.

The aim of this study was to compare experts to naïve practitioners in rating the beauty and the technical quality of a Tai Chi sequence observed in video-clips (of high and middle level performances). Our hypothesis are: i) movement evaluation will correlate with the level of skill expressed in the kinematics of the observed action but ii) only experts will be able to unravel the technical component from the aesthetic component of the observed action. The judgments delivered indicate that both expert and non-expert observers are able to discern a good from a mediocre performance; however, as expected, only experts discriminate the technical from the aesthetic component of the action evaluated and do this independently of the level of skill shown by the model (high or middle level performances). Furthermore, the judgments delivered were strongly related to the kinematic variables measured in the observed model, indicating that observers rely on specific movement kinematics (e.g. movement amplitude, jerk and duration) for action evaluation. These results provide evidence of the complementary functional role of visual and motor action representation in movement evaluation and underline the role of expertise in judging the aesthetic quality of movements.

Incompleteness, aesthetic sensitivity, and the obsessive-compulsive need for symmetry

Background and objectivesThe “need for symmetry” is a well recognized yet little understood feature of obsessive-compulsive (OC) experience. In light of the strong associations between the OC-related trait of incompleteness and symmetry-related behaviors and symptoms, and between perceptual symmetry and aesthetic judgments, this study examined whether trait incompleteness is associated with enhanced natural aesthetic skill and/or aesthetic sensitivity, particularly as they pertain to visual symmetry. MethodsA quasi-experimental design was used to compare the responses of nonclinical individuals with high versus average levels of trait incompleteness on self-report measures and two performance measures of aesthetic judgment. ResultsCompared to controls, participants high in incompleteness reported higher levels of self-perceived symmetry-related concerns and behaviors, and displayed greater aesthetic sensitivity in the form of substantially heightened preferences for symmetry in images. Contrary to the hypothesis relating to aesthetic skill, however, the two groups did not differ in their capacity to estimate accurately the objective aesthetic value of images. Nor did they differ in self-reported aesthetics interests and background. LimitationsA clinical sample was not included. ConclusionsFindings provide evidence that high trait incompleteness is associated not just with symptomatic symmetry-related concerns but with a nonspecific heightened preference for visual symmetry. Conceptual implications are discussed, particularly the potential value of the perceptual fluency theory of symmetry and aesthetic response for explaining the association between incompleteness and symmetry preferences and symptoms.

Philosophy of the Living Dead: At the Origin of the Zombie-Image

Philosophy of the Living DeadAt the Origin of the Zombie-Image James McFarland (bio) At first sight, the image does not resemble a cadaver, but it could be that the strangeness of a cadaver is also the strangeness of the image. —Maurice Blanchot, “Two Versions of the Imaginary” ORIGIN AND IDEA The zombie-image, familiar from cinema, television, video games, and comic books, has many sources. The American military occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934 stimulated popular interest domestically in the subaltern Christianity of the island’s inhabitants, one element of which was the legend of the corpse reanimated to endless labor by a voodoo sorcerer, and this interest was soon reflected in magazine stories, stage plays, and films that featured “zombies” as servile and uncanny revenants.1 At the same time and independently, vampires and homicidal somnambulists populated the French and German silent cinema of the 1920s and lent the zombie-image elements of its visual iconography. In the 1950s and ‘60s, Cold War anxieties motivated such movies as Invisible Invaders (1959) and The Last Man on Earth (1964), in which aspects of the zombie scenario can easily be recognized.2 Yet though all of these deserve to be understood as generative sources, this does not change the fact that the zombie-image has a single, unique origin: George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. It is in this film, a film in which the word “zombie” does not occur,3 that the elements of the image assemble in their significant potency and begin their remarkable historical career. To say that the zombie-image has an origin beyond its many sources is not simply to credit Romero with particular originality or to ascribe [End Page 22] unusual insight to the film he directed. It is to make a philosophical-historical claim about the nature of this image. As the millions of people who have seen it can testify, Night of the Living Dead is an effectively disturbing film, and Romero’s unexpected aesthetic skill and the movie’s considerable commercial success no doubt contributed to the rapid dissemination of the zombie-image. But the image is not the same as the film that discovered it. Lurid as it may be, the zombie-image has no necessary affinity to horror as a genre,4 and its truth is only indirectly related to any particular film in which it appears. The zombie-image is historically original; the films in which it appears are intended works. The theoretical truth of a historical origin is utterly different from the abstract knowledge generated by intentional works. “Origin,” Walter Benjamin famously wrote, “although an entirely historical category, has, nevertheless, nothing to do with genesis. … Origin is an eddy in the stream of becoming, and in its rhythm it swallows the material involved in the process of genesis.”5 The metaphor of an eddy in a stream suggests the different relation between time and truth that this philosophical-historical notion of origin invokes. In the stream of time, an origin is not composed of a substance different from the flowing temporal material, and yet its relatively stationary durability distinguishes it from the ceaseless flow of events in time. That relative permanence is its truthfulness; the eddy is stable with reference to what lies beyond the bank of the stream, hence to a horizon outside time. In characterizing that stable relationship between the eddy in historical becoming that the origin represents and a horizon beyond becoming where truth has its absolute being, Benjamin resorts to an ancient terminology from the dawn of Western thinking, the Platonic notion of an ιδέα. Temporal phenomena, and the intentional concepts that give knowledge of them, are all continuous with the stream of becoming; an origin, and the truth toward which it points, by contrast, manifest an idea. “Philosophical history, the science of the origin, is the form which, in the remotest extremes and the apparent excesses of the process of development, reveals the configuration of the idea” (Benjamin, 47; 227). The zombie-image has a unique historical origin to the extent that it registers an objective historical rupture in the cultural traditions of human self-representation...

