critical thinking about art

Art and Critical Thinking

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Visual Art as Critical Thinking

Creative approaches to core subjects

We've heard this story before. The first thing to go in budget cuts is the visual art program or another related art. Proponents of arts education counter with the usual rhetoric on the importance of self-expression and creativity. I, myself, am a product of arts education.

From the early age of kindergarten I was in musical theater. I eventually transitioned in music as a focus, and was a choir nerd in middle school and into college. In fact, my participation in Jazz Choir kept me in school, as I struggled with depression as a young adult. I kept singing into college, where I led the jazz and a cappella ensemble, and participated in a semiprofessional jazz ensemble the Seattle Jazz Singers . Although my schedule no longer allows me to sing on a regular basis, karaoke continually calls my name. I'm sure many of you had have had a similar experience, where art remains a crucial part of your being. These stories alone say "Yes!" to arts education.

Well, I have another argument to advocate for arts education. Visual arts (as well as other arts) are an excellent discipline to build and utilize critical thinking skills. I don't think we often give credit to the deep conceptual and interpretational thinking that goes into the creation of a piece of art, and this is often because art is treated as something separate from the core content areas. School does not need to be this way. In fact, I have recently seen two excellent ways that art can be used to wrestle with rigorous content from the core while allowing for creativity and expression.

I had the privilege of visiting High Tech High and Middle in San Diego, California. The first thing I noticed that art was vital to the culture of the school. Whether using physics content to create kinetic art with pulleys or to create 21st century resumes (see photo above), teachers embraced art as part of the culture of study.

Chris Uyeda was nice enough to sit down with me to talk about a recent chemistry project by his students. They were told that the common image of the atom was WRONG, and that they needed to create a pitch for a better representation of it. Chemistry and the study of the atom require deep conceptual thinking, some of which is hard to grasp. Chris saw art as an opportunity to have students critically think around the content to create a beautiful art piece. The student example below shows just one student's take on a more appropriate representation of the atom through the motif of bees and beehive. Art was a great way to familiarize students with critical content they would need later in the course.

A colleague of mine, Dayna Laur, a social studies teacher at Central High School in York, Pennsylvania, worked with her art teacher colleague Katlyn Wolfgang to ingrate the study of art and politics. Edutopia featured their story and advice , and you can use some of their resources. The driving question for the project was, "How can art reflect and inform the public about policy-making agendas?" In it, the students had to collaborate across classrooms to create an art piece that had a message.

More than just making connections, the art students had to use their critical thinking skills not only to understand all the information and nuances of their public policy issue, but also to synthesize it into an art piece that conveyed a message. Students researched legislation, background information and other pertinent content. Instead of simply creating artwork with a message (which is a natural function of art), they had to wrestle first with critical content of politics and social studies before creating the art piece. Student examples are pictured above and below.

Teachers, your mission is finding ways to integrate art into the core subjects. Use your students' creative impulses to bring a new purpose to interpreting, conceptualizing and critically thinking around content. This type of integration can work for ANY discipline. It will help to value art as not just a separate entity, but rather integral to the school culture. Art is important as a single subject, but also should be valued as core through rigorous integration. In addition to being a fulfilling part of your students' lives, it can engage them in the core content.

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Marie Watt,  Edson's Flag ,  2004, American flag (from U.S. military burial) with wool blankets, satin, and thread, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Essential Questions

• What value does perspective-taking bring to developing a deeper and more nuanced understanding of people, events, and issues?
• What is perspective-taking?
• What value does considering multiple perspectives bring to learning?
• What can looking at artworks teach us about perspective-taking?

Arc of Learning

(95 minutes)

• Introduction
• Observe and Interpret
• What’s My Perspective?
• Optional: Metacognitive Break
• Considering Multiple Perspectives: What Do Artists Say About Edson’s Flag ?
• Clarifying the Artist’s Perspective
• Considering Multiple Perspectives: Stepping into the Artist’s Shoes
• Considering Multiple Perspectives: Shifting Interpretations
• Reflection: How Do Multiple Perspectives Build Understanding?
• Application: Using Perspective-Taking to Learn

Download the Full Lesson Plan [PDF]

Download the Student Workbook [PDF]

Reason with Evidence

Consider Multiple Perspectives

Reflection and Application

Artist Marie Watt uses blankets as a major component of her work, drawing upon their personal, historical, traditional, and societal connotations. The unit is structured such that students examine one of Watt’s works through multiple lenses in order to discover the value of perspective-taking.

