discovery experiences in art history for young children

National Art Education Association

Discovery Experiences in Art History for Young ChildrenAuthor(s): George SzekelySource: Art Education, Vol. 44, No. 5 (Sep., 1991), pp. 41-49Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193294 .

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Discovery Experiences in Art History for Young Children

George Szekely

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de At a recent meeting of art educators I set up in a large ballroom a display of several handsome Amelia Earhart suitcases (vintage 1930), old doll cases including one complete-with-labels Shirley Temple doll (ca. 1948). Two white shopping bags (of no particular vintage) drew attention to the central space.

A new place proposes new shopping opportunities, and so I began my presentation by taking out two old straw hats bought in Kansas City, then proceded to model my finds from this trip; a gorgeous white hat from the forties with gardened rows of hand-painted flowers appliqued on the underside of the rim; and a black, loosely woven, floppy bonnet that, with its wide rim, resembled an Arp sculpture; the delicately shaped 'cupola' mound of the latter was engulfed by yellow flowers. Both

hats well represented the distinctive straw weavings that were an important part of fashion art during the 1940's.

From one old doll case, I pulled out painted-tin party noisemakers made from the 1920's to 1950's. In passing these noisemakers out to the audience, I proudly pointed out two recent editions to this collection, which I had just uncovered in town (always looking, you know). While the audience admired the caricatures and illustrations on them, they also started testing them for sound.

Each year at convention time, I prepare a "script." As convention days pass, I end up with mounds of notes everywhere - in the hotel bathroom, on night tables, and in pockets. Piecing the notes together enlightens me about the real message of each presentation, so I figured this year is

Art EducatiornSeptember 1991 41



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the time to bring out the notes, and I symbolically tossed away my typed paper. This is what the presentation was all about: disregarding the "script," the written script of art history - the art history formally embodied in adult art as codified by Janson and others.

Art history scripts, the real art, or what children are supposed to learn in approved art history offerings presenting approved art history objects can be put aside. Our art history scripts as we have learned them and how we have learned them need to be rethought before presenting more art history to children. Perhaps art history should not be presented as a script, which implies not only recitation, but also response instead of questioning, opinions instead of inquiries. Kids are already involved in many aspects of art history. Could they be challenged to discover other aspects of art history?

Familiar approaches to teaching art history to children have been adaptations

from college art history classes. These approaches rely on slide shows for presenting an accepted series of neatly categorized adult masterpieces. "Osmosis" is considered an important means of goal achievement, and so Snoopy pictures are replaced by old-master paintings as great art models on children's classroom walls. It is hoped that subliminal suggestions will emanate (as from taped facts under one's pillow) to inspire kids toward higher ideals. If Snoopy has to go, however, there is a truly American art of cartoon history that can be put up to generate the interest of young art enthusiasts.

Of course, there is memorization: Who are we studying today, class?" "Jackson? - Jackson who?" "Jackson Pollock!" shouts the chorus in response, as young children are taught to memorize. Color is taught by color formulas through such popular singsong as "Red and white makes what?" So, why not art history facts, as a means of bringing children closer to either the

42 Art Education/September 1991



mysteries of color or the joys of art history? The complexities of any subjects are easily explained away by being reduced to school formulas of facts and knowledge doled out in testable portions.

In playing and working with children all my art-teaching life, I recognize that their history interests differ from those of adults. Lessons for young children need to be planned through their eyes and hearts. I ask teachers to envision the children's faces as they plan, instead of only planning for what is 'important' in art (as we know it as adults) and simply adapting college art studio and art history for all ages.

Children's history interests include dinosaurs and fossils, as well as interests that surface through family histories preserved in old photo albums and scrap- books or hidden in Valentines in beautifully bound volumes. Kids delight in uncovering art history in attics, covering themselves with the history of grandpa's old hats, ties, or classic Hawaiian shirts. Kids are also interested in collecting old "stuff" such as old baseball gloves and flashlights. As collectors and players, they become interested in the history of their own things, their finds - the history of dolls, teddy bears, marbles, or jack-in-the boxes.

