Zdzislaw Beksinski’s paintings in early-school education

Karczmarzyk Malgorzata

Formulation and justification of the relevance of the problem. Introduction to the subject of reflections. Studies of meanings assigned by children to modern art do not appear among Polish research analyses. Authors skip this subject matter, which may follow from the fact that in early education modern art is treated marginally. Works of contemporary artists such as e.g. Katarzyna Kozyra, Wilhelm Sasnal, or Zdzislaw Beksinski are viewed as topics too difficult or too controversial for the young recipient. Is it not, however, the case that in the era of the supremacy of image, when we- recipients are overwhelmed by visual messages, be it in the street, on television, or Internet, the child should be prepared also for reception of difficult visual messages?

The purpose of the article. This paper is going to show how great a potential in terms of communication and meaning modern art can have. For communication via image is an original stratum of dialogue between a child and an adult. Thanks to it, a child reveals his or her perception of the world, his or her own theories on social reality, and also develops imagination inspired by a specific painting.

The main material of the study. Children's arts education. Arts education of the youngest has been a widely discussed issue, debated in various academic circles. Questions posed by both pedagogues and psychologists as well as by parents and teachers concern the need for development of productiveness and creativity, formation of the child's personality and sensitivity by the so-called education through art [Read, 1943]. Works pertaining to these issues are, among others, books by Wieslawa Limont and Nielek-Zawadzka K., Hanna Krauze- Sikorska, Irena Wojnar and also publications relating to development and analysis of child works by e.g. Stanislaw Popek, Anna Trojanowska and others.

And yet, despite so many works pointing to significance of art classes for the child's development, in modern Polish school arts education is still being treated marginally, with - which is vital - exercises related to divergent thinking outnumber exercises involving divergent thinking. For it might be the other way round.

Arts education in polish integrated system. The reform system of early-school education, instead of supporting arts education in Grades 1-3, has led to its marginalisation and infantalisation. Unfortunately, integration of «everything with everything» does not develop a child at all, but it hampers and retards her. The main problem results from unsuccessful thematic associations, the purpose of which is not to present a given problem holistically but to combine tasks into randomly assembled parts.

The same applies to visual arts education, which as construed under the reform as «a complement» meant for a given thematic module to be covered in accordance with a given scheme. This is why visual-arts subject matter is seen to include colouring geometric figures under mathematical education, or cutting out pictures with animals during environmental education. A nice name of this kind of simplified actions, namely integration of visual and mathematical content, has nothing to do with educating a child through art, but rather with formation of technical abilities, which, in any case, the child should have acquired in kindergarten.

Another issue is excessive repetitiveness of some topics or visual-arts techniques. Whilst during another class on the issue of autumn a child the hundredth time makes chestnut «stick figures» or imprints in paint a composition of leaves collected in a park, there is no room for creativity but only imitativeness and boredom. When performing the same action, we fall into a routine which is no longer creation. It is instilling into a child reluctance to art and to creative selfexpression. In this way we form future generations, to whom sensitivity to the beauty of surroundings remains alien, with the visual culture arising in front of our eyes as a result of modern artists' actions becoming incomprehensible and accessible only to elites.

As Serge Tisseron writes: far more children than commonly believed are particularly sensitive to images, yet with no-one caring about them and no-one encouraging them to cultivate abilities in both their life as well as professional activity, they achieve but little. For this reason, so important in formation of the creative approach are first years of the child's development. And it is not only about expressive actions but also watching masterpieces of well-known and distinguished artists, also modern ones. For the child perceives the world and not always logical elements of its culture slightly differently from grown-ups. As the child is drawing, the child realises that the effect of her work does not always match reality. For this reason, it is easier for the child than for adults to understand images which are (..) results of intention and conventions rather than a reflection of the real world.

Hence, how to show to children «great» art? What instances of painting might be significant to the child?

Great art for little children in polish school. The issue of «how to teach «great art» in elementary grades?» is by no means as simple as it might appear. For many a year it has been and is still being discussed whether and what type of art might positively influence development of the child's personality? What is problematic, however, is that opinions of traditionalists prevail. They are convinced about the higher value of realistic art of old masters. They strive to bring up the child in the Kantian aesthetics, which is remote from the modern understanding of art.

This is favoured by, on the one hand, the scope of schoolbooks offered, in which interesting visual-arts exercises and works of modern painting masters are missing. Schoolbooks for integrated education, be it At school already [Pol. Juz w szkole], Happy school [Pol. Wesoia szkota], or The sun on the table [Pol. Sionce na stole], offer to the child only realistic and Polish painting, sculpture and architectonic presentations, with Europe's and the world's great works of renowned creators missing [4]. In integrated education only such paintings are admitted for perception which do not necessitate references to hard topics (e.g. poverty, death, illness).

In Polish schoolbooks there are, unfortunately, no popular works by, for instance, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Wincent van Gogh, or Marc Chagall. The question is whether these images can be too difficult for a young child? Whether the child is not going to «make up» her own meanings in them? Whether the child is not going to develop her creativity thanks to them? Which images does the child come in contact with in everyday surroundings? And why is it works of great masters that are «forbidden» to the child?

Hard topics may prove highly instructive to the child, and her maturity and comprehension of the world around may astonish many an adult. Paintings of striking colours, full of expression, of strange surreal shapes may strengthen the child's interest in art, all the more so that it is such messages that the child encounters in media, for example.

According to S. Tissoron: for a small child equally important to what is presented is the emotional context. An image of a soldier with a machine gun exerts on the child a weaker impact than a view of screaming and crying people, leaving their houses in panic (...). It all depends on the parents' stance and the bond with them (...) In reality, parents cannot control everything and it is uncertain whether they ought to do so.

