Art Museums can teach a lot about visual literacy.

• Art is a form of communication- it is a language.

  • To be visually literate, knowing the alphabet, vocabulary, and grammar of “seeing” is crucial.

Children from birth to the age of five are taking in more information (through their senses) than at any other point in their lives.

Everything we see is an image.

• A text is an image, and an image is a text.

We have to learn to read images through the process of vision.

• We see images all of the time and we need to broaden what it means to be literate.

• To read images rather than texts as images.
  We live in a media-drive, image-saturated culture. 
  In the last 4 years, young people are looking at images 7 hours and 38 minutes every day.

  • How many children have been taught to read images?

The use of every type of media has increased over the decade

• Except reading and reading images.

Socio-economic limit (100 hours for low versus 1,000 for high by the age of five).

• 10 times more advantaged going to school.  

Young people should know that museums are welcoming.

Visual literacy: the ability to construct meaning from what we see.

• Visual literacy has many definitions which makes it difficult (should be understandable so it becomes a part of the curriculum)

• International Visual Literacy Association (est. 1960’s).

Focal Point learner: you look at the whole photo to find what is different.

• Challenged or did not grow up in a culture that emphasized visual literacy so you scan an image.

A visually literate person can read and write a visual image.

• “Visual literacy is the ability to construct meaning from images. It’s not a skill.”

• It’s a form of critical thinking that enhances your intellectual capacity.

Visual Literacy Enables:

• Content interpretation of visual images.

• Examining the social impact.

• Discussion of purpose, ownership, and audience.

Intermediality: combined literacies are needed to read in a multi-media world.

Today, our education system emphasizes textual and computer literacy (digits and letters), but neglects sensory literacy (human senses as core curriculum).

• Human senses should go into STEM.

The dominant sense is the visual sense- train ourselves to see.

There have only been 3 communication revolutions in history.

• Cuneiform Writing

• Printed Image

• Digital Image

We need to continue to teach our human senses to understand vision.

• 90% of our information is received by our eyes- memory bank of images that interprets the world.

  • The optic nerve has a million nerve fibers (30% of the brain- more than any sense).

Learning to (sequential):

• Look

• See

• Describe

• Analyze

• Interpret

Visual elements of art:

• Line

• Shape 

• Color (hue, intensity, value)

• Space

• Texture

Principles of Art:

• Emphasis: the points of focus

• Balance: visual equilibrium

• Harmony: the balance of similar elements

• Variety: contrasting elements

• Movement: what your eye is directed around the image

• Proportion: The relative scale

• Rhythm: the path your eye follows

• Unity: overall coherence

Art History: analysis of works of art

Form: elements of Art/ Principles of Design

Iconology: symbols and what they mean

Ideology: ideas, values, beliefs

Semiotics: signs, signifiers

Hermeneutics: Literal and intended meaning

We MUST teach visual literacy.