Chapter 4
Guidance
for Visual and
Performing Arts
Programs
Visual Arts
The visual arts, part of the human experience since prehistoric
times, began with images painted or scratched on cave walls,
small sculpted objects, and huge structural forms. Those works illustrate that
artists at the dawn of human history, like other artists throughout the ages, were
creative, imaginative, and self-expressive. As stated by Jensen, the “visual arts are
a universal language with a symbolic way of representing the world. But they
also allow us to understand other cultures and provide for healthy emotional
expression.”^1 They have been vital to all cultures and civilizations, communicat-
ing ideas, customs, traditions, and beliefs by providing a window through which
the visual record of the peoples, places, and circumstances in the past can be
observed.
The visual arts help human beings organize and make sense of what they
observe and experience. The arts appear in many forms, including traditional
and contemporary
painting and drawing,
Art is both love and friendship and understanding; it is the desire to give. sculpture and installa-
It is not charity, which is the giving of things. It is more than kindness, tions, photography,
which is the giving of self. It is both the taking and giving of beauty.... ceramics, folk arts and
—Letter to Cedric Wright from Ansel Adams crafts of all kinds, and
new media and elec-
tronic technology.
Also included are cutting-edge experiments and performance art that cross the
boundaries between the several arts.
Through study and the experience of producing works of art, students learn
the basic visual arts vocabulary, based on the elements of art and the principles
of design. Artists and art students at any grade level work with those elements:
line, color, shape, texture, form, and space. With the application of the prin-
ciples of design, such as harmony, balance, rhythm, dominance, and subordina-
tion, artists can create unique and original statements through endless combina-
tions, variations, and innovations. The resulting art can be joyous or sad, funny
or somber, calm or powerful and can depict everyday reality or the imagination
or dreams of the artist.Standards-Based Curriculum for the Visual Arts
Through visual arts education images become part of human language.
For example, the marks made by young children are part of their first attempts
at communication and language. Building on a child’s natural inclination to(^1) Eric Jensen, Arts with the Brain in Mind. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, 2001, p. 49.