Abstract
Educating Artistic Vision is an "old" book written a decade ago. As such there are many aspects in it, I'm sure, Eisner would not accept today. Therefore, the critique is made by keeping his later works, particularly The Educational Imagination (1979), in mind. To begin, Eisner claims that there are two major justifications for the teaching of art, both of which he presents in an either/or fashion. First a contextualist justification is made by claiming that art satisfies social needs. From this perspective, the practice of art must be pragmatic: art as leisure, art as creative thinking, art as self-esteem would be manifestation of this view. Shaped by this instrumentalist viewpoint, the art teacher undertakes a "needs assessment" in order to determine what the particular function of art should be. Eisner, quite correctly, points out that the assessment of this need ultimately rests upon a particular value base which the art educator strongly believes in. Conflicts are thus possible.
Rights
© The Author