ARTISTIC CREATIVITY - the process of creating new aesthetic values of artistic creativity is an element of all types of social and production activity of a person, but in its full quality it finds expression in the creation and performance of works of art. The ideological and aesthetic orientation of creativity is determined by the artist’s social and class position, his worldview and aesthetic ideal.
Creativity in art is innovation both in the content and in the form of artistic works. The ability to think productively is certainly a mandatory sign of talent. But innovation is not an end in itself. Creativity is necessary for the product of aesthetic activity to have both novelty and social significance; so that its creation and method of use meet the interests of the advanced classes and contribute to socio-cultural progress. Unlike formalist aestheticians, who view creativity primarily only as the construction of new forms and structures, Marxist aestheticians proceed from the fact that heuristic work in art is characterized by the creation of new social values within the framework of such structures.
Artistic creativity is inseparable from development cultural heritage, from which the artist spontaneously or consciously selects traditions that have a progressive meaning and correspond to his individuality. Creativity, on the one hand, presupposes the acceptance and development of certain traditions, on the other hand, the rejection of some of them, their overcoming. The creative process is a dialectical unity of creation and negation. The main thing in this unity is creation. The preaching of self-directed destruction, characteristic of many theorists of decadence and modernism, turns into pseudo-innovation, draining the creative potential of the artist. In order to move forward in art without repeating anyone, you need to know well the achievements of your predecessors.
In terms of socio-gnoseological creativity is a figurative reflection of the objective world, its new vision and understanding by the artist. It also acts as an actualization of the artist’s personality, his life experience. Self-expression, subjective in nature, is not opposed to the objective, but is a form of its reflection in a work of art. In this case, this self-expression turns out to be simultaneously an expression of generally valid, popular and class ideas.
Freedom of imagination, fantasy and intuition, breadth of outlook, the desire for a comprehensive knowledge of existence are necessary components of creativity. At the same time, the artist also needs self-restraint in the selection and interpretation of life material, concentration and selectivity of attention, strict discipline of the mind and heart. A holistic artistic image, in which the creative process results, is born only when the artist is able to see and deeply comprehend what is natural and typical through life situations and the facts of his own biography. In this capacity, artistic creativity acts as creativity according to the “laws of beauty” (K. Marx).
Formation creative personality- one of the important tasks of pedagogical theory and practice at the present stage. Its solution should begin already in preschool childhood. The most effective means for this is the visual activity of children in a preschool institution.
In the process of drawing, sculpting, applique, the child experiences a variety of feelings: he is happy beautiful image, which he created himself, is upset if something doesn’t work out. But the most important thing: by creating an image, the child acquires various knowledge; his ideas about the environment are clarified and deepened; in the process of work, he begins to comprehend the qualities of objects and remember them characteristic features and details, master visual skills and abilities, learn to use them consciously. Aristotle also noted that drawing contributes to the diversified development of a child. Outstanding teachers of the past - J. A. Komensky, I. G. Pestalozzi, F. Frebel - and many domestic researchers wrote about this. Their work shows: drawing and other types of artistic activities create the basis for full, meaningful communication between children and with adults; perform a therapeutic function, distracting children from sad, sad events, relieve nervous tension, fears, cause a joyful, upbeat mood, and provide a positive emotional state. Therefore, it is so important to widely include a variety of artistic and creative activities in the pedagogical process. Here every child can express himself most fully without any pressure from an adult.
Management of visual activities requires the teacher to know what creativity in general, and especially children’s, is, knowledge of its specifics, the ability to subtly, tactfully, supporting the initiative and independence of the child, to promote the mastery of the necessary skills and abilities and the development of creative potential. The famous researcher A. Lilov expressed his understanding of creativity as follows: “...creativity has its own general, qualitatively new signs and characteristics that define it, some of which have already been quite convincingly revealed by the theory. These general natural points are as follows:
- creativity is a social phenomenon,
- its deep social essence lies in the fact that it creates socially necessary and socially useful values, satisfies social needs, and especially in the fact that it is the highest concentration of the transformative role of a conscious social subject (class, people, society) in its interaction with the objective reality."
Another researcher, V. G. Zlotnikov, points out: artistic creativity is characterized by the continuous unity of cognition and imagination, practical activity and mental processes; it is a specific spiritual and practical activity, as a result of which a special material product arises - a work of art.
What is the visual creativity of a child before? school age? Domestic teachers and psychologists consider creativity as the creation by a person of something objectively and subjectively new. It is subjective novelty that makes up the result creative activity children of preschool and primary school age. Drawing, cutting and pasting, child preschool age creates something subjectively new for himself. The product of his creativity does not have any universal novelty or value. But its subjective value is significant.
