Natalia Okolicsanyiova

1.46 Other Beauty (Paper) – virtual

Natalia Okolicsanyiova – Department of Fine Arts Education, Faculty of Education, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia  – virtual

Abstract:

My research focuses on the field of feminist art pedagogy and art education. I will analyse issues related to the identity formation of art educators through a critical examination of art interpretations that are stereotypically embedded in art history. The development of future art educators' value judgments about the aesthetics and content of artworks is largely shaped by gender stereotypes present in traditional artistic interpretations.

As art education has often historically emphasized teaching visual and aesthetic qualities, there is concern that the visual aspect of art may be interpreted too narrowly – analysing only what can be observed with the eyes. This approach was characteristic of modernist conceptions of aesthetic experience, which separated the visual from the intellectual and from the practical or ethical aspects of life. In contrast, most contemporary theories of visual culture assume that aesthetic vision, cognition, and ethics – especially social ethics – are deeply interconnected.

One critical assumption that must be challenged in the preparation of future visual culture educators is the belief that aesthetic vision can be isolated from other socially constructed experiences. In my teaching practice, I have been troubled by the fact that a significant proportion of students struggles to accept distorted representations of the human form in acclaimed works of art. In my professional courses, I often encounter student resistance to creating distortions of the human figure; they perceive such visual representations as unappealing, even unattractive.

At this point, two issues converge: the misinterpretation of artworks and the powerful influence of mass media on the development of self-monitoring, which will be linked to psychoanalytic research on identity construction. In my contribution, I will explore art teaching processes that approach beauty as something distinct from what is familiar, predetermined, or socially dictated.