Creative Grammar and Art Education

Abstract

Grammar is a word associated with the rules that govern language and its related pedagogy for articulating types of declarative knowledge. It can also refer to the organizational structure of practices and their related forms of knowledge, as described here by Ludwig Wittgenstein: “Essence is expressed in grammar. . . . Grammar tells us what kind of object anything is. (Theology as grammar.)”1 Wittgenstein’s remark about theology can be generalized to visual art, and, by extension, to the grammatical structure of art education. The grammar of creative practices is described by George Steiner as the “articulate organisation of perception, reflection and experience, the nerve structure of consciousness when it communicates with itself and with others.”2 Steiner’s description of creative grammar is consistent with Lev Vygotsky’s comment that “art is the social within us, and even if its action is performed by a single individual, it does not mean that its essence is individual,”3 a remark which echoes Wittgenstein’s that “essence is expressed in grammar.” If artistic essence is expressed by creative grammar, this would suggest that art education needs to account for appropriating and articulating such grammar in its practices. This article argues for such an approach. It will

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