The visual activity of children, as a prototype of adult activity, contains the socio-historical experience of generations. It is known that this experience was carried out and materialized in tools and products of activity, as well as in methods of activity developed by socio-historical practice. A child cannot master this experience without the help of an adult. It is the adult who is the bearer of this experience and its transmitter. By mastering this experience, the child develops. At the same time, the visual activity itself, as a typical child’s activity, including drawing, modeling, appliqué, contributes to the diversified development of the child.
How do famous domestic scientists define children's creativity? How is its significance determined for the formation of a child’s personality?
Teacher V.N. Shatskaya believes: in the conditions of general aesthetic education, children's artistic creativity is more likely to be considered as a method of the most perfect mastery of a certain type of art and the formation of an aesthetically developed personality, rather than as the creation of objective artistic values.
Researcher children's creativity E.A. Flerina evaluates it as a child’s conscious reflection of the surrounding reality in drawing, modeling, design, a reflection that is built on the work of imagination, displaying his observations, as well as impressions received through words, pictures and other forms of art. The child does not passively copy the environment, but processes it in connection with accumulated experience and attitude towards what is depicted.
A. A. Volkova states: “Nurturing creativity is a versatile and complex impact on a child. In the creative activity of adults, the mind (knowledge, thinking, imagination), character (courage, perseverance), feeling (love of beauty, fascination with an image, thought) take part. We must cultivate these same aspects of the child’s personality in order to more successfully develop creativity in him. Enriching the child’s mind with various ideas and some knowledge means giving abundant food for creativity. Teaching him to look carefully and be observant means making his ideas clear. more complete. This will help children more vividly reproduce what they see in their creativity.”
I. Ya. Lerner defines the features of a child’s creative activity as follows:
independent transfer of previously acquired knowledge to a new situation;
vision of a new function of an object (object);
vision of the problem in a standard situation;
vision of the structure of the object;
ability to make alternative solutions;
combining previously known methods of activity with new ones.
I. Ya. Lerner states: creativity can be taught, but this teaching is special, it is not the same as knowledge and skills that are usually taught.
We were convinced of the correctness of this idea in our own practice. However, we note: the independent transfer of previously acquired knowledge to a new situation (the first trait according to Lerner) can manifest itself in children if they learn to perceive objects, objects of reality, and learn to identify their forms, including in this process the movements of both hands along the contour of the object. (In other words, just as we outline an object, looking at it, we also draw - with pencils, brushes, felt-tip pens.) Only then will children be able to use this method independently, only then will they gradually acquire the freedom to depict any objects, even those that do not have a clearly fixed shape, for example, clouds, puddles, floating ice, unmelted snow.
The second feature according to Lerner - the vision of a new function of an object (object) - appears when the child begins to use substitute objects, for example, turning cut narrow and wide strips into parts of objects or objects; plays with spoons, imagining that he is playing in an orchestra. This ability to highlight a form, a part, in the process of perception, which we form in children, leads them to seeing the structure of an object, mastering the ways of conveying it in drawing, modeling, and appliqué. That is why we recommend that in creative classes, include in the work plan the topic “Teaching to create images of animals, the shape and structure of which have been learned.”
By introducing children to works of art (fine arts, literature, music), we thereby introduce them to the world of standards of beauty, i.e. We implement the goals and objectives mentioned above - to understand the expressiveness of means and figurative solutions, the variety of color and compositional construction. Knowing, for example, the secrets of Dymkovo painting, a child will undoubtedly use them, creating images of fairy-tale animals and birds; comprehends the qualities of what is depicted, the remembered characteristic features.
What characterizes creativity? In this regard, B. M. Teplov writes: “The main condition that must be ensured in children’s creativity is sincerity. Without it, all other virtues lose meaning.”
This condition, naturally, is satisfied by the creativity “that arises in a child independently, based on an internal need, without any deliberate pedagogical stimulation.” But systematic pedagogical work, according to the scientist, cannot be based only on independently arising creativity, which is not observed in many children, although these same children, when organized in an organized manner, sometimes display extraordinary creative abilities.
This is how a pedagogical problem arises - the search for such incentives for creativity that would give rise to a genuine, effective desire to “compose” in the child. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy found such an incentive. When starting to teach peasant children, the great Russian writer already understood how significant the task of “developing children's creativity” was; as one of the possible solutions, he offered children joint compositions (see the article “Who should learn to write from whom?”). So, what is the essence of involving children in artistic creativity, according to L.N. Tolstoy? Show not only the product, but also the very creative process of writing, drawing, etc. in order to see with my own eyes how “it’s done.” Then, as the domestic researcher of the psychology of children's creativity E. I. Ignatiev writes, the child “from simply listing individual details in the drawing moves on to an accurate transfer of the features of the depicted object. At the same time, the role of the word in visual arts, the word is increasingly acquiring the meaning of a regulator that directs the process of depiction, controlling the techniques and methods of depiction."