A feel for art history develops by living with family collections and caring for them. Polishing Victorian furniture and Art Deco silverware or otherwise caring for old objects is a beginning. As a child, I was in charge of fringes. With a big comb, my chore was to straighten out the tangled fringes on my parent's Oriental carpets. I still love orientals, and I have never forgotten a little ceramic penguin I "knew" but had to play with carefully (which was part of the fun). Only now do I recognize it as a piece of Herendi and value it as an antique. And now I collect other old ceram- ics. So, is polishing and caring for beautiful old objects a means of teaching art history?

At the mall adjacent to our convention site is a wonderful toy store. If you go to the back, you will find a series of "starter" kits - one for young astronomers, another for geologists, etc. If you were in charge of developing a starter kit for young art historians, what would be in the box? Would it be something that is fun to play with and an inspiration for a lifelong career? Perhaps some old cutout dolls

dressed in historic costumes would be inside. Or a collection of old marbles, buttons, and reproductions from old toy catalogs would be the items used. What about cards? -for example, Old Maid decks? Or reproductions of sandpails representing turn-of-the-century drawings. Starter kits imply that teaching about a subject should not be separate from a depth of involvement with it. We can teach about art history, but can we involve children?

Can we make a pact, I asked the convention audience, and took a poll. Can we put art history aside and concern ourselves with building in children a love for beautiful old objects? From children's interests in old things, we can form friendly ties to other art worlds. From a large stamp collection, we can build an interest in portraits and the history of caricature. From old building blocks, it is a small trip to the appreciation of old architecture. Old cutout dolls spark interests in fashion history, and play printing sets create interest in the story of old type and calligraphy.

Art teaching can help in assisting children to develop and expand interests and in relating to other arts and artists. Changes in sculptural history are related to increasingly precise technology that enables dolls and toys, respectively, to walk or move off their bases proficiently as well as talk. Was op art born in Cracker Jack boxes? It may seem so as we look through a collection of toy prizes or examine a book of Cracker Jack-prize history. What is new in designed objects such as toys, children's books, or prizes is related to ideas in other visual arts of the same period.

Children encouraged to look for family treasures, personal art histories at home, may use the classroom for sharing discoveries and setting up their found objects. Art history learning often begins at home, but art teachers can encourage students to bring their finds to class. Art rooms can be set up as flea markets, garage sales, antique stores, auction houses, or simply home attics. We need to consider how an art room can be set up for discovery, so the teacher's pockets, pocketbooks, suitcases, drawers, or classic lunch boxes will reveal surprises. We need to further consider how children can play with art history and the old objects they find. How

Art EducationiSeptember 1991 43



can they try them on, look them up, set them up in displays, take inventory, or employ them in play setups? Home search may inspire art classes, while art-class showings can inspire further home search- ing. After art-class sharing of their finds, children re-evaluate even what they have in their toy boxes and other places at home - objects they may not have previously considered significant.

We look at period dollhouse fumishings and relate them to interior-design history in setting up period rooms. As children find new interests in dollhouse furnishings, they share examples of styles. As a generation of Kleenex tissue users, we develop a new interest in cloth handkerchiefs and, through them, experience a development of American geometric art. As children learn to search, collect, and document, they - like art historians, curators, and collectors - develop a personal feeling for art history. Play processes in their many forms can be employed. Children like to look through mother's pocketbooks, for example, as a popular means of research and treasure hunting. In art class, all kinds of unusual old pocketbooks can be displayed, with opportunities provided to look into them and into other kinds of beautiful old containers. The art teacher as "super" collector not only always looks for beautiful things to see and examine and to inspire a show-and-tell but also always welcomes children's finds. Children's store, as well as toy displays, house, dress-up, school,

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tablesetting, and restaurant plays, are popular means of exploring and displaying old objects. Children are very interested in the art teacher's past, and history can be personalized through the many collections that art teachers have. A book by Profes- sor J. Kleidman, Wie Lerne Ich Zeichnen, (an item few people have heard of) is very popular in my class. It is an old art book that was used in my schooling as a child. It leads us to examine the history of art education through workbooks, coloring books, and old art materials.

