Books by Professor Emeritus Howard Riley
Papers by Professor Emeritus Howard Riley
The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 2024
Every doctoral thesis requires contextualisation within its specific discipline’s theoretical bas... more Every doctoral thesis requires contextualisation within its specific discipline’s theoretical bases. For a visual arts practice-based thesis, the relevant bases include those of aesthetics and visual perception. This article reviews a Western history of the domain of visual aesthetic theory, addressing both the Analytical philosophical efforts to define art, and the Continental approaches which construe art as social construction. It then reviews a third, normative stance which foregrounds cognitive value before definition or sociological context; an Aesthetic Cognitivist position, art practice as a means of acquiring and sharing experiential knowledge and understanding. Contemporary concerns about environmental aesthetics and somaesthetics are also addressed in the Introduction. Aesthetic theories are related to visual perception theories as an aid to fulfilling the scholarly requirements for a practice-based thesis.
Journal of Aesthetic Education, 2024
(This is an updated version of the article published 2024 in the Journal of Aesthetic Education V... more (This is an updated version of the article published 2024 in the Journal of Aesthetic Education Vol.58 No.2)
Every doctoral thesis requires contextualisation within its specific discipline’s theoretical bases. For a visual arts practice-based thesis, the relevant bases include those of aesthetics and visual perception. This article reviews a Western history of the domain of visual aesthetic theory, addressing both the Analytical philosophical efforts to define art, and the Continental approaches which construe art as social construction. It then reviews a third, normative stance which foregrounds cognitive value before definition or sociological context; an Aesthetic Cognitivist position, art practice as a means of acquiring and sharing experiential knowledge and understanding. Contemporary global concerns about the environment are addressed in detail under the heading Ecological Aesthetics. Somaesthetics is also recognised as a burgeoning field, in the Introduction.
Aesthetic theories are related to visual perception theories as an aid to fulfilling the scholarly requirements for a practice-based thesis.
Journal of Visual Literacy, 2024
This article aims to enhance the pedagogy of drawing by integrating relevant aspects of art histo... more This article aims to enhance the pedagogy of drawing by integrating relevant aspects of art history and aesthetics with perception and communication theories. Visualcy is defined as an articulacy with visual languages, from which the more familiar '3Rs' (Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic), alluding to literacy and numeracy, evolved. It embraces not only the more familiar definition of 'visual literacy' in the sense of how people perceive, interpret, and learn from existing visual imagery, but also the semogenic facility for producing the means to understanding through the articulation of visual elements (line, shape, tone, texture, colour) in the construction of new images. After reviewing the role of drawing in cultural evolution, the article discusses drawing in relation to aesthetics, before outlining a pedagogy of drawing designed to nurture visualcy, of central importance to human culture.
The Drive to Draw: Perceptual Attention and Communicative Intention
Leonardo, Aug 3, 2023
This article argues that drawing facilitates an intelligence of seeing, a visualcy, that should b... more This article argues that drawing facilitates an intelligence of seeing, a visualcy, that should be as important as literacy and numeracy at all levels of the educational curriculum. The author likens cave drawings c. 40,000 years ago to an “external hard drive,” alleviating biological constraints on brain capacity by preserving shareable information about predators and prey necessary for survival during a period of expanding social networks, ultimately leading to humans becoming the globally dominant species. The author reviews theories of visual perception, fundamental to any pedagogy of drawing; discusses modes of visual “attention,” defining the difference between “focused” and “distributed;” and relates both to intentional communication through drawing, the progenitor of writing.
Think global, act local: Do local visual processing biases explain proficiency in observational drawing in non-autistic individuals?
Proceedings of the world congress of the IASS/AIS, 2015
AcrossRCA: 'Seeing Into Drawing' Workshop
Our previous research, based on interviews with and observations of, post-graduate art and design... more Our previous research, based on interviews with and observations of, post-graduate art and design students at the Royal College of Art (RCA) and secondary school students, (from five London based schools), has revealed that some highly creative individuals with dyslexia and or dyspraxia feel impoverished by what they perceive as a lack of observational drawing ability. We have argued that this particular lack of processing ability can be linked to some of the processing difficulties associated with dyslexia and dyspraxia and suggested that there is a sub-group of dyslexic/dyspraxic individuals adversely affected by poor observational drawing ability. We believe that the outcomes of this research will be of benefit to certain dyslexic and dyspraxic individuals who may be denied an art school tertiary level education because the requirements of the art curriculum as taught and examined in most secondary schools, discriminates against those who cannot produce an accurate drawing from o...