In the process of drawing and modeling, the child experiences a variety of feelings; as we have already noted, he rejoices at a beautiful image, gets upset if something doesn’t work out, tries to achieve a result that satisfies him, or, conversely, gets lost, gives up, refuses to study (in this case, the teacher’s sensitive, attentive attitude and help are needed). Working on an image, he acquires knowledge, his ideas about the environment are clarified and deepened. The child not only masters new visual skills and abilities that expand his creative capabilities, but also learns to consciously use them. A very significant factor from the point of view of mental development. After all, every child, when creating an image of a particular object, conveys the plot, includes his feelings, and understanding of how it should look. This is the essence of children's fine arts, which manifests itself not only when the child independently comes up with the theme of his drawing, modeling, appliqué, but also when he creates an image on the instructions of the teacher, determining the composition, color scheme and other means of expression, making interesting additions, etc.
Analysis of provisions on children's creativity by famous domestic scientists - G. V. Latunskaya, V. S. Kuzin, P. P. Pidkasisty, I. Ya. Lerner, N. P. Sakulina, B. M. Teplov, E. A. Flerina - and ours Many years of research allow us to formulate its working definition. By artistic creativity of preschool children we mean the creation of a subjectively new (important for the child, first of all) product (drawing, modeling, story, dance, song, game); creation (invention) of previously unused details that characterize in a new way created image(in a drawing, story, etc.), different options images, situations, movements, its beginning, end, new actions, characteristics of heroes, etc.; the use of previously learned methods of depiction or means of expressiveness in a new situation (to depict objects of a familiar shape - based on mastering facial expressions, gestures, voice variations, etc.); showing initiative in everything.
By creativity we will understand the very process of creating images of a fairy tale, story, dramatization games in drawing, etc., the search for methods in the process of activity, ways of solving a problem, visual, gaming, musical.
From our assumed understanding of artistic creativity, it is obvious: in order to develop creativity, children need certain knowledge, skills and abilities, methods of activity that they themselves, without the help of adults, cannot master. In other words: we are talking about purposeful learning, mastering rich artistic experience.
For kids (junior groups) creativity in the creation of an image can manifest itself in a change in the size of objects. Let me explain this idea: a lesson is going on, the children are making apples, and if someone, having completed the task, decides to independently make a smaller or larger apple, or a different color (yellow, green), for him this is already a creative decision. The manifestation of creativity in younger preschoolers also includes some additions to modeling, drawing, say, a stick - a stalk.
As skills are mastered (already in older groups), creative solutions become more complex. Fantastic images appear in drawings, sculpting, and applications, fairy-tale heroes, palaces, magical nature, outer space with flying ships and even astronauts working in orbit. And in this situation, the teacher’s positive attitude towards the child’s initiative and creativity is an important incentive for the development of his creativity. The teacher notes and encourages the creative discoveries of children, opens exhibitions of children's creativity in the group, in the hall, in the lobby, and decorates the institution with the works of pupils.
In a child’s creative activity, three main stages should be distinguished, each of which, in turn, can be detailed and requires specific methods and techniques of guidance on the part of the teacher.
The first is the emergence, development, awareness and design of the plan. The theme of the upcoming image can be determined by the child himself or proposed by the teacher (its specific decision is determined only by the child himself). How younger child, the more situational and unstable his plan is. Our research shows: initially, three-year-old children can implement their plans only in 30-40 percent of cases. The rest basically change the idea and, as a rule, name what they want to draw, then create something completely different. Sometimes the idea changes several times. Only by the end of the year, and only if classes are carried out systematically (in 70-80 percent of cases), do children’s ideas and implementation begin to coincide. What is the reason? On the one hand, in the situational nature of a child’s thinking: at first he wanted to draw one object, suddenly another object comes into his field of vision, which seems more interesting to him. On the other hand, when naming the object of the image, the child, having still very little experience in the activity, does not always correlate what he has in mind with his own visual possibilities. Therefore, having picked up a pencil or brush and realizing his inability, he abandons the original plan. The older the children, the richer their experience in visual activity, the more stable their idea becomes.
The second stage is the process of creating the image. The topic of the task not only does not deprive the child of the opportunity to show creativity, but also guides his imagination, of course, if the teacher does not regulate the solution. Significantly greater opportunities arise when the child creates an image according to his own plans, when the teacher only sets the direction for choosing the topic and content of the image. Activities at this stage require the child to be able to master the methods of representation, expressive means, specific for drawing, sculpting, appliqué.
The third stage - analysis of the results - is closely related to the previous two - this is their logical continuation and completion. Viewing and analysis of what children create is carried out at their maximum activity, which allows them to more fully comprehend the result of their own activities. At the end of the lesson, everything created by the children is exhibited at a special stand, i.e. Each child is given the opportunity to see the work of the entire group and note, with a friendly justification for their choice, those that they liked the most. Tactful, guiding questions from the teacher will allow children to see the creative discoveries of their comrades, an original and expressive solution to the topic.