The first set of learning experiences begins with students sharing their own personal connotations for this familiar object, so that they may later differentiate their own thinking from others’ perspectives. Conducting a close looking exercise focused on Watt’s Edson’s Flag, students differentiate between what they see (observations) and what they think about what they see (interpretation). This is a fundamental skill when reasoning with evidence.

Teaching Moves

By first documenting their own connotations around blankets, students can differentiate their own perspectives from others’. Next, students carefully examine the artwork and label all that can be seen. Finally, students document their own interpretations of the artwork before they hear the interpretations of others.

The next series of learning experiences are designed to help the students consider the perspectives of a trio of artists on Edson’s Flag , including that of Marie Watt herself. The intention of these activities is to make apparent the differences in individuals’ understandings of the same object, issue, or event and to examine how those differences might help us better understand the same.

Students use a thinking pattern (Word-Phrase-Sentence) to capture the essence of one of three transcribed interviews with artists regarding Marie Watt’s work. Next, groups of students take on the perspective of one of these artists to introduce that artist’s thinking to the whole group, building a more comprehensive understanding of the artist and the artwork’s message.

The final series of learning experiences support students’ reflection upon the whole unit so that they might see the impact of perspective-taking and transfer this disposition to other areas.

Students identify how taking multiple perspectives helped shift and change their understanding of the artwork using a thinking pattern (I used to think... Now I think...). Synthesizing their thinking from the whole unit using a Chalk Talk, or silent conversation, students reflect on how taking multiple perspectives can shift and change their understanding of a topic or idea more broadly. Finally, students identify for themselves how they might apply perspective-taking in school and in the wider world.

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Focus on experiencing and appreciating art as a way to help students develop ways of thinking that support thoughtful learning.

Artful Thinking helps teachers use works of visual art and music in ways that strengthen student thinking and learning in the arts and beyond. The goals of this program are to help teachers create connections between works of art and the curriculum, and to help teachers use art as a force for developing students’ thinking dispositions. Using the artist's palette as a central metaphor, the Artful Thinking "palette" is comprised of six thinking dispositions which strengthen students' intellectual behaviors. These dispositions are developed through Thinking Routines, which are easy to learn and can deepen students' thinking in the classroom.

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Shari Tishman

Patricia Palmer

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Arts Academy

in the Woods

How Art Education Fosters Critical Thinking and Why It Matters

These days, the ability to grasp the logical connection between ideas is a necessary skill.

Unless you’re a hermit living in a cave, there is so much information coming at all of us at any given moment.

Being able to discern which information is of worth – and which is not based in reality – requires critical thinking.

So What Exactly Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is often synonymous with reflective and independent thinking. It means knowing how to take in the data and then come to a reasonable conclusion. 

Those who engage in critical thinking are constantly questioning ideas and assumptions rather than just accepting what’s being peddled to the masses.

Critical thinkers want to know that the incoming information is representative of the bigger picture. If they determine that it’s not, they’ll take the necessary measures to get that additional information.

Critical Thinking Versus Being Critical

Critical thinking is not the same thing as being argumentative or critical/judgmental of other people. Sure, critical thinking can expose errors or poor reasoning.

But it’s also crucial for cooperative reasoning and then moving toward constructive tasks. Because acquiring more knowledge improves and strengthens one’s theories and arguments. And this subsequently leads to enhanced work processes.

How Art Improves Critical Thinking

Because critical thinking tends to incorporate logical and rational thinking and veers from instinct, many people see it as a hinderance to creativity.

After all, creativity requires breaking the rules, right? (Well, yes and no .)

Still, critical thinking truly requires out-of-the-box thinking. Rather than just taking popular approaches and swallowing them whole, critical thinkers challenge the consensus. This means they often have to pursue less popular thoughts or approaches.

So if you think about, critical thinking is an absolutely necessary component of creativity. Without it, how can the creative person continue to evaluate and improve upon his or her ideas?

It’s this very process of observation and study that teaches students of the arts to more intensely observe and analyze the world. And it gives them the skills that build the foundation of critical thinking.

But Why Does It Matter?

You might think that if your path leads you to work in research, law, education, management, finance or medicine, then you’ll absolutely need this skill. And you’re right.

But no matter what you   choose to do with your life, the ability to think clearly and rationally is important.

Knowing how to receive information, clearly consider it and then use it to systematically solve problems is an asset for any career. Especially in light of this new knowledge economy. To be successful in such an economy requires one to able to handle changes quickly and effectively.

There is an increased demand for workers to be able to analyze a lot of information from diverse sources, then integrate it in order to find solutions. Critical thinking promotes these skills.

