This article is based on a talk given to the the World Education Fellowship, March 2nd. 1994, Waverley City Gallery, Victoria. The title of the talk was "Landscape of the Dragon ". Over the years I have found that Therapy has many overlaps with Education and Art. Whether it is Therapy ,Education or Art , philosophical considerations are always there . The concept of "Dragon" in Chinese literature has long fascinated me. Confucius, after his first meeting with Lao Tzu is said to have remarked:
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ART
THERAPY & EDUCATION
Part 1
Art
provides
Healing power,
develops
Perceptual awareness
evokes
Wonder and mystery.
Healing power,
Landscapes are always , for me and for many others
who paint them, much more than just an arrangement of trees, boulders
and landmasses with other natural elements in them. Emile Zola's had described
Art as "a corner of nature seen through a temperament".
Landscapes in particular, are safe channels of communication for both young
and old, the well and the afflicted. For those that take the trouble to
have a second look, landscapes are much more than a record of the physical
environment.
Some years ago I came to know of a family
where the eldest daughter had taken her own life. When I asked as
to how the other children were coping. The mother said they were OK , but
that the son loved art and spent much time painting. Would I like to see
the pictures? One picture in particular, stood out: It was a landscape
of a small house set among trees. The light was ambiguous - was the sun
setting on this family or was it rising with some hope? Was the family
to be bathed and tempered by the calm of moonlight? In the foreground was
the roughly shattered stump of what was a healthy young tree. The
parents and the child had not openly spoken about the picture. It
struck me that the boy had found a mode of healing. The very expression
of the pain was the first necessary step towards healing.Kandinsky
poignantly recalls his childhood and the role of art in liberating him
from moods of depression . Drawing provided him with such a release from
depression that he could declare that it let him "live outside
of time and space."
Perceptual awareness
The Nature of life is art. For those who confidently
rely on their own intuition Art , no matter how innovative or 'modern'
is open to them. Art Principles co-exit and co-incide with
Life Principles. Alfred North Whitehead wrote of these links and looked
upon Fine Art as , "high grade occasions". where the " The
canons of art are merely the expression in specialised forms of the
requirements for depth experience. Conversely one can take Art Principles
such as Static/Dynamic, Balance and Unity and apply these to
an analysis of life. Likewise the two terms YIN , YANG originally meant
'sunless' and 'sunny', later coming to mean female and male
and evolving to become the general terms for the fundamental
and opposite forces of nature. Unforturnately , institutional
Fine Arts education and Gallery Art has promoted the myth of special
knowledge and has led to a
weakening of the ordinary person's confidence in 'reading' a work of art.
Ananda K Coomaraswamy and Rudolph Arnheim has long stressed
the need for perceptual education as part of 'normal' education. Ananda
K Coomarswamy had lamented the passing away of the 'normal view of art'
- where every individual had a good measure of confidence in reading
art.
I agree with Morse Peckham when
he declares that Style is not the distinguishing characteristic of art
because all life is styled. Whitehead had been critical of education for
ignoring the potential in art. Style as he understood it was " the
ultimate morality of mind. ... Lack of attention to the rhythm and character
of mental growth is a main source of wooden futility in education "
Wonder and mystery.
Ancient Hindhu aesthetics list "Awe" as
one of the 9 "Rasas" or 'tastes' of an art experience.
The ultimate motive power alike in science, in morality, and in religion,
is the sense of value, the sense of importance. It takes the various forms
of wonder, of curiosity, of reverence,of worship, of tumultous desire for
merging personality in something beyond itself. It was Winnicott
who had coined the term 'transitional phenomena" to give proper psychological
underpinning to the oft repeated need for the "willing suspension
of disbelief" in order to fully participate in the wonder and mystery
that literature, film and other arts offer.The sense of beauty
is also the sense of realised perception.
| Books referred to click | Colour in Art Therapy |
| Art Therapy & Education Part 2 | Art Therapy & Education Part 3 |
Interpreting images (notes)
(not ready )
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