A detailed analysis of children's drawings, modeling or appliqué is optional for each lesson. This is determined by the feature and purpose created images. But here’s what’s important: the teacher conducts the discussion of the work and their analysis in a new way every time. So, if the children made Christmas tree decorations, then at the end of the lesson all the toys are hung on the furry beauty. If you created a collective composition, then upon completion of the work the teacher draws attention to the general appearance of the picture and asks you to think about whether it is possible to complement the panorama, make it richer, and therefore more interesting. If children decorated a doll's dress, then all the best works are "displayed in the store" so that the doll or several dolls can "choose" what they like.
Experts distinguish three groups of means, the purpose of which is to increase the level of aesthetic education: art in all forms, the surrounding life, including nature, artistic and creative activity. Thanks to these interconnected means, the child actively participates in the experience of creative activity of adults. However, effective leadership is possible provided that the teacher knows and takes into account the mental processes that underlie children's creativity and, most importantly, systematically develops them.
What mental processes are we talking about? Of all the means of aesthetic education, all types of artistic activity, we identify common groups that form the basis of creative abilities.
1. Perception of objects and phenomena of reality and their properties, which has individual differences. It is known that in their drawings, modeling, and applications, children reflect the impressions received from the world around them. This means that they have formed various impressions about this world. Ideas about objects and phenomena are formed on the basis of their perception. Therefore, the most important condition for creativity is to develop children’s perception (visual, tactile, kinesthetic) and to form a diverse sensory experience.
How should education be carried out so that children acquire the necessary knowledge and ideas? Psychologists note: syncretism, unity and lack of clarity of perception images are characteristic of children of primary preschool age. To depict an object or phenomenon, a child must imagine all its basic properties and convey them so that the image is recognizable. For a small artist this is quite significant.
The teacher forms knowledge and ideas about the environment purposefully. These include special observations and examination of the subject during didactic games. The teacher directs the child’s perception to certain properties and qualities of objects (phenomena). After all, not all preschoolers come to kindergarten, having a rich experience of perceiving the environment - figurative, aesthetically colored, emotionally positive. For the majority, it is limited to fragmentation, one-sidedness, and often simply poverty. In order to develop aesthetic perception in children, the teacher himself must have the ability of aesthetic vision. V. A. Sukhomlinsky also emphasized: “You cannot be a teacher without mastering a subtle emotional and aesthetic vision of the world.”
Children should not just look at an object, recognize and highlight its properties: shape, structure, color, etc. They should see its artistic merits, which are to be depicted. Not everyone is able to independently determine the beauty of an object. The teacher shows them this. Otherwise, the concept of “beautiful” will not acquire a specific meaning in the eyes of the student and will remain formal. But in order for him to understand why this or that object, this or that phenomenon is beautiful, the teacher himself, we repeat, must feel and see the beauty in life. He constantly develops this quality in himself and his children.
How to do this? Day after day, watch with your children the phenomena of nature - how the buds swell on trees and bushes, how they gradually blossom, covering the tree with leaves. And how varied are the gray clouds driven by the wind of bad weather, how quickly do their shape, position, and color change! Pay attention to the beauty of the movement of the clouds, the changes in their shape. Observe how beautifully the sky and surrounding objects are illuminated by the rays of the setting sun.
This kind of observation can be carried out with different objects. The ability to contemplate beauty and enjoy it is very important for the development of children's creativity. It is not without reason that in Japan, where the culture of aesthetic perception is so high, teachers develop children’s powers of observation, the ability to listen attentively, to peer into their surroundings - to catch the difference in the sound of rain, to see and hear how heavy drops loudly knock on the glass, how joyfully the sudden summer “mushroom” rings. " rain.
Objects for observation are found daily. Their goal is to expand children's understanding of the world, its variability and beauty. The Russian language is so rich in epithets, comparisons, metaphors, poetic lines! N.P. Sakulina once drew attention to this.
L. S. Vygotsky, speaking about the role of training, emphasized: training leads to development. At the same time, he drew attention: “Training can provide more in development than what is contained in its immediate results. Applied to one point in the sphere of a child’s thought, it modifies and rearranges many other points. It can have remote, rather than only immediate consequences."
It is precisely this long-term result that we can talk about when it comes to the formation of figurative ideas in children in the process of learning visual arts. The statement is not accidental. Proof of this is the work of E. A. Bugrimenko, A. L. Venger, K. N. Polivanova, E. Yu. Sutkova, the topic of which is preparing children for school, diagnosing mental development and its correction. The authors note: “The insufficient level of development of figurative ideas is one of the common causes of difficulties in learning not only at the age of six, but also much later (up to high school). At the same time, the period of their most intensive formation occurs in preschool and the beginning of primary school age Therefore, if a child entering school has problems, then they must be “compensated” as soon as possible with visual and constructive activities - in his free time, encourage activities in drawing, modeling, appliqué, and design.”