Children also need to be involved in the search for and memorable discoveries looking at familiar objects, but with new visions and ideas. The suitcases taken along to the convention revealed a variety of designed objects concealed in Bakelite pocketbooks, old lunch boxes, and pencil cases, each with its own history. This "historic" show-and-tell demonstrated three ways of using the objects: From the first suitcase a historic grouping of kitchen objects from the 1950's, for example, is selected for setting a table for breakfast or a tea party from that period; from the second, the "carousel of progress" (an idea popular at world fairs), emerge examples of an old design form: cutlery from the 1900s to the present (even clear plastic forks from fast-food restaurants). From the third-and-last suitcase, a more-open packaging idea of a time traveler yields, through randomly packed objects from the past, an opportunity to rummage and find related examples of styles or designs. In each presentation, encouragement is given not only to note changes in an item, but also to try it out and explore other items.

Children's love for art history may not come from seeing and listening to slide lectures and recitations of adults' art accomplishments; however, it often comes from interest in discovering and collecting beautiful old objects. We can begin with children's interests in old objects in exploring popular collectibles; or we can enjoy modern "antiques" in creating a taste for the old. Either way, we get used to looking back and collecting art history.

Objects of ten or twenty years ago are appreciated when they appear in flea markets on their way to museum shows. Only a short time span away from familiar up-to-date objects, we rediscover them and leamrn new ideas. Recent collectibles (unlike




old-master paintings) can still be bought, and brought to class for examination. Classroom flea markets can also feature real objects that are closely related to the things we own or may be presently collecting. For example, marbles and marble history are for marble-playing kids. Also, old furnishings can be viewed through doll house items, and fashion history can be studied by draping ourselves in old cloth- ing - just dressing up as children enjoy doing.

Art history is also a "children's" thing because we have become a nation of collectors and flea-marketeers: Children Qften discover their own lunch boxes next to what dad and mom used to own and wear in a garage sale. Active investigation and playful appreciation of old things acquired while creatively setting them up, wearing them, or using them in show-and- tell, store plays, and trading plays become a means of exploring and sharing firsthand finds. We learn by becoming historians, curators, collectors, and designers or by simply sorting through old things.

Starting with an interest in children's older play objects, we continue our study by looking at antiques. Through collecting beautiful old things, children learn the science and art of observation, which enables them to expand their interests from beautiful baseball catcher's masks, for example, to other unusual African masks to contemporary K-mart Halloween masks. Other possibilities include interests broad- ened from old costume jewelry which children enjoy modeling to fashion history in general. Even the history of windup toys demonstrates significant changes in contemporary sculpture to an experienced and interested audience, while the story of game boards illustrates changes in Ameri- can geometric art. Also, catalogs and books on collectibles supplement garage sales and antiquing at home, as children develop a collection of and resources for old objects. From museum-quality objects to old juicers with more humble lineage but exceptional form, beautiful old objects can be enjoyed through the media of traditional children's play and object collecting.

Toy-Box History Generations of G. I. Joes and toy soldiers, mother's Barbies or grandmothers traditional doll collections are relative of times

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found in our own toy chests. All toys have ancestors as children find great interest in the first Lego set from the 1940's. Older objects, such as robots and tin toys admired for their drawings and ingenious movements, inspire students and their art. And generations of marbles as well as jack-in-the-boxes, are enjoyably shared in the classroom by collectors and other experts used to playing with objects in each category.

Prizes and Throw-away History What becomes a collectible and is valued has had the best chance of being dis- carded. Kids tend to value what adults call junk and throw out, only to later realize their incredible value and that their children's perceptions had been valid. Baseball cards, Cracker Jack prizes, and fast-food surprises are not only deposito- ries of contemporary culture, but also a part of contemporary culture. They are appreciated by kids of all ages, but older kids are writing books about them, paying huge sums for them, and trading them more fervently than younger children. In fact, when we admire the saved treasures, we find that kids and artists often possess the best resources: the old junk.

Carried History Kids take what they value with them (they have to because it may not be there when

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they return) So every trip begins with negotiations of what can or cannot be taken, as children head for the door carrying their toys and collections to "road shows." My collection includes children's treasure chests, old lunch boxes, doll trunks, toy-carrying cases, and pocketbooks. Each has long, visual histories in beautiful old Barbie cases, Shirley Temple- doll chests, Star War figures carrying- cases, and classic lunch boxes-- all of which are great sculptural works, with many catalogs attesting to interest in them. In class, we parade around with interesting cases, drawing or refilling them and showcasing other objects and ideas in them.

