• Advancing Arts Leadership
  • Introduction
  • Purposes of Art
  • Studio Structures and Habits of Mind
  • What is Art?
  • Why Teach the Arts?
  • Introduction to Arts Integration
  • Models of Arts Integration: More Than One Way to Do It
  • Performing Arts in the Early Childhood Classroom
  • Download
  • Translations
  • Purposes of Art

    The role of arts in society

    The arts play a major role in our lives and impact us personally and collectively. The arts allow the expression of individual voices as well as represent the collective voice of a community. To discuss the roles and the impact the arts have on daily life and society we highlight four genres of art, each of which carries a different purpose for the creation and performance of art.

    Fine Arts

    Our definition: Creative works of art produced to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, intellectual content or technical skill.

    Listen to others describe the purpose of fine art.

    Folk and Community Arts

    Our definition: works of art made in the context of folk or traditional culture, often produced to unify communities and demonstrate or teach group values or skills for everyday life.

    Local folk arts are often supported by state agencies and local county or city arts councils. The Utah Division of Arts and Museum has sponsored the Alice Merril Horne Folk Art Collection since 1976 and manages the Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts in Salt Lake City.

    Fun Fact: “The Chase Home Museum of Utah Folk Arts is the only museum in the country dedicated to displaying a state-owned collection of contemporary folk art. It features objects made by Utah artists from the state’s American Indian, rural, occupational, and ethnic communities. The Museum offers a snapshot of Utah’s heritage and contemporary culture” (Chase Home Website).

    Cultures all over the world preserve and celebrate their traditions through visual art, music, dance, theater, literary and media arts. See some international examples below:

    Entertainment Arts

    Our definition: works of art produced to entertain an audience and cater to trends in mass media.

    This category is for all you “Swifties!” Think big box-office movie hits, sold-out concert arenas, the Super Bowl half-time show, and shows like “Dancing with the Stars” or “The Voice.” We love our entertainment art!

    On the local level, entertainment art may be a marching band half-time performance at the high school football game; the dance company performs a hip-hop piece at a basketball game; your digitally produced visual- and audio-studded, student-produced school announcements: these are examples of art where the primary focus is to entertain and/or make a profit! 

    Cosmo the Cougar & the Cougarettes Dance

    A school mascot and dance team provide rousing entertainment at athletic events to ignite passion and support from fans. Here’s a local example that has made a splash on the National college sports scene, Cosmo the Cougar and the BYU Cougarettes!

    Cosmo the Cougar & the Cougarettes Dance - BYU Vs Boise St 2017

    Ceremonial and Ritual Arts

    Our definition: works of art produced to facilitate sacred, spiritual, secular, or religious ceremonies or rituals.

    Rites of passage that mark milestones in a person’s life, sacred ceremonies, and secular or political customs are often integrated with the production of works of art meant to express the emotion, import, or meaning of the event.

    The following are a few examples of art produced for ceremonial and ritual purposes.

    • Artists are invited to perform at the inauguration ceremony for the President of the United States. A recent example is Amanda Gorman’s performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” in 2021.
    • Ojibwe jingle dress dance is performed by Native American women on special occasions as a healing dance. The women wear specific regalia adorned by beads that emit a jingling sound as they dance.
    • A ceremonial art may be the singing of the National Anthem at community and sporting events. Here is a video of Whitney Houston singing the Star Spangled Banner in 1991.

    Artist Intent and Aesthetic Preference

    The purpose of a work of art is related to the message of the artist, the intended audience, and the artist's personal aesthetic preferences. Conversely, an artist's aesthetic choices could be influenced by their message, audience, and purpose of a work of art. The development of a work of art sometimes begins with a specific purpose and aesthetic preference, or the purpose and aesthetic preference can evolve over time. A work of art could accomplish several purposes simultaneously, similar to the way a single work of art may represent multiple aesthetic theories.

    How an artist approaches the creative process is often determined upon reflection on questions like these:


    Purposes of Art in the Elementary Classroom

    Deepening Student Learning Through the Arts

    There are a variety of compelling reasons to infuse, integrate, and include the arts in the classroom. In general, teachers bring the arts into the classroom with the ultimate goal to support student learning. Student learning is achieved when subgoals such as engaging students, building relationships, assessing knowledge, addressing individual needs, and enacting learning routines are also achieved. The following list breaks down some (but not all) of the specific roles the arts can play in the elementary classroom and how they directly support the ultimate goal of deepening student learning.







            




    Improving School Culture Through the Arts


    When student learning is deepened through engagement in the arts, this learning can change a school. Students learn how to learn, think, and create. Students make choices and decisions developing personal voice and self-responsibility. School hallways fill with student artwork. Collections of student artwork evolve into grand visual encyclopedias of the student’s learning. Classrooms are filled with melody, rhythm, and movement. Students sing and skip on the playground and in the hallways. In this stimulating environment, students and staff look alive, they feel alive, they act alive.


    Check out these teacher stories on the Artful Teaching Podcast:


    Arts pedagogy, arts appreciation, and engagement in the arts can change the culture of a school. For example, when one grade-level team member adopts arts integrated pedagogy, their success may spread and the interest and curiosity across school staff may begin to grow. When a team of teachers who appreciate the arts brings a lecture demonstration or performance to the school, they are providing all children access to engage with the arts. This experience can help admin, staff, and teachers see students in new ways as they respond, reflect, and engage with the performance.


    As the visionary leader, the principal is a key part of building an arts-rich culture in a school. Supportive administrators can make it easier for teachers to achieve their goals for student learning experiences.


    Consider the impact of the arts on the following elements of school culture, and/or how these elements of school culture can support arts learning:



    Americans for the Arts partnered with Vans Custom Culture to produce a series of Ebooks titled the Arts Education Navigator. Ebook #3, “Facts & Figures,” draws on classic arts education research such as “Champions of Change,” as well as new reports like “Arts Education in America: What the Declines Mean for Arts Participation” to present key data points about the impact of the arts on students and schools.











    This content is provided to you freely by BYU Open Learning Network.

    Access it online or download it at https://open.byu.edu/advancingartsleadership/purposes_of_art.