When characterizing a child’s thinking, psychologists usually distinguish stages: visual-effective, visual-figurative, logical. Visual-figurative is based on visual representations and their transformation as a means of solving a mental problem. It is known that entering a new stage of thinking does not mean overcoming the previous stage. It is preserved in the child, helps in the development of thinking at a new stage, and forms the basis for the formation of various activities and abilities. Moreover, experts believe that this form of thinking is necessary not only for children’s creativity, but also for the creativity of a person of any profession. That is why it is so important to develop imaginative thinking, as well as imagination, a positive emotional attitude, mastery of image methods, expressive means of drawing, sculpting, and appliqué.
Magazine " Preschool education" № 2, 2005
Creativity in art is the creation of something that reflects the real world surrounding a person. Divided into types in accordance with the methods of material embodiment. Creativity in art is united by one task - serving society.
Classification
The modern system of dividing art, as well as those associated with it, involves three separate categories.
The first group includes types of art that are perceived visually. These include:
- Arts and crafts creativity.
- The art of architecture.
- Creativity in the visual arts.
- The art of sculptural images.
- Painting.
- Art photography as a form of creativity.
The second group includes types of art of a long-term nature. This:
- Fiction as a vast layer of culture, consisting of numerous creative methods for creating works.
- Music in all its diversity as a reflection of creative processes in art.
Some species may be related to each other, such as musical opera synthesized with literature when creating a libretto.
The third group consists of spatio-temporal types of creativity, perceived both visually and aurally:
- Theater arts.
- The art of choreography, musical, ballet.
- Film art.
- Genre of circus performance.
Creativity in the art of individual forms
A comprehensive artistic picture cannot be created from one type of art. Even such academic forms as painting or sculpture need additional means - the paintings must be placed in a beautiful frame, and the sculpture must be properly lit.
Therefore, a fairly wide field arises for the use of various creative processes in art, some may be fundamental, others auxiliary, but in any case, both will be useful. Examples of creativity in art can be given endlessly. There are several gradations here, but they all obey one general formulation: great art requires high standards of creativity, smaller cultural categories are content with a lower creative level.
The situation is different in the field of science. A low level of professionalism is absolutely unacceptable there. and art are incomparable things. Science does not forgive mistakes, and art can turn any relative shortcomings into good.
Talent and technology
Creativity in the art of small forms, such as small plastic arts in the arts and crafts field or stage sketches in the theater, does not require high vocational training. To succeed in this kind of creativity, it is enough to have a certain talent and master the technologies for making artistic products or have the ability for theatrical productions. In literature to write short story or an essay, you don’t have to be a writer, it’s enough to have good taste and be able to correctly express your thoughts.
One of the areas of culture where a person can successfully apply his creative potential is the artistic value of folk arts and crafts products can be quite high if masters of their craft work. In addition to masterfully making crafts, you must first select the right material, and only an experienced craftsman can handle this task.
Utility
Creativity in the art of a decorative and applied artist is the creation of artistic household items. As a rule, these products belong to folklore, regardless of whether they are used for their intended purpose or placed as exhibits at an exhibition. Natural materials are used in the manufacture of decorative items: bone, stone, wood, clay.
The methods of processing raw materials are also relatively simple - it is manual work using simple tools, and the techniques used today have come modern world from the distant past.
Local affiliation
Folk arts and crafts, which form the basis of decorative and applied arts in Russia, are distributed by region, each type belongs to a specific area:
- bone carving - Kholmogory, Khotkovo;
- embroidery - Vladimir gold embroidery;
- metal art products - scarlet silver of Veliky Ustyug;
- - Pavlovo Posad shawls;
- lace weaving - Vologda, Mikhailovskoe;
- Russian ceramics - Gzhel, Skopino, Dymkovo toy, Kargopol;
- picturesque miniatures - Palekh, Mstera, Kholui;
- wooden carvings - Bogorodskaya, Abramtsevo-Kudrinskaya;
- wood painting - Khokhloma, Gorodetskaya, Fedoskino.
Sculpture
The art of creating relief sculptures has its roots in the Middle Ages. Sculpture as a fine art embodies the real world in artistic images. The materials used to create sculptures are stone, bronze, marble, granite, wood. In particularly large-scale projects, concrete, steel reinforcement, and various plasticized fillers are used.
Sculptural sculptures are conventionally divided into two types: relief and three-dimensional three-dimensional. Both are widely used to create monuments, monuments and memorials. Relief sculptures, in turn, are divided into three subtypes:
- bas-relief - low or medium relief image;
- high relief - high relief;
- counter-relief - inset image.
Each sculpture can be classified and categorized as easel, decorative, or monumental. Easel sculptures are, as a rule, museum exhibits. They are located indoors. Decorative ones are placed in public places, parks, squares, and garden plots. always stand in frequently visited public places, in city squares, central streets and in close proximity to government institutions.
Architecture
Utilitarian architecture appeared about four thousand years ago, and began to acquire signs of artistry shortly before the Nativity of Christ. Architecture has been considered an independent art form since the beginning of the twelfth century, when architects began to erect Gothic buildings in European countries.