Table-Setting History Invited to many children's tea parties and participating in their many food plays, I have had invaluable opportunities to film this unique art form. The household chore of table setting is really a child's creative expression. As in many other home plays replayed in the art room, we re-create the past. We set our own tables with objects of

different designs and styles, arranging history represented by silverware, salt and pepper shakers, or play dish designs. Fiesta, Russel Wright, Hall, or old napkins and tablecloths from family collections reflect on recent decades just as much as paint-designed canvases. For example, a 1950's breakfast tableau may come complete with old cereal boxes, while a setting for a 1940's birthday party may be created with original napkins, wrappers, and signs. With each playful setup prepa- ration, we note the changes in styles and taste.

History to Wear Wearing Mom's shoes or Dad's old ties and weirdest Hawaiian shirts and inventing ensembles for a typical home fashion show at home involves wrapping oneself in art history. As historic fashions are increasingly placed behind glass, becoming other untouchable museum items in the art room, we can keep dress-up shows alive a while longer. Among elegant shapes, we find and try on bonnets and straw hats from previous decades. Or, we dress dolls and cutouts in historic outfits, cataloging and staging fashion shows. All new clothes brought to class are enthusiastically shown off, officially hung on clotheslines or displayed alongside belts, scarves, and handkerchiefs as reflections on the influ- ences of contemporary art. Through the narration of each fashion show, children become their own guides to art history.

Store-Play History Art room stores are just like the stores children set up at home to sell, trade, and display their finds and collections. Book- stores may feature old children's books, maps, and puzzles. Children set up displays and talk to customers. The old kitchen store, toy store, jewelry shop, print shop, or hair salon all feature collections brought in by the teacher and eagerly contributed to by other class collectors. Items exchanged, selected, and sold lead to useful show-and-tell dialogues that promote the trade of not only goods but ideas as well. Each store offers a selection of related books and catalogs for kids inventorying and researching store items. We look through catalogs and use play microphones to describe an item in an auction or fashion show of old forms. On




play phones, we discuss art objects and describe art deals the same way children love to use the phone in discussing their other interests.

Playing School as Art Education History After a day in school, young children go home to gather their doll and stuffed- animal students as they themselves become teachers. Children also can "play school" in the art room, using collections of old coloring books, art work books, lap-top chalkboards, and other old art-learning props.

Traditional Art-History Plays Studies can begin with encouraging students to role play with objects and ideas. "You are there" at the dawn of history as the first artist discovers art. In ceremonial dresses, children sit in a circle on top of a sandpile (brown wrapping paper on the floor) awaiting the first line ever to be made. For the records of art history, we see the early attempts at discovering tools on a nature walk, of holding and balancing them in a way they will record and make a mark. Impressions are tested inside the dark cave (tables wrapped with creased papers) as we crawl inside.

Through archeological digs we discover clues to ancient arts even if they were planted by the art teacher. Egyptian sculpture can be uncovered as our body tracings become ancient tombs, or we can pose on a chair (a base) and trace the changing poses or moves off the base symbolic of contemporary sculpture. When children become historic, sculptural objects and move toward contemporary forms, they can be "wound up", mechanized, and remote-controlled as examples of contemporary trends. Through experiences such as the above, children feel part of an ongoing art history. In a ceremony of undressing a canvas, removing its fabric from the stretcher as we help the fabric become free again, we present symbolic ceremonies of contemporary art. The free- flowing fabric is draped across the floor, spread over tables, worn, and hung over windows and clotheslines. We consider floor paintings, tablecloth paintings, flag paintings, etc. and discover the "object- ness" and the new flexibility of art that was removed from stretchers and walls and

became part of the arena of life. To "restretch" it again, children become stretchers and painters, as they form a circle and pull a canvas from all sides. New ways of draping, stretching, and flying a canvas can look at contemporary art history and beyond.