It is not easy for an adult (be it a parent or a teacher) at the present time of supremacy of image to protect the child from various visual messages: those manipulating consumer behaviours (e.g. advertising), charged with aesthetisation (e.g. animated fairy tales) or aggressive ones (e.g. computer games). Far more important is talking to the child about a specific image. To recognise its material, emotional content, pay attention to the elements which saddened or intrigued the child. To be open to meanings which the child herself can assign to the image and negotiate them with a grown-up.

What is also interesting, as shown by S. Tisseron's studies from the year 2000, watching violent images gives children somewhat of a pleasure and some form of satisfaction derived from the sense of power resulting from the fact they did manage to see something arousing fear or anger. Such overcoming of fear may be particularly salient to the youngest child as that child is just then learning to tell between fiction and reality, and so when the child manages to combat her fear, the child feels more of a grownup.

Research methodology.In the study in question a semiotic analysis was used [4]. Meanings assigned by children to Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings have an individual character, and assigning them in itself reflects the way children see the world. The presentation of the ways of experiencing the world was inspired by paintings from modern art. In the study eleven children - five girls and six boys - participated.

The meanings have been analysed and divided into semantic categories, which for the purposes of this paper were named as «realistic category», «fantasy category», «unaesthetic category», and «nawe-religious category», respectively.

Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings in the eyes of six-year olds - results of analyses. In the study eleven six-year olds took part, including five girls and six boys. Qualitative methodology was applied. During the analysis of research material most important meanings assigned by children to Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings were recognised. The meanings have been described, analysed and then divided into semantic categories. For the purposed of the article they have been named as follows: realistic category, supernatural category, unaesthetic category and naive-religious category.

Realistic category. As follows from studies on Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings, children perceive real elements, that is such that exit in reality. They associate human figures and animals, and assign different activities to them. They describe elements such as wind, a horse, a tree, leaves, hair, a sunset, a face, buildings.

The meanings assigned by children to Z. Beksinski's work become narrative. One of such narrations are architectonic references. One of the boys studied, on seeing Beksinski's painting, described a certain building with a reference to a story from his own life. This type of meaningfulness can be related to a situation observed in the closest surroundings or a child's own experience, for instance: a trip with parents, or making by oneself a construction with building blocks. It is a kind of explaining to oneself a difficult message by its translation into familiar, tamable meanings.

Other meanings related to the reality category is child's attention being drawn to the expression of a painting. Recipients sense the mood of sadness and horror despite not being able yet to express it through verbalisation. For early education children have not emotional intelligence developed yet, due to which they cannot name many emotions [6]. Some objects can thus incite the feeling of fear in them. Children can view as fearful elements which they encounter for the first time and which they do not associate with any other known visual message.

Difficult message, which the youngest are unable to assign to any object or place familiar to them are difficult for them to interpret since they are a novelty to small children. Then they try to translate a complicated visual code into a simpler familiar code, derived from, for example, animated films or computer games.

Supernatural category. The next category which can be recognised in meanings assigned by children to Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings is another category named here as supernatural. During the analysis of child meanings it can be observed that the youngest often refer to visual messages derived from, for example, fairytales they watch, in which there are many unreal elements. These are for instance: aliens, cartoon characters, monsters, ghosts or magical objects, too. These day multiple television channels are offered by media to children, such as «Cartoon

Network», «Polsat Jim Jam», or «Fox Kids». Fairytelas are presented on them around the clock, and so children have easy access to them [4]. This is why when analysing strange figures from Beksinski's paintings, children try to compare them to media messages familiar to them.

Witchcraft and magic give power and strength. One can have everything then that one wishes. Early education children are just beginning to differentiate between pretence and reality, and their reasining often have an egocentroc character [8, p. 107]. They are thus able to imagine themselves on the basis of Beksinski's given painting as a magician, they can recognise magical elements related to power and position of a given character. They know magic objects which they try to seek and assign to figures knwon to them from fairytales. Yet only in a little degree are they able to adopt the rational perspective of other people, and for this reason the assigning of meanings to paintings of great masters appears to be an interesting pedagogical exercise which should be conducted in coopeartion with adults. It is a parent or a teacher that should as a child or encourage him or her to converse about a given masterpiece, and in this way affect the child's social, emotional and mental development.

Unaesthetic category. In the course of interviews with children in turned out that in Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings there are elements referred to as «fearful», «awful», or elements which «they do not like». This is why the next category named as unaesthetic has been distinguished.

As Wolfgang Welsch claims, in the contemporary world aesthetisation of the world is sought, that is presentation of different objects as far better or nicer than they are in real [9, p. 78]. This is why Beksinski's paintings, not matching the version of a nice and amiable world, proved unaesthetic to children..

In children's utterances there occurred markedly negative undercurrents with regard to the objects described, for instance: «this someone is ugly». All types of disparity such as, for instance, disability, a difference race or poverty, are not perceived positively in society. People whom this concerns feel alienated and excluded in their environment. Thus, observing the stereotypical association of beauty with good and ugliness with evil, children follow this type of knowledge and formulate their colloquial reasoning on perception of the world. Possibly, this is also related to the sense of security. Equipped with knowledge about elements familiar to them, children know what to expect and how to explain to themselves the reality observed. If this knowledge is missing, they substitute it with schemata and a simplified stereotype which may later have a detrimental impact on their contacts with others.

Religious category. Among meanings assigned by children Zdzislaw Beksinski's paintings there occurred symbols relating to the Christian religion. This implies that children are aware of their belonging to church and from the earliest age they are introduced into the canons of the religion professed by their parents or guardians.

A symbol of a cross painted in by Beksinski's painting was associated by children with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Speaking about this matter in interviews, children referred to the place related to the symbol of a cross - church, and, what follows, to the figure of a priest who conducts a mass in this place.