Photography as an agent of transformation: education, community and documentary photography in post-war Britain

Radical political activism in the 1970s and 1980s had a huge impact on documentary photography in Britain. Community organisations and photography collectives emerged and endeavoured to democratise the arts for those who would not otherwise have come into contact with them. Community photography used the technology to break down the barriers between artist and audience. It involved participation in the production of ideas and meanings, the active transference of skills and the acquisition of technical and aesthetic skills within communities in the hope that arts techniques/activity would become an integral part of everyday lives. For many of the projects the central objective was about learning – enabling an understanding of how events, ideas, and social relations are made meaningful through the promotion of visual literacy. This paper will document the emergence of the community photography movement in 1970s and ’80s Britain, the learning strategies developed and the arguments around the fragmenting of alternative photographic practice in the 1980s with the movement away from putting cameras into people’s hands towards greater engagement with cultural theory and the politics of representation.

Epistemic empathy in childrearing and education

The question, what is it like to be a child?, is one that most of us, in our capacity as parents and/or educators, have probably asked ourselves already at some point. Perhaps one might go further and suggest that it is a question we ought to ask (or have asked) ourselves, insofar as the attempt to provide a meaningful response has a significant bearing on childrearing and education. It is a question that presumably frames the processes of cognitive and moral education – i.e. showing respect for the child's point of view and inducting the child into respecting the points of view of others. After briefly discussing the idea of empathy and relating it to ideas such as sympathy or compassion, this paper focuses on epistemic empathy in particular. The relevant characteristics in this regard are knowledge of another's internal state, including her thoughts and feelings; understanding how another is thinking and feeling and imagining how one would think and feel in the other's place. Regarding childrearing and education, the two central questions that concern us here are: what is the role of epistemic empathy in our dealings with our children, learners and students and how can we ensure that they become empathic individuals themselves? In other words, (how) can empathy be taught and learned? After examining several recommendations regarding the nurturing and development of epistemic empathy (exemplification, modelling, acquisition of poetic and general aesthetic skills, and sensitivity, induction, imitation, etc.), I pay closer attention to the idea of modelling epistemic empathy. I conclude the paper with a few thoughts about limits to epistemic empathy.

Samson’s “Thorn Bush” Tagging of Delilah Within Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah (1949): Pricking One’s Scriptural Conscience?

Legendary producer-director Cecil B. DeMille was a seminal cofounder of Hollywood, a progenitor of Paramount Pictures, and an unsung auteur who was not only an early pioneer of the religion-and-film genre but became the undisputed master of the American biblical epic. However, the many deftly engineered sacred subtexts, thematic preoccupations, and aesthetic skills of this movie trailblazer were frequently denied, derided or dismissed during his lifetime and decades thereafter. This situation is in need of re-examination, rectification and renewal. Consequently, following a close reading of Samson and Delilah (1949) and a selective review of the critical DeMille, film and religion literature, this article uses Delilah’s (Hedy Lamarr) “thorn bush” tag, given to her during the wedding feast confrontation scene with Samson (Victor Mature), to explicate ten thorn bush themes that reveal some of the hidden depths of C.B.’s biblical artistry. Utilising textually-based humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, this article concludes that DeMille was a far defter biblical filmmaker than has hitherto been appreciated. Further research into DeMille studies, biblical epics, and the religion-and-film field is warranted, recommended and already long overdue.

How Visual Brand Identity Shapes Consumer Response

ABSTRACTMost brands are represented visually in print advertisements, and these visual representations must consistently identify the brand to the consumers who encounter it. At the same time, some of the particular visual elements used to represent the brand must change over time, because it is not acceptable to run the same ad year after year without refreshing its visual content. To explore these issues, a qualitative exploration was conducted with ad agency art directors and ordinary consumers. The focus was the criteria used by each group to determine when changes in the visual representation of the brand succeed, by staying consistent with the brand's identity, or fail, by violating expectations. Professionals, with their greater aesthetic sensitivity, had a more narrow latitude of acceptance for changes. A follow‐up experiment with consumers showed that aesthetically aware consumers were likewise more sensitive to alterations in visual brand identity than consumers for whom aesthetics were not central. Results are interpreted in terms of assimilation effects and degree of incongruity along with the moderating effect of aesthetic skill.