Family-History Plays Because children have fun browsing through old trunks, suitcases, and pocketbooks, we look for old greeting cards and search through family photos and scrap- books. We examine a pair of old, studded opera gloves and fans, a child presenter's history that was found in family deposito- ries. Each child's find demonstrates the diversity of art-history possibilities and of interesting personal collections from buttons to old pins, which can be considered a lifetime pursuit. Kids frequently ask, "Which do you like best?" as they exercise their taste and choices. Unpacking in art class brings an association of these

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Art Education/September 1991 47



familiar home finds with art and a sense of importance found in valued personal belongings. Children involved in a playful view of history recognize familiar styles in family photos and speak with familiarity of historic details as they arrange posses- sions in a dollhouse.

Children's art history teachers may want to consider the following:

1. The foundations for art history need to be laid early. Get beautiful old objects into children's hands so they can "experience" beauty. The art teacher can not only become an important role model for preservers-collectors interested in finds, but also someone trusted to value the finds, instead of joining the ranks of adults who dispose of children's "junk".

2. The joys of discovery should be part of all art history learning. Discovery comes through modeling, displaying, trading, playing store, and cataloging; appreciation is enhanced by experience.

3. Learning art history starts at home. Browsing through family treasures, minding family history, and sharing these treasures in class are part of our heritage.

4. Short leaps into art history can be appropriate starts. Children's sense of time and their thinking about the past is different from that of adults. Therefore, we can use items ot recent pasts to examine and draw upon.

5. Object categories encourage appre-

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ciation of a collection, as items are com- pared and changes in design noted. Any items grouped with other objects of a period show how forms relate to each other and how artists and designers influence each other.

6. Children's art history should be fresh, and not prepackaged - not taught with books and slide lectures. It should be found, not pre-discovered. A child's personal involvement with art history, with incentives to search and choose rather than to memorize, is what we can strive for.

We need to shape up art history, live it, and sometimes even take it apart to see it in fresh new ways. Artists who made boundary-breaking old objects we admire today did things differently, took chances, and taught us the most important art history message: to see things uniquely. We need not memorize, but we do need to run and play with old images and ideas instead of worshipping them. Kids discover that old objects can be played with and that the past can be brought to life in the light instead of in the darkness of art history slide rooms.

I am for a history that captures children's fun-loving nature and playfulness as Calder did by being a big friendly animator and puppeteer of forms. Yves Tanguey is seen to be a fix-it man who enjoys taking things apart and putting them back in funny ways. Arp is appreciated for being a rock collector like our children who enjoy pocketing and polishing a few choice pebbles.

Summary Studio Walks 1970-75 were my favorite New York City tours where artists opened up their work and living spaces to visitors. When walking with my young critics, it was obvious that it was not always the appreciation of adult art that children and artists have in common. What excited my young children at the time were the fabulous collections and the love of living with unusual objects which greeted us in each studio. Artists not only lived with art masterpieces, but their life and work were influenced by their personal discoveries of old objects. The antique rocking horses, jars, and music boxes were sometimes represented in the artand more often in the art choices their owners made. In




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studying famous artists' studios through films and photos in school, we also found the artist as a collector as masterpieces stood side by side with old collections.

"Home museums" are experienced before art museums as children discover art first in the home. Yves St. Laurent, in a recent interview, spoke of his great antique cutout doll collections. Matisse fondly wrote of his old picture books. The appreciation for beautiful things is an early experience and an individual discovery. As art-making careers start at home and children's appreciation for great art also starts at home, it seldom begins with the first time showing of art masterworks. To receive masterworks with interest, children require a variety of preliminary experiences. We need to concern ourselves with children's experiences before they are 'screened' masterworks, so they receive them more than just facts or school pictures to learn.

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Children need to develop a sense of interest to sensitively move towards great art when they encounter it. Indoctrination instead of sensitive starts turns kids away as early experiences with beautiful old things turn kids towards lifelong enjoy- ments. As the early art making of children is fostered by caring adults, early art appreciation and history interests also need nurturing. Caring for art is not only a rational process of learning or something we are told about, but a development of a feeling, a caring, and even a need for beautiful things. This develops early in young children and cannot be substituted by a later cramming of factual art knowledge. We need to learn more about how young artists develop art interests in beautiful things, and how their taste and self confidence in art views and choices are formed.

George Szekely is Professor of Art Education at the University of Kentucky, Lexington.

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discovery experiences in art history for young children

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