The art education literature has recently given a good deal of attention to the topic of Visual Culture in Art Education (VCAE). VCAE appears to some art educators as the next new emphasis in art education following Discipline-Based Art Education. At least four recent theme issues of Art Education have addressed the topic in various ways. All of…

This volume offers strategies for getting K-12 students to examine and discuss the works of art they and others make. Using the traditional college-level critique as a preliminary model, approaches for engaging younger learners in critical discussions are presented. A sampler of critiques offers a range of practical ideas and activities for…

Defines the scope of research concerning "inscriptions in painting" from a semiotic point of view. Shows that in cases from medieval pictograms to modern new concreteness inscriptions are used to subvert the pictorial content of art works. (RS)

Argues that Fernand Leger avoids the mimetic use of literary elements in order to subvert the conventions of the illustrated book and subordinates meaning to a graphic interplay where word and image can, on occasion, become interchangeable. States that Leger subverts the borderline between readable and nonreadable, lyric and painterly. (RS)

Notes that Jules Kirschenbaum, a modern American artist whose work integrates inscriptions and figurative painting, studied under the masters of abstract expressionism yet exhibited with protagonists of "magic realism." States that his later work took a wholly different turn--it became art about meaning and the "meaning of…

Contends that the concept of description educators present in their art criticism models differs from the concept of description in ordinary language; instead, it is a technical concept borrowed from the literature of aesthetics. Delineates differences between each concept, describes how the confusion arose, and discusses implications for art…

The history of drama education can be read as a series of arguments over dichotomies: process and product, theatre and classroom, artist and teacher, and so forth. One of the more recent discussions has focused on technology versus live classroom drama. At the heart of these discussions is an attempt to define the aesthetic dimensions of the…

This critical analysis focuses on the movement vocabulary and interaction of dancers in selected sections of the filmed version of "White Man Sleeps" (1988) by Siobhan Davies. The choreography is divided into five distinct parts, in accordance with divisions in the musical accompaniment from which the piece takes its name, a suite of…

This kit looks at 10 works of art from ancient to modern times and explores their myths, histories, artistic styles, and stories about art and artists. The kit includes goals and background information, 10 slides with slide presentation, art and writing activities, 5 laminated reproductions, and a bibliography. Activities are related to the 10…

Argues that Rene Magritte's experiments with words and images are preceded by other experiments with his surrealist friends in Brussels. States that the surrealists' failure to adequately represent women causes Magritte to treat both images and words as mere representations, subject to an equally radical splitting from the "real" thing…

States that the painted words in Jasper Johns' art act in two different capacities: concealed words partake in the artist's interrogation of visual perception; and visible painted words question classical representation. Argues that words are Johns' means of critiquing modernism. (RS)

Discusses three recent texts dealing with images of African Americans in contemporary art and media, arguing that there is a lack of black critics who can truly fulfill the role of criticism and interpret culture to create popular appeal. Suggests that black critics must interpret art for whites and then re-interpret it for blacks. (BCY)

Analyzes and critiques the faith in the social powers of the arts which allows American intellectuals to maintain a loyalty to democracy in the abstract while deploring people's concrete cultural practices. Offers John Dewey's belief in "art as experience" as an alternative that can refigure and benefit American social thought. (SR)

Identifies two major groups of pseudoinscriptions: distinguished inscriptions which do not convey text but appear to be real things; and proper pseudoinscriptions which may have clearly delineated individual letters that taken together make no sense. Identifies Venice and the Netherlands as centers of Arabic and Hebrew pseudoinscriptions in the…

Attempts a semiotic experiment to explore the fluctuations of meaning produced by interferences between textual and figurative representation within one picture. Discusses examples such as the portrait with its presentation of the subject and the topographical city plan. Provides an in-depth exploration of Philippe de Champaigne's "Ex-voto of…