Emergence of control in artistic expressions and the process of expretise

Emergence of control in artistic expressions and the process of expertise Chiaki Ishiguro (qq116201@iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp) Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies, University of Tokyo Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan Takeshi Okada (okadatak@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp) Graduate School of Education & Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, University of Tokyo Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan Abstract The creation of a work of art has been indicated to result from 'expressive awareness', achieved as the artist matches images and methods. This study examines how novices, who tend to express reproductively, acquire such expressive awareness over several weeks of practice of photography. We conducted case studies with two conditions: 1) one participant reflected only her own creative activities, and 2) one participant imitated eminent works of creative expression in the domain. As a result, the participants acquired expressive awareness in both conditions, though the contents of the expressive awareness were different. The imitation participant started to practice creative expressions and tried to control her creation consciously, while the reflection participant started to focus on precision of methods of expression. The findings of this study are useful for developing educational practice in art schools. Keywords: artistic creativity; expertise; imitation; reflection; artistic expression Introduction Artistic creation has been one of the most significant activities of human beings. Recent psychological studies have focused on the process of artistic creation. Such studies provide useful insights for understanding creative cognition and have implications for creativity education. Previous studies on the cognitive processes of artistic creation have indicated that artistic creation consists of processes for generating ideas or concepts, and processes for externalizing them into artwork (e.g., Mace & Ward, 2002; Yokochi & Okada, 2005). These studies have also suggested that coordination of these two processes is important. In other words, when creating artworks, artists pay attention to whether or not their artwork matches with their art concepts, and whether or not the strategies that they choose are effective in actualizing their ideas as a form of art. The process of coordinating their intentions and actions to achieve artistic expressions is a type of monitoring process, i.e. a metacognitive process (Flavell, 1976). Though it is known that these processes feature in artistic creation by experts, they have rarely been seen in creation by novices (Fayena-Tawil, Kozbelt & Sitaras; 2011). This sense of matching of images (hereafter expression contents) and methods (hereafter expression methods) to externalize them, referred to in this paper as expressive awareness, plays an important role in artists’ creation (c.f. Gantner, 1979). However, no empirical research has been done to examine how novices acquire this expressive awareness in the process of achieving artistic expertise. This study focuses on such an acquisition process of expressive awareness as an initial form of monitoring ones’ own creative process. The findings from this study offer new insight for the development of education programs for art schools. When we examine the process of artistic expertise, we first need to explain what artistic expression is. Before the modern era, expression meant giving a plausible impression of motifs relating to religion or history (Diderot, 1980). In contrast, after the modern era, the concept of artistic expression came to mean turning the creators’ experiences, emotions and subconscious experiences into an entity with reality and impact (Croce, 1902; 1990). Nowadays both views of expression exist in society. This diversity of views of expression may affect the process of artistic expression itself. Therefore, in this study, we classify artistic expressions as reproductive expression, the contents of which are intended to represent real entities such as landscapes or still lifes, and creative expression, the contents of which are intended to represent the creators’ ideas or emotions. Novices who have no knowledge of artistic creation generally prefer realistic works (Cupchik & Gebotys, 1988; Kozbelt, 2006). Also, Ishibashi & Okada (2009; 2010) reported that novice subjects drew realistic drawings when they were asked to draw original works with natural materials as motifs. According to these findings, art novices tend to appreciate and create reproductive expressions. What are the important factors affecting novices’ acquisition of expressive awareness? One of the candidate factors is continuing participation in expressive activities. People use self-explanation (Chi et al., 1989) and reflection (Schon, 1983) on their own artwork and on their process of creation during such expressive activities. These processes can lead to the acquisition of expressive awareness. Therefore, it is assumed that novices are able to acquire expressive awareness if they have continuing opportunities to create artworks and reflect on their own creations. However, in order to become expert in a domain, such an action-reflection cycle may not be enough. Csikszentmihalyi (1999) suggested that creativity is dependent not only on the creators’ activities, but also relates to domain rules, representations and methods in the field of expertise. Hence, it might be assumed that profound encounters with existing artwork in an artistic domain play an extremely significant role in the acquisition of expressive awareness in addition to