It also enhances language and presentation skills. The simple act of learning to think in a more systematic and logical fashion can also improve the way one expresses ideas.

Furthermore, in having to analyze the structure of different information sources, critical thinking also improves one’s ability to comprehend.

And as we mentioned above, critical thinking actually promotes creativity. Coming up with creative solutions is more than just having new ideas. There has to be an understanding that the new ideas are useful and relevant to the required task.   Critical thinking plays an important role in this.

That’s right. Critical thinking is even important for this. It’s nearly impossible to structure a meaningful life without the ability to justify and reflect on our own values and decisions. And critical thinking provides the tools for this process.

So yeah, it’s safe to say that critical thinking definitely matters.

Learning Critical Thinking with an Arts Integration Education

Arts integration education merges the important skill of critical thinking achieved through art education and blends it in with academics.

There’s no disputing the importance of STEM. The above mentioned knowledge economy requires students to understand facets of science, technology, engineering and math.

With arts integration though, there’s the added importance of art – hence the term STEAM. Arts integration isn’t looking to bypass STEM. It strives instead to create an integrated program that includes all of those, while teaching the application of skills learned through the arts – such as critical thinking.

Arts integration helps students see the world from multiple angles, and to take a design-thinking approach in finding solutions.

Teaching young people to be careful and deliberate observers can go miles toward expanding their worldview. And this, in turn, can create a stronger democracy.

Do You Want to Explore An Arts Integration Education?

So take a look at what our students have to say . And/or request a tour of our school and see what we have to offer.

Then get ready to put those critical thinking skills toward a higher purpose.

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Top 7 Benefits of Art Education for Critical Thinking

If you're an art student, you understand how dynamic art education is! Art is a learning that comes in various forms. For a long time, there has been a great value in art education in enhancing analytical skills.

If you're an art student, you understand how dynamic art education is! Art is a learning that comes in various forms. For a long time, there has been a great value in art education in enhancing analytical skills.

Studies show that developing thinking skills through visual art is an excellent approach to developing critical thinking skills in students. When an image is perceived, it develops a critical thinking ability in students, which has been proven to nurture analytical skills.

Like assignment writing services , art education relies on critical thinking as its foundation, aiming to assist students in producing high-quality work. In this article, we will delve into the significance of art education and its role in fostering creativity and critical thinking among students. Importance of Art Education to Develop Critical Thinking

Art education is a dynamic field with numerous essential elements that contribute to the broader educational landscape. Beyond aiding students in acquiring analytical skills, art education provides a multitude of benefits. It's accurate to assert that art and critical thinking are interconnected.

To cultivate analytical skills and articulate them through visual expression, art education becomes indispensable. This parallels the necessity of college paper writers , crucial for enhancing writing skills during your college journey, enabling success in exams and assignments.

Let's explore the myriad advantages that art education offers, including the development of creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and proficiency in various disciplines.

1.   Creativity and Critical Thinking

Art has its base in various forms; it could teach painting, drawing sketches, or anything else.

Whatever it is, art education lies in enhancing creativity, a skill that must be in today's changing world. When you encourage students to engage in such creative experiments, you allow them to explore the creativity and unique perspective art education offers.

It goes hand in hand with critical thinking as well. When students indulge in any form of art, they are prompted to analyze, interpret, and critique the artwork.

This practice enhances their ability to assess information, form their viewpoint, and make an informed judgment about it. The whole process builds a thoughtful perspective in both complex and interconnected ways.

2.   Cognitive and Emotional Development

Art students are liable to build strong cognitive and emotional skills. With the creation of art, they enhance the skills of observation, pattern recognition, and reasoning.

They can abstract these concepts into a form, holding their thinking ability accountable to form perspective and thoughts. When further enhanced, these skills grow into an ability to solve problems and analyze.

Emotional development is yet another aspect that art education touches. Art is a power of expression. Through it, students can explore their creativity and mental health.

3.   Promoting Cultural Understanding

Art is a unique ability to promote a country's or regional cultural understanding among the students. They will learn to have an appreciation for the work they perform.

Art education touches on various cultures and periods, and students gain insight into the value and histories surrounding the art. It has no language barrier, communication issues, or anything. It allows the student to go beyond their understanding and into the world of imagination to understand and appreciate the art.

Students learning art education learn about different artists and their backgrounds. This learning allows them to develop empathy and open-mindedness. They can appreciate the diversity of art and recognize the themes that connect the universe.

It goes against the stereotypes and fosters a culture of respect in cultures and celebrates them rather than fear. This equips them with global empathy and respect for different traditions and viewpoints.

