Where Are We in the Art Education Required? Looking at Life through the Eyes of Art ()
1. Introduction (Art)
What is art, the purpose of art, why is Art Education necessary? We wanted to contribute to the literature by answering their questions. Art has been a way for human beings to express themselves throughout history. People generally conveyed their feelings, thoughts, and views on events through art. Art enables people to interact and communicate with their environment, to be more sensitive to what is happening around them, to think freely and to express themselves. Art is a particularly important tool that gives people a sense of elegance and sophistication.
The effective way to reach the beautiful, the good and the right is art. Art enhances life, teaches people to respect and love their environment, and how to take care of everything created that inspires them. It provides a completely different perspective to people and societies.
Art is the expression of cases and pleasantries derived from the Arabic verb “Sana’a” and described in different ways in a style that will arouse an aesthetic enthusiasm ( Çam, 1994: p. 273).
Instead of order, harmony, and mental dimension where art is located; there are traces of spiritual life; art is a monument of subtle emotions and beauties that emerge by human hand and reflect its inner world ( Çam, 1994: p. 274). In all arts, a subtle spirit, thought, and aesthetic understanding is seen, which is the morality that the Qur’an strives to bring to man. The Holy Qur’an often invites people to think and contemplate. In all arts, a subtle spirit, thought, and understanding is seen, which is the morality that the Qur’an strives to bring to man. The fact that the Holy Qur’an often invites people to think and contemplate to see the art of the universe is also worth thinking about.
Only understanding painting from the word art is synonymous with not knowing art at all. Art is the phenomenon that takes the artist, who watches the work of art, to contemplation, peace, to see the artist and to beautiful morality. “It is a warning that draws near to Allah ( Mücahit, 1997: p. 2).” It is understood from these definitions that art, which aims to be beautiful and compassionate to the creature, is an exceptional activity that leads to the comprehension of the supreme Creator. When the opposite happens, art becomes a tool of invention. Therefore the Qur’an refers to the rogue poets who cause people to become rebellious. Almighty God opens the door of the world of eternal life that takes man from work to assassin by means of “relative beauty” placed in the whole world and wants to introduce man to the “absolute beauty” belonging to himself ( Necip, 1979: p. 18). It can be said that art is a part of the life of the individual and lives inside him/her without being aware of it at every moment. There is a possibility of encountering an art-related activity everywhere at any time. We can say that art is a reflection of the aesthetic aspects of human beings with the sense of beauty in the life and nature of each person and the colors, shapes and characteristics of nature. Art can also be expressed as the transformation of the soul and heart into concrete form. Art is the creation of nature and the designs that individuals offer to the service of people by being inspired by them, food, clothing, furniture and artwork in every field. This shows that art is indispensable for people.
Allah is the Most Beautiful, the Most Benevolent, and everything created is the Most Beautiful. People enjoy everything that is beautiful in nature and feel something from themselves in the work they are looking at and talk to the person who themes that art with every grain created in the nature or the world that creates it as a whole. Art excites people not only spiritually but also worldly, teaches the difference between looking and seeing and contributes to their unity and solidarity by instilling a sense of personality and life in societies and people. Even the fact that people can observe the perfection of everything created reveals the importance of art; if the person who looks at the unique beauties created does not arouse excitement in other emotions than looking at them quite naturally and ordinary, he only sees an object. Not from the point of view of analogy and humiliation, but from the point of view of an animal as seeing an object. However, each of the creatures around us carries unique features in terms of art and design to the finest detail. Looking at the essence, understanding the nuances of that art and design with theme, saves the person from looking or not seeing. Art teaches man how to take care of this rare piece of beautiful art, and this enables him to understand and nurture love for his different missions attributed to each creature. It is obvious that art education in every department in schools will support the quality and development of education. Art education ensures that other topics are more lasting in memory. Art is a tool that enables people to understand one another and be respectful and compassionate to one another. Art is the strongest dialogue tool, the strongest bridge among people raised in different countries and cultures. In our country, art education is the process of developing, changing, transforming, and competing people’s lives in a planned positive way in line with a purpose ( Uçan, 2002: pp. 2-3). Art education is part of general education and should be in every field. Having an art education at a young age and the formation of art consciousness will make the individual’s view of everything created more absorbent. At the heart of art education, it helps people and students to understand themselves and others and helps those who are engaged in art to stay away from fake behaviors. Art education enables the person to see what they see the removal of the curtains in their consciousness with the nature they carry. Art education is an education that enables people to understand themselves, life, others, society through art ( Anderson 2003: p. 59). The purpose of art education is to teach seeing, not looking. The reason why he has been created for the development of his imagination shows the way from the work to the assassin.