Scratching the surface: Attitudes to learning and the acquisition of artistic skill
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2015
Nurturing An Intelligence of Seeing more
Riley 12/1/04 2: 51 pm Page 307 Nurturing an intelligence of seeing 16 Howard Riley School of Art... more Riley 12/1/04 2: 51 pm Page 307 Nurturing an intelligence of seeing 16 Howard Riley School of Art & Design, Swansea Institute, Associate College of the University of Wales, UK Abstract Even the most obvious occurrences of everyday life might appear utterly transformed if we were inventive enough to construe them differently. Kelly (1970, p. 1) This paper probes the possibility that a new approach to the teaching and practice of drawing may develop, in first-year fine art undergraduates, an inventiveness for construing those ...
The Effect of Dyslexia and Dyspraxia on the Cognitive Modelling Process Within the Context of Art and Design. Part One: Drawing on Drawing. more
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Article Channels of vision and the poetics of drawing: Strategies for teaching
This article introduces a novel approach to pedagogy within an art school in the UK HE sector, ba... more This article introduces a novel approach to pedagogy within an art school in the UK HE sector, based upon a synthesis of perception theory and communication theory. It is argued that art students ’ drawing is empowered by strategies of teaching informed by aspects of James J. Gibson’s ecological approach to visual perception relevant to an understanding of the variety of information contained in the structure of light. Three types of perceivable information are identified: the distal, the haptic, and the proximal, described as channels of vision, and illustrated with examples of the author’s drawings. Aspects of Roman Jakobson’s communication theory are introduced, and both theor-ists ’ insights are amalgamated in a systemic-functional semiotic matrix describing the domain of drawing derived from Michael Halliday’s systemic-functional semiotic model for language. The matrix has informed the design of a curriculum for drawing, and a project from this curriculum is presented and illus...
Towards a Syntax of Visual Delight: the Tension between Surface Qualities and Illusory Depth in Drawings. more
The paper correlates a fundamental insight about drawing articulated by a range of thinkers, incl... more The paper correlates a fundamental insight about drawing articulated by a range of thinkers, including Richard Gregory, James J. Gibson, John Willats, Philip Rawson and Richard Wollheim. It proposes a syntax of what Wollheim termed'visual delight', and is illustrated with drawings by the author and students.
Making Worlds: Some Thoughts on the 53rd Venice Biennale more
Making Worlds: Some Thoughts on the 53rd Venice Biennale and its Implications for the Teaching of... more Making Worlds: Some Thoughts on the 53rd Venice Biennale and its Implications for the Teaching of Visual Arts Practice. Howard Riley Dynevor Centre for Arts, Design & Media Introduction In July 2009 I presented a paper at the International Conference for the Arts in Society held in conjunction with the 53rd Venice Biennale, and I would like to acknowledge here the generous support of the University. My topic was Making Sense of Art. A naively simple title to offer at such a high-powered gathering of world experts in the field, you ...
Mapping the Domain of Drawing more
A synthesis of perception theory and communication theory is presented as the basis for a new tea... more A synthesis of perception theory and communication theory is presented as the basis for a new teaching programme of drawing for first-year fine art undergraduates. The domain of drawing is mapped as a matrix of systems of choices available to the drawer in order to realise the functions of drawing within a social context. It is argued that an increased awareness of this domain may empower students' practice. Illustrated with student work. ... Thank you! Your feedback has been sent. ... Want an instant answer to your question? Check the FAQs.
An Art Pedagogy for a Changing Art World more
This paper offers an answer to the question posed in the theme to the 'Arts in Society'... more This paper offers an answer to the question posed in the theme to the 'Arts in Society' conference held in Kassel during 'Documenta 12': What is to be Done? (in terms of art education.) The author's terms 'conceptual intrigue' and 'perceptual intrigue' are introduced, and it is argued that these criteria can be of great use and value to the assessment of quality in visual arts practice. The paper goes on to propose five premises from which a revolutionary pedagogics for contemporary visual art might be elaborated. ... Thank you! Your feedback has been sent.
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Books by Professor Emeritus Howard Riley
Papers by Professor Emeritus Howard Riley
Every doctoral thesis requires contextualisation within its specific discipline’s theoretical bases. For a visual arts practice-based thesis, the relevant bases include those of aesthetics and visual perception. This article reviews a Western history of the domain of visual aesthetic theory, addressing both the Analytical philosophical efforts to define art, and the Continental approaches which construe art as social construction. It then reviews a third, normative stance which foregrounds cognitive value before definition or sociological context; an Aesthetic Cognitivist position, art practice as a means of acquiring and sharing experiential knowledge and understanding. Contemporary global concerns about the environment are addressed in detail under the heading Ecological Aesthetics. Somaesthetics is also recognised as a burgeoning field, in the Introduction.
Aesthetic theories are related to visual perception theories as an aid to fulfilling the scholarly requirements for a practice-based thesis.