Creativity in the art of architecture is the creation of unique artistic point view of buildings. A good example of creativity in the construction of residential buildings can be considered the projects of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi, which are located in Barcelona.
Literature
Spatio-temporal types of art are the most popular and popular categories accepted in society. Literature is a type of creativity in which the fundamental factor is artistic word. Russian culture eighteenth-nineteenth centuries knew many brilliant writers and poets.
The creativity in the art of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, the great Russian poet, was extremely fruitful, for its short life he created a number of immortal works in poetry and prose. Almost all of them are considered masterpieces of literature. Some are included in the list of brilliant creations of world significance.
Lermontov's creativity in art also left a noticeable mark. His works are textbook, classical in essence. The poet also died early, at the age of twenty-six. But he managed to leave behind an invaluable legacy, masterpiece poems and many poems.
The brilliant Russian writer Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol left his mark on Russian literature of the nineteenth century. The writer lived and worked during his heyday Russian society. Art in Gogol's works is represented by many highly artistic works included in the Golden Fund of Russian culture.
Choreography and ballet
The art of dance originated in Rus' in ancient times. People first began to communicate in the language of dance during holiday celebrations. Then the dances took the form of theatrical performances, and professional dancers and ballerinas appeared. At first, the dance floor was the stage of a booth or the arena of a circus tent. Then studios began to open, in which both rehearsals and ballet performances took place. The term “choreography” has come into use, which means “the art of dance”.
Ballet quickly became a popular form of creativity, especially since dancing was necessarily accompanied by music, most often classical. The theater audience was divided into two camps: lovers of dramatic or opera performances and those who prefer to watch a dance performance on theater stage with musical accompaniment.
Film art
The most popular and widespread form of art is cinema. Over the last half century it has been replaced by television, but millions of people still go to cinemas. What explains such a high demand for cinema? First of all, the versatility of this art form. Any literary work can be filmed, and it will become even more interesting in a new reading. Ballet performances, popular science stories - all this can also be shown to moviegoers.
There is a whole industry of film production, the basis of which is made up of major film studios, such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and several others. All major film production companies are located in Hollywood, a special area of the American city of Los Angeles. Hundreds of smaller film studios are scattered around the world. “Dream Factory” is what world cinema is called, and this is a very accurate definition.
ARTISTIC CREATIVITY AS A WAY TO IMPROVE THINKING
General characteristics of the concept of “thinking”
General characteristics of the concept of “artistic creativity”
Psychological mechanisms of artistic creativity, the connection between artistic creativity and thinking
1. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONCEPT OF “THINKING”
Life constantly presents a person with acute and urgent tasks and problems. The emergence of such problems, difficulties, surprises means that in the reality around us there is still a lot of unknown, incomprehensible, unforeseen, hidden, requiring an ever deeper knowledge of the world, the discovery in it of more and more new processes, properties and relationships of people and things. The Universe is infinite, and the process of understanding it is endless. Thinking is always directed into these endless depths of the unknown, the new. Every person makes many discoveries in his life (it doesn’t matter that these discoveries are small, only for himself, and not for humanity).
Thinking - this is a socially conditioned, inextricably linked with speech, mental process of searching and discovering something essentially new, a process of mediated and generalized reflection of reality in the course of its analysis and synthesis. Thinking arises on the basis of practical activity from sensory knowledge and goes far beyond its limits.
Cognitive activity begins with sensations and perceptions. Any, even the most developed, thinking always maintains a connection with sensory knowledge, i.e. with sensations, perceptions and ideas. Mental activity receives all its material from only one source - from sensory knowledge. Through sensations and perceptions, thinking is directly connected with the outside world and is its reflection. The correctness (adequacy) of this reflection is continuously verified in the process of practical transformation of nature and society.
The sensory picture of the world that our sensations and perceptions give us every day is necessary, but not sufficient for its deep, comprehensive knowledge. In this sensory picture of the reality directly observed by us, the most complex interactions of various objects, events, phenomena, etc., their causes and consequences, and mutual transitions into each other are almost not dissected. It is simply impossible to unravel this tangle of dependencies and connections, which appears in our perception in all its colorfulness and spontaneity, with the help of sensory knowledge alone. In perception, only the general, summary result of a person’s interaction with a cognizable object is given. But in order to live and act, one must first of all know what external objects are in themselves, i.e. objectively, regardless of how they appear to a person, and in general, regardless of whether they are cognizable or not.
Since within the framework of sensory cognition alone it is impossible to fully dissect such a general, total, direct effect of the interaction of a subject with a cognizable object, a transition from sensations and perceptions to thinking is necessary. In the course of thinking, further, deeper knowledge of the external world is realized. As a result, it is possible to dismember and unravel the most complex interdependencies between objects, events, and phenomena.
