Visual arts education is the area of learning that is based upon only the kind of art that one can see, visual arts—drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, and design in jewelry, pottery, weaving, fabrics, etc. and design applied to more practical fields such as commercial graphics and home furnishings. Contemporary topics include photography, video, film, design, and computer art. Art education may focus on students creating art, on learning to criticize or appreciate art, or some combination of the two.

Approaches

Art is often taught through drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and mark making. Drawing is viewed as an empirical activity which involves seeing, interpreting and discovering appropriate marks to reproduce an observed phenomenon. Drawing instruction has been a component of formal education in the West since the Hellenistic period.^[1] In East Asia, arts education for nonprofessional artists typically focused on brushwork; calligraphy was numbered among the Six Arts of gentlemen in the Chinese Zhou Dynasty, and calligraphy and Chinese painting were numbered among the Four Arts of scholar-officials in imperial China.^[2]

An alternative approach to art education involves an emphasis on imagination, both in interpreting and creating art. Many educators will ask their students “Why do you think the artist made this choice?”, once they’ve given an answer, they’ll then give them context of the piece, then ask them again. This is to get students to consider the deeper meaning behind works, rather than just showing them a pretty picture. 

Art education is also about experimentation and purposeful play and linking their art to conceptual messages and personal experiences. ^[3] Allowing students to connect a piece to emotion, helps them better understand how the artwork connects to the artist and their subject, developing their critical thinking skills. Alternative approaches, such as visual culture and issue-based approaches in which students explore societal and personal issues through art, also inform art education today.^[4]

Prominent curricular models for art education include:

• A sixfold model divided into “Creative-Productive, Cultural-Historical and Critical-Responsive” components in some provinces of Canada^[5]
• Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE) came to favor in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, and it focused on specific skills including techniques, art criticism and art history. Heavily backed by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts, DBAE faded after the Institute ceased funding in 1998.^[6]
• Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB) is a choice-based model that began in the 1970s in Massachusetts in the United States.^[7] TAB suggests that students should be the artists and be guided on their own individual artistic interests.

In addition, especially in higher education in the liberal arts tradition, art is often taught as “art appreciation”, a subject for aesthetic criticism rather than direct engagement.^[8]

Some studies show that strong art education programs have demonstrated increased student performance in other academic areas, due to art activities’ exercising their brains’ right hemispheres and delateralizing their thinking.^[9] Also see Betty Edwards‘ Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

Art education is not limited to formal educational institutions. Some professional artists provide private or semi-private instruction in their own studios. This may take the form of an apprenticeship in which the student learns from a professional artist while assisting the artist with their work. One form of this teaching style is the Atelier Method as exemplified by Gustave Moreau who taught Picasso, Braque and many other artists.^[10]