Developing aesthetic judgement: art history in the context of adult education

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the development of aesthetic judgement in art history of mature students on a part‐time degree programme, which has replaced the previous extra‐mural provision. It raises questions about the aims and objectives of the programme as well as its content. Should the programme be concerned with producing experts in art history or follow a more traditional liberal approach of giving students a transferable skill which, by providing a critical apparatus that includes a more acute visual awareness, enables them to be in a position to criticize and assess the environment around them? In answering these questions the nature of transmitting skills involved in making aesthetic judgements is examined against the specific background of teaching the art of the Italian Renaissance. The development of the ability to make judgements cannot be directly taught but has to be passed on and absorbed by the student by doing and watching. The social context is important, so the different discourses a student needs to be adept at and operate in will be examined. It is argued that expertise is essentially a skill which can be honed by a student after the programme has been completed. Yet the skill and visual awareness that the programme can instil have far wider educational value than the potentiality of developing art connoisseurship or expertise in art history.

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