In the process of thinking, using the data of sensations, perceptions and ideas, a person at the same time goes beyond the limits of sensory knowledge, i.e. begins to cognize such phenomena of the external world, their properties and relationships, which are not directly given in perceptions and therefore are not directly observable at all.
Practical-effective, visual-figurative and theoretical-abstract - interconnected types of thinking . In the process of historical development, human intelligence was initially formed in the course of practical activity.
Genetically the earliest type of thinking - practically -effective thinking; Actions with objects are of decisive importance in it.
Based on practically effective manipulative thinking, there arises visual-figurative thinking. It is characterized by operating visually in the mind. The highest level of thinking is abstract, abstract thinking. But here, too, thinking remains connected with practice.
Thinking individuals also divided into mainly figurative(artistic) and abstract(theoretical). But in the process of life, for the same person, first one or another type of thinking comes to the fore.
The structural unit of practical (operational) thinking is action; artistic - image; scientific - concept.
Depending on the depth of generalization, there are empirical And theoretical thinking. Empirical thinking gives primary generalizations based on experience. These generalizations are made at a low level of abstraction. Empirical consciousness represents the lowest, elementary stage of cognition. Theoretical thinking reveals a universal relationship and explores the object of knowledge in the system of its necessary connections. Its result is the construction of theoretical models, the creation of theories, the generalization of experience, the disclosure of patterns of development of various phenomena, the knowledge of which ensures the transformative activity of a person. Theoretical thinking is inextricably linked with practice, but in its final results it has relative independence.
So, the information received by a person from the surrounding world allows a person to imagine not only the external, but also the internal side of an object, to imagine objects in their absence, to foresee their changes in time, to rush with thought into the vast distances and the microworld. All this is possible thanks to the thinking process. In psychology, thinking is understood as the process of an individual’s cognitive activity, characterized by a generalized and indirect reflection of reality. Starting from sensations and perceptions, thinking, going beyond the limits of sensory experience, expands the boundaries of our knowledge due to its nature, which allows us to indirectly (i.e. by inference) reveal what is not directly given (i.e. by perception). So, by looking at the thermometer hung on the outside of the window, we find out that it is quite cold outside. Seeing the treetops swaying strongly, we understand that there is wind outside.
Sensation and perception reflect individual aspects of phenomena, moments of reality in more or less random combinations. Thinking correlates the data of sensations and perceptions, juxtaposes, compares, distinguishes and reveals relationships. Through the disclosure of these relationships between the directly, sensorily given properties of things and phenomena, thinking reveals new, not directly given abstract properties: identifying relationships and comprehending reality in these relationships. Thus, thinking deeply understands the essence of the surrounding world, reflects being in its connections and relationships.
2. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONCEPT
"ARTISTIC CREATIVITY"
Creativity is an attribute of human activity. It predetermined the emergence of man and human society, underlies the further progress of material and spiritual production.
According to Leontiev A.A., creativity is not reduced to the activity of creating new material and spiritual values, as the Psychology dictionary defines it (in fairness, we note that this definition goes back to L.S. Vygotsky’s definition of creativity as “creating something new” ). This understanding is correct only from the point of view of the “processual” approach to creativity, which should rather be called “resultative”. It is no coincidence that the same dictionary entry speaks of a creative product as “distinguished by novelty, originality, and uniqueness.” This “novelty,” however, cannot in any way be used as the basis for a psychological understanding of creativity. Even if we talk about artistic creativity, such an understanding leaves aside a huge layer of so-called executive creativity - to define it creative nature through the originality of the final product seems to us a stretch.
Under the general name of creativity, its different types are united: technical, artistic, pedagogical, ethical, etc. All these types are psychologically unequal; for example, technical and artistic creativity are differently correlated with theoretical thinking. But they have one thing in common: a person’s ability to “act in uncertain situations.”
The condition for such ability is self-realization (self-determination) of the individual. According to A.A. Ukhtomsky, from an activity point of view, such an ability is multi-layered - it, in particular, can manifest itself at the level of both the holistic personality (artistic creativity) and the operational components of productive or cognitive (educational) activity (solving so-called creative problems ), at the level of the structure of indicative activity and the restructuring of the indicative basis of activity, and ultimately the image of the world ( scientific creativity), etc. But in all cases we are dealing with the independent “construction” of a system of relations between an individual person and the objective and social world, of which this personality is an integral part. The novelty here is not in an objectively new final product, but in the independent creation of a system of relationships with the world or in the transformation of the world (not necessarily a “material” one, rather a social one, the world of activity and relationships: the world in its entirety should be presented not as an object at all, but as process) through one's own activities.
Creativity is the highest form of activity and independent activity of man and society. It contains an element of the new, presupposes original and productive activity, the ability to solve problem situations, productive imagination combined with a critical attitude towards the achieved result. The scope of creativity covers actions from a non-standard solution to a simple problem to the full realization of an individual’s unique potential in a certain area.