4.   Integration in Curriculum

Including art in the school or education curriculum is an excellent approach to maximizing its benefits. While art is seamlessly woven into any subject, students experience firsthand connection with the knowledge.

Students studying art from a specific time can enhance their knowledge of history and gain insight into a political-social context. Art has also proven to be beneficial for science education.

This approach allows students to learn art in their own curriculum and helps enhance their learning ability.

It helps them build connections between the disciples and the complexities of real-world challenges. By integrating art, the school can prepare its students to become innovative thinkers who can apply creative and critical skills in various contexts.

5.   Embracing Versatility

Painting, drawing, sculptures, painting, photography, and other art education forms can experiment with various materials and approaches. Students could be learning digital art, fine art, or ceramics, but one thing in common is their ability to explore.

Art is not limited to a particular aspect and has various forms. Students who are involved in art education can select from a wide range of course approaches and learn about them.

We now live in a world where transdisciplinary is highly valued, so in this context, flexibility becomes priceless. Art education provides a medium for students to explore their field of want and interest and get educated in it.

6.   Exploring Career Opportunities

Along with developing analytical and emotional skills, art education has its own roots in defined career paths. Contrary to the stereotype in our society that fine art only leads to struggling artists, it opens the door to various career paths.

Students interested in art and a graduate degree can practice various occupations. When studying art, students exhibit their work and explore other avenues of art like art education, art therapy, museum curation, graphic design, art conservation, and more.

When more refined, this skill allows them to be a successful worker in this field. Further, art students are also creative, critical thinkers, and visual communicators. These skills are highly demanded in the world.

7.   Personal Achievement

While studying art has benefits and advantages, like helping in critical thinking and developing analytical skills, it is also about personal fulfillment. Students are on their journey to self-discovery and are on a road of continuous growth.

Art education provides students with an opportunity to learn about themselves and about art.

They get a feeling of fulfillment from creative, beautiful, and thought-provoking pieces. Art allows you to explore your own areas of identity, passion, and values.

Other than subject matter, art education also teaches students to learn more about themselves, the culture, work, and the values behind the artwork. This leads them to a path of personal fulfillment and self-expression that goes beyond traditional education.

In conclusion, art education is a medium that enhances various aspects of human development in students. It allows them to develop their critical thinking ability. It leads them to nurture their analytical skills through visual expression. Further, it's mentioned to be a great way to enhance creativity and promote emotional intelligence.

By including art education in the regular curriculum, students learn to be more self-aware and authentic to art's value, from cultural appreciation to its impact. Students are equipped with the tools they need to thrive in the world, like innovation, empathy, and knowledge.

In this article, we mentioned the top 7 benefits of studying art and how it positively impacts a student's mindset and creates positive learners in life.

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Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.

About ArtDependence

ArtDependence Magazine is an international magazine covering all spheres of contemporary art, as well as modern and classical art. ArtDependence features the latest art news, highlighting interviews with today’s most influential artists, galleries, curators, collectors, fair directors and individuals at the axis of the arts.

The magazine also covers series of articles and reviews on critical art events, new publications and other foremost happenings in the art world.

If you would like to submit events or editorial content to ArtDependence Magazine, please feel free to reach the magazine via the  contact page .

Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

Are there any services that can help me use more critical thinking?

We understand that it's difficult to learn how to use critical thinking more effectively in just one article, but our service is here to help.

We are a team specializing in writing essays and other assignments for college students and all other types of customers who need a helping hand in its making. We cover a great range of topics, offer perfect quality work, always deliver on time and aim to leave our customers completely satisfied with what they ordered.

The ordering process is fully online, and it goes as follows:

• Select the topic and the deadline of your essay.
• Provide us with any details, requirements, statements that should be emphasized or particular parts of the essay writing process you struggle with.
• Leave the email address, where your completed order will be sent to.
• Select your prefered payment type, sit back and relax!

With lots of experience on the market, professionally degreed essay writers , online 24/7 customer support and incredibly low prices, you won't find a service offering a better deal than ours.

Creativity and the Brain: How to Be a Creative Thinker

What do we know from research on brain activity involved in creative thought.

Posted April 30, 2024 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• The book "The Creative Act" argues that creativity is a skill we can all use daily.
• Creativity is complex and involves multiple brain regions.
• Research shows that there are several ways to improve our creative thinking.

This post is part 2 of a series.