In the face of these beauties, the person whose emotions and imagination are enriched, his/her view of nature and people changes, and he/she cannot think evil against anything. The basis of social, spiritual, collapse is insensitivity and unconsciousness, lack of education and most importantly, being away from art. Being sensitive, understanding, respectful is of high importance in people’s lives as well as in societies. Art education contributes to people being sensitive. Art is a form of self-expression. If the individual cannot think freely and express freely, he/she cannot improve himself/herself. Thus, individuals who are memorized, have difficulty in expressing themselves, lack self-confidence or lack self-confidence, and cannot offer different solutions when faced with a problem are formed. In the world where technology is rapidly developing, the society that cannot produce, reveal, and grow insecure may experience problems. Art education aims to raise people based on their values.
Art education helps people acquire the skills needed to understand spiritually what is happening around them and environment, nature, why everything created is created, etc. Therefore, art education is also a complement to general education programs. Art education shows the necessity of this education at every age in every field, not for people with artistic talent. Art education also helps to satisfy the spiritual aspect of the individual. It has been determined that art education contributes positively to the character development of people. Art is a phenomenon that stimulates many emotions of the person and most importantly, it is a phenomenon that mentally revives the person. It opens consciousness of a person and causes people to notice the details. Doing and taking care of everything created by people, the colors of objects in nature, those natural beauties and what people who are inspired by these beauties do both serves as a relief, understanding, understanding and kind of therapy for people.
“Art is such a mechanism applied in life that societies lose their balance without it ( Read, 1981: p. 17).”
Art education is not only for the eyes, but also for the mind, heart, and soul. As art leaves the life of a person and society, people and societies move away from each other, become alienated and lonely. The creature who makes art and understands art is only human. In this case, moving away from art is moving away from humanity. Where there is no art, there are no feelings such as love, respect, understanding and tolerance. The beauty of art helps to find and see the good, the truth. In order to teach our values to the newly raised generation, the contribution of art education should be investigated, and the revision of the education method accordingly should be evaluated. There are many beauties in the world that cannot be bought. Although it cannot be purchased, it is one of the most important purposes of art to teach him to see, love and add new beauties. The most beautiful way to teach our children, young people to see, respect and study is art education. Art has a key place in human life willingly or unwillingly. Art education contributes to the elimination of behavioural disorder in people and has an incredibly significant contribution to raising socially compatible people. It is a fact that there will be no terrorism in the society created by harmonious people. Art develops people’s comprehension, perception, thinking skills and activates their emotional aspects.
Art education will greatly contribute to the education of people who are aware of the values of society, who approach respectfully, who adapt easily to the environment, who approach their character in tolerance, who look to the future in this direction, and who have etiquette. When a person starts to look at life from the art perspective, he will see that his ability to see the more sensitive beauty develops. Universities are the institutions whose people are at the highest level of their education. While preparing our young people for life, our educational institutions should be aware of the life of their environment and should be interested in other activities that are intertwined with social life as well as the basic information they have received. Persons trained in this should be equipped with general culture and community values without breaking away from the values of the society in which they are in. In this way, societies closer to art are formed with an educational style. Proximity to art also means that it is far from many negative concepts. With art, not only educational institutions but also all institutions, especially the family, should take responsibility and do their part in this regard. The degree to which art is increased is not much.
2. What does Art Education Contribute to People?
Throughout history, people have chosen to express their feelings and the events they are affected through art. People expressed their sorrow, sadness, hope, joy with folk songs, weaved loops on carpets and rugs, embroidered them on the walls, ceilings and wood of their houses and transferred them to future generations. Ever since the Ottoman Empire, people have taken good care of everything created because of its creator, have not lost respect for the environment and human beings, and have valued it.
We are not in the same consciousness and awareness as we used to be today. People have lost consciousness of this art. There is an effort to lead a life alone in a soulless interaction without art. The majority cannot find the time or morale to deal with art, let alone struggle for a living in fear of living. In this case, it allows people and societies to get far away from art. Therefore, it is avoided from the beauties of art and the peaceful environment it brings. Since there has been no art, selfishness, insensitivity, disrespect, have increasingly doubled. Of course, the only reason for this situation is not the creation of an artless society, but there are other reasons. However, if it had been art, the breakage might not be so much. It is a reality that moving away from art is one of these reasons. We are witnessing the presentation, accompanied by music, of the formless words that are not missing from the ears of the younger generations, but rather, universally insane, that curses it. We are all painfully watching the emergence of freak societies, the emergence of unrest and drama in parallel with the masses of people who are not interested in anything other than themselves and nobody’s problem. A generation who is detached from art, who does not see and care about art, who does not understand the divine, wastes their lives. The number of people who would reveal works of art that would be aware of the art of Allah has decreased.
Apart from the physical upbringing of children, art education has a great influence on the development of their abilities. The pictures that our children express abstractly have an important place in children’s self-expression. As children grow up at an early age with the support of their imagination and imagination and emotions, their imagination is important in terms of being developed, productive and able to perceive all beauties. The development of the child’s visual memory and the preschool period in which a child draws something and the period in which a child paints the most are primary school periods. With these lessons, children try to define themselves, get to know the environment, try to explain themselves to the environment with the pictures they draw. The aim of painting education is not only that individuals become painters by painting beautifully, but also that children can look at and see everything around them and produce different solutions to the problems they face with this education. The aim of the training is to find a logical solution to the problems and difficulties encountered and to teach them to continue their lives in a tolerant and environmentally friendly manner. Art education, which contributes to the development of children’s abilities and their aptitude to contemplate in many different and versatile ways, also develops children’s sense of responsibility.