Managing Emotional Labour in Service Encounters in Healthcare Occupation in Bangladesh

This conceptual paper discusses the management of the emotional labour of front-line customer service employees of public and private hospitals in Bangladesh. This paper recognises the link between service encounters and customer satisfaction, and critically discusses the concepts of emotional labour, soft skills and aesthetic skills in an attempt to explain the problems associated with the use of these terms. By providing some recommendations about overcoming the challenges of managing the front-line employees, this paper suggests that the appropriate management of emotional labour and aesthetic skills through the implementation of Human Resource Management practices illuminates the organisation’s route to success.

The Value of Aesthetic Teacher Learning: Drawing a Parallel between the Teaching and Writing Process

Although teacher learning has often been overlooked in discussions surrounding classroom practice, it is believed that learning cultivates the resilience and vitality needed for teachers to thrive. Teachers have often been required to demonstrate a high level of skill and professionalism as they orchestrate tasks that maximise student engagement. Their work has consequently been compared to that of artists, who display their skills of craftsmanship as they construct meaningful learning activities, such as a keen sense of discernment, creativity and presence. The current article illustrates how learning to write reflectively can help teachers acquire the aesthetic skills needed to craft meaningful learning encounters. Reflective writing has been considered as one key method for facilitating teacher learning as it enables practitioners to critically reflect on and improve their practices. This article, however, focuses on how learning to write can enhance a teacher’s aesthetic awareness, as practitioners learn to imbue their words with presence and to depict their encounters creatively. It further illustrates how these same aesthetic skills can be used in the classroom to craft rich teaching and learning encounters and to ultimately enhance teacher vitality and resilience.

Digital Games and Independent Learning

[Objective] The research of digital games characteristics and connotations are to explorecreating favorable conditions of independent study; to analyze the learning motivation, learningactivities and process, self-confidence, aesthetic ability of students during the activities of thedigital game, to learn the impact of creativity.[Methods] Simulation, experimental teaching, thecomparison of experimental and traditional teaching methods are used. [Results] The experimentsshow that the vast majority of learners on the digital game for learners to create learning conditionsand elements, as well as to develop learners' abilities and have made a positive evaluation (M= 4.059, SD = 0.732). Endorsement or in favor of digital games very much are to improve theircapacity for cooperation and autonomy which accounted for 93.6% and 78.2% respectively;endorsement or in favor of such an environment favorable to learning accounted for 78.4%; that thelearning environment for students to learn positive emotions accounted for 95.8%; 87.1% of the testthat the environment to cultivate their sense of learning. [Conclusion] Digital game provides theindependent study of effective resources, environment, elements, activities and processes, but alsocontains the self-motivation to learn; digital game activities contributed to enhancing learners'self-confidence, aesthetic skills, creativity, help to lead to a research study of the learners; aneffective way of learning is the integration of learning and entertainment.

William Mitchell and the London County Council: the evolution of a classless form of public art

London-born artist William Mitchell was employed by the London County Council (LCC) as a design consultant from 1957 to 1965. His role enabled him to create a wide range of artworks on housing estates throughout London, particularly exploring innovative techniques in concrete, resin, and mosaic. The technical and aesthetic skills Mitchell built up in conjunction with the LCC architects and contractors were instrumental in shaping his approach to subsequent work, helping him to develop a recognizable style that became known throughout Britain and internationally. These experiences led to his working with the most notable professionals of the day, including architects Frederick Gibberd and George Perkin, the Cement and Concrete Association and John Laing Research and Development. This article will examine how the Design Consultant Scheme and its emphasis on close working relationships shaped an artist who was both respected by his contemporaries and in tune with the public.

Accessible Wellness Workshops at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

In this article the authors explore the roles of museums in promoting wellness within the context of their mandates to be accessible to everyone. They describe a series of workshops for people with disabilities that have been conducted for nearly two decades as part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Accessible Programs. In these workshops, participants have opportunities to develop their observational, technical, and aesthetic decision-making skills. The authors present strategies that enable people with cognitive, social, and physical disabilities to participate fully in making art. They discuss the benefits of their accessible program from the points of view of different stakeholders and address the factors that are important to the success of the workshops. The design of this program can serve as a guide for museums that are exploring their evolving role in promoting accessibility for a growing number of groups in their communities.

Learning by sharing: waiters' and bartenders' experiences of service encounters*

AbstractThis paper aims at understanding what happens before, during and after critical service encounters, which gives an insight into which employee skills are central for coping with such encounters in hospitality. Furthermore, the study seeks to understand how education, vocational training and informal training affect front liners' experiences of critical service encounters. Findings show that there are three categories of skills that are central to employees when dealing with critical service encounters: technical (‘hard’), social (‘soft’) and aesthetic (appearance) skills. These skills are mainly learnt by formal education (technical), informal information sharing among employees (social) and interaction with guests (aesthetic).