In my previous post, I wrote that, after being inspired by Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being, I decided to find out what is going on in the human brain that results in creativity. It turned out to be a very complex and complicated subject. That is mainly because it is difficult to clearly define creativity, and there are many different kinds of creative processes, such as visual art, music, creative thinking , etc.

Coming from the field of cognitive processes, I decided that I would concentrate on research related to brain activity involved in creative thought processes. Most of the time, cognitive creativity involves testing the person’s divergent thinking (generating possible solutions to the problem) or convergent thinking (finding a single, correct solution to the problem).

The review of research papers indicated that creative thinking (convergent and divergent thinking) requires the coordination of multiple brain regions, mainly the executive control network (simply speaking involves planning, organizing, problem-solving, and decision-making ), default mode network (areas of the brain that are activated when we are letting our minds wander at rest), and salience network (a network that is involved in the awareness of the feelings associated with rewards). But, obviously, other parts of the brain are also involved, and this depends on the specific goal/outcome that we want to achieve.

I also promised my readers that I would try to find answers to the question of how to be a creative thinker. There are many suggestions on the internet, but let’s see what the research says.

You can learn how to meditate and practice it daily.

It may come as a surprise to many people, but the majority of the research papers in that area point to the daily practice of meditation as a way to improve creative thinking. It is not a surprise to me because I am a believer in meditation and do it daily. I also encourage all my patients to try to do it daily.

In a Chinese study (Ding, X. et al. 2014), 40 Chinese undergraduate students were assigned to three groups, a meditation group (30 minutes daily for 7 days), a relaxation training group, and a control group. Creativity performance was assessed by the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The results indicated that the subjects in the meditation group improved their creativity performance on the divergent thinking tasks.

Research studies on meditation also indicate that it helps improve attention/ concentration skills and emotional regulation and reduces stress and anxiety , so it looks like a good daily habit to start.

You can read aloud and do arithmetic calculations.

In a Taiwan study (Lin, WL. et al. 2018), 50 junior high students were divided into a training group or a control group. The training group was reading aloud and performing arithmetic calculations for 20 sessions. The control group played the game Tetris (a puzzle video game). The results indicated that the participants in the training group outperformed the control group in thinking and creative abilities.

You can do neurofeedback.

Neurofeedback is a computer-guided, noninvasive brain-function training based on electroencephalography (EEG) feedback. Neurofeedback is also called neurotherapy, neurobiofeedback, or EEG biofeedback, and it helps control involuntary processes such as muscle tension and heart rate. Usually, the person is responding to a computer display of her/his own electrical activity of the brain, but it may also simply be a sound stimulation. The most important factor is that neurofeedback focuses on helping a person train himself/herself to regulate brain functions.

In an Italian study (Agnoli, S. et al. 2018), 80 female students from the University of Bologna got three neurofeedback training sessions. The researchers also measured the participants’ lifetime creative achievement by using the Creative Activity and Accomplishment Checklist. The results were measured with the divergent thinking tasks (producing original and effective ideas). The results indicated an increase in both originality and fluency. The increase was particularly evident in participants with an initial low creative achievement level.

This is good news for people who believe that they are not that creative. You may get better with neurofeedback training sessions. Artists and athletes do this nowadays to enhance their performance.

You can do overinclusive thinking training.

Overinclusive thinking can be described as increased generalization and/or considering concepts that most people consider unrelated to certain categories, which provides an increased number of options. In a Taiwan study (Chiu, F.C. 2015), the researcher examined the effect of overinclusive thinking on creativity. Four experiments were designed, and the subjects were undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to an overinclusive thinking training group or a control group. The training group did better on the overinclusive thinking that is related to creativity. The fluency and originality performance were higher than in the control group and the insight problem-solving was also better than in the control group.

So, if you would like to be a creative thinker, you can try some of the ideas described above. Good luck on the road to creativity!

Rick Rubin. The Creative Act: A Way of Being . Penguin Press, NY 2023.

Ding, X. et al. “Improving creativity performance by short-term meditation” Behavioral and Brain Functions. Vol. 10, 2014.

Lin, WL. et al. “ Improving junior high students’ thinking and creative abilities with an executive function training program” Thinking Skills and Creativity . Vol. 29, Sept. 2018.

Agnoli, S. et al. “Enhancing creative cognition with a rapid right-parietal neurofeedback procedure.” Neuropsychologia, Vol. 118, Part A Sept. 2018.

Chiu, F.C. “ Improving your creative potential without awareness: Overinclusive thinking training.” Thinking Skills and Creativity . Vol 15. March 2015.

Barbara Koltuska-Haskin, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the author of How My Brain Works.

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