The significance of the primary and secondary school visual arts course, which was renewed in 2018, has been understood and it has been expressed that you need this course. People do not need to be educated in Visual Arts, they do not need to be painters, artists or very gifted. Visual Arts education is a need for people of all age groups as it offers advantages in terms of positive environments and societies such as expressing oneself and gaining aesthetic awareness.. When we examine the curriculum of the Visual Arts course, it is seen that importance is attached to art education. However, it is exceedingly difficult to say that sufficient importance is given to these courses in our society in terms of perspective, lesson hours, material status in schools, etc ( Buyurgan & Buyurgan, 2012). Art education is an important multifaceted medium that allows people to express themselves. The cultural wealth of our country and our society can be transferred to future generations by raising awareness of our people through art education. No matter what profession a person chooses, their contribution to their societies as a person who has been trained with art education appropriate to their purpose will increase.
The works, which have come from the past to the present and are known as indicators of civilization, cultural assets we have artistic value and it is necessary to protect this wealth of our country. Our cultural values are an indicator of the wealth of our country and society. To take care of this wealth and to understand this wealth is through art education. It is understood from all these writings that the purpose of art education is not to train artists or painters; it is an education that directs and educates every person who receives art education to the world of imagination, who is committed to social values and aware of our cultural wealth. Greater care should be given to art and art education in our country.
Art is an indispensable element that introduces nature to people, makes them more sensitive in relationships between people and gains self-confidence. Art education develops people’s mental and thinking skills and people who can look at problems from a different perspective raise a person who adapts to their environment and looks at and evaluates everything that respects the values of society aesthetically. Greater care should be given to art and art education in our country. Art lessons should not only be limited to art education, but it is also more appropriate to support them with artistic activities. Men endeavour to understand the purpose of being created to recognize the relationships with nature, see the richness of the creator, understand their own weakness and is an indispensable element that causes them to gain their self-confidence ( Artut, 2013: p. 228).” Art education improves one’s ability to think individually through artistic activities. Problem-solving, thinking, sensitive people adapt to their age and have the opportunity to evaluate the problems aesthetically ( Artut, 2013).
· Art means that people interact with their environment.
· Art Person makes her more sensitive to what is happening around her.
· Contributes to the ability to think freely.
· Allows you to express yourself freely.
· Art makes life beautiful.
· Adds value to people and their environment.
3. Lack of Art Education
There is a serious insensitivity to art, art education and art criticism in the necessity of art, our education system, we as a society and the media as a whole. Without art, the aesthetics of people are lacking. Reflects his feelings and thoughts to the environment by painting and playing an instrument. Art has an effect that facilitates changes in society. It activates people’s abilities such as understanding, perception, thinking and emotional abilities. The culture level of a society is determined by the number of artists trained in that society and people who understand art and whose value judgments are developed. Therefore, art is the indicator of the cultural development of societies. Art should be taught to young people in such a way that art independently decide that learning is not a necessity, but a step for human, spiritual and cultural development. Art is the way to reveal and express the beauty of emotion, thought and matter or nature.
Society is the main role of art. On this subject Lev Tolstoy said: “Art is the work of people who can think, see the truth, understand society.”
4. Conclusion
Art education should be investigated and examined in detail and art education is of utmost importance for people and societies. Art does not consist only of human emotions, art has ideas, contemplation, and suffering. The art environment is an environment of happiness, peace, tolerance, beauty, and love. Artistic practices are the means of communication that cause people, societies, and each other to have a good dialogue with each other. Art education is also important for people in terms of respect, love, unity, solidarity, order, and mental health. When the contributions of art to people and society are examined, it is considered that the development of people and society will be possible with art and art education. Protecting cultural heritage, protecting the past and transferring it to future generations is possible with art education.
Prominent reasons for the visual arts education course are questioning, developing, consistent, having aesthetic anxiety, evaluating, adhering to values, respectful, contributing to the education of people and accordingly societies. It is not based on memorization but enables people who receive art education to be productive and produce original products and contributes to people being injured in society.
Art education helps people gain the skills to comment, generate ideas, solve problems, and evaluate rather than painting. Art education helps to understand and make sense of life. The aim of the study is to emphasize that art education is important for the future of the country due to its contributions to people and societies. Art education is important for the future of Turkey. Because art education is important in terms of being a generation with self-confidence, knowing the value of cultural richness, individually equipped, and trained with qualified education. The fact that art education is lifelong indicates that it is one of the most important education areas. As a result, the person has to be aware of himself and why he has been created and the society in which he lives and his environment. Human beings face nature with their environment at any moment in society. Men use and endeavour to use all his abilities to understand the world he has always encountered and lived in. In this sense, art makes a contribution that cannot be underestimated in terms of the reason for its creation and its purpose.