The Sense of Art: A Study in Aesthetic Education

In a highly readable and persuasive manner, Ralph A. Smith provides a theory of aesthetic education that addresses the need to revitalize the capacity for genuine judgement in society, to reaffirm the ideal of excellence in culture, and to reorder our thoughts about teaching the arts in schools. Extrapolating from recent efforts to redefine the traditional humanities for today and recent trends in the theoretical literature of arts education, which emphasise the relevance of academic disciplines (aesthetics, art history, theory of criticism, etc.) to the study of art, Smith recommends teaching art as a humanity. The discussion is amply illustrated with traditional, modern, and contemporary works of art - from Giorgione, Vermeer, and Poussin to Cezanne, Jasper Johns, Michelangelo, Antonioni, and Anselm Kiefer.

Introduction: Building a Sense of Art 1. Art in Cultural Context 2. Art in Philosophical Context 3. Art in Educational Context - The Concept of Aesthetic Criticism 4. Examples of Aesthetic Skills 5. Teaching Aesthetic Skills 6. Toward an Artworld Curriculum 7. Issues: The Two Cultures and Policy 8. Issues: Ideology and Postmodernism