Creation is a historically evolutionary form of human activity, expressed in various types of activities and leading to personality development. Realized through creativity historical development and connection between generations. It continuously expands human capabilities, creating conditions for conquering new heights.
A precondition for creative activity is the process of cognition, the accumulation of knowledge about the subject that is to be changed.
Creative activity - this is amateur activity, covering a change in reality and self-realization of the individual in the process of creating material and spiritual values, new more progressive forms of management, education, etc. and pushing the limits of human capabilities.
Creativity is based on the principle of activity, and more specifically, labor activity. The process of practical transformation by man of the surrounding world, in principle, determines the formation of man himself.
Creativity is an attribute of activity only of the human race. The generic essence of a person, his most important attributive property, is objective activity, the essence of which is creativity. However, this attribute is not inherent in a person from birth. Creativity is not a gift of nature, but a property acquired through work. It is transformative activity and inclusion in it that is a necessary condition for the development of the ability to create. The transformative activity of a person educates him as a subject of creativity, instills in him the appropriate knowledge and skills, educates his will, makes him comprehensively developed, allows him to create qualitatively new levels of material and spiritual culture, i.e. create.
There are two interpretations artistic creativity :
epistemological - from ancient ideas about the soul as wax in which objects are imprinted, to Lenin’s theory of reflection;
ontological - from ancient ideas about creativity as the soul’s recollection of its primordial essence, from medieval and romantic ideas that God speaks through the lips of a poet, that the artist is a medium of the Creator, to Berdyaev’s concept, which gave creativity a fundamental existential meaning.
Neither the ontological nor the epistemological component of creativity can be neglected. V. Solovyov saw in their interconnection a condition for the creative process. This theoretical tradition should be relied upon. It is from these positions that the artistic image and its features should be considered.
Artistic image
is specific and has the features of a representation, but of a special kind: a representation enriched with mental activity. Representations are a transitional stage between perception and concept, a generalization of the broadest layers of social practice. The idea contains both the meaning and meaning of the phenomenon being mastered. In order for artistic representations to become accessible to the audience, they must be objectified. An artistic image is an objectification of a system of artistic representations.
The conceptual principle is also present in artistic thinking - sometimes in a hidden, and sometimes in an explicit form. The conceptual content of a work of art consists of ideas and ideas objectified in the image. Artistic thinking is figurative. It combines generality and specificity with a personal form. Art recreates life in its integrity and thereby expands and deepens a person’s real life experience.
There is a hierarchy of value ranks that characterizes the degree of a person’s predisposition to artistic creativity: ability - giftedness - talent - genius.
According to I.V. Goethe, the genius of an artist is determined by the power of perception of the world and the impact on humanity. American psychologist D. Gilford notes the manifestation of six artist abilities in the process of creativity: fluency of thinking, analogies and contrasts, expressiveness, the ability to switch from one class of objects to another, adaptive flexibility or originality, the ability to give the artistic form the necessary outlines. Artistic talent presupposes acute attention to life, the ability to choose objects of attention, consolidate these impressions in memory, extract them from memory and include them in a rich system of associations and connections dictated by the creative imagination.
Many people engage in artistic activity in one form or another at one time or another in their lives with greater or lesser success. However, only artistic abilities ensure the creation of artistic values of public interest. An artistically gifted person creates works that have lasting significance for a given society for a significant period of its development. Talent gives rise to artistic values that have enduring national and sometimes universal significance. A brilliant artist creates the highest universal values that have significance for all times.
3. PSYCHOLOGICAL MECHANISMS OF ART
CREATIVITY, CONNECTION OF THE ARTISTIC
CREATIVITY AND THINKING
Along with the scientific knowledge of the world of ideas, the field of knowledge of human characters was actively developing, which ultimately led to the penetration of human individuality into the world. This was an area of artistic and aesthetic creativity that gave priority not so much to strict logic as to intuition and therefore, more freely than logically based knowledge, turned to the artistic modeling of man. Aesthetics’ comprehension of artistic images created by means of literature and art became the path that ultimately contributed to the formation of psychological science, which is so necessary for understanding culture in its phenomenological state and historical unfolding.
Artistic activity plays an important role in the process of scientific self-knowledge. Due to the fact that it combines the world of reason and feelings, fertilized by the projective activity of the imagination, artistic creativity has the ability to take on the functions of scientific knowledge. This happens, as a rule, during periods when sociocultural experience is faced with the need to present the object of scientific study, but does not yet have the information necessary for a sufficiently complete scientific generalization.
Artistic activity, syncretic in nature, combines elements of rational cognition and value orientation in the projective activity of the imagination.
Artistic creativity begins with keen attention to the phenomena of the world and presupposes “rare impressions”, the ability to retain them in memory and comprehend them.
An important psychological factor in artistic creativity is memory. For an artist, it is not mirror-like, selective and of a creative nature.
The creative process is unthinkable without imagination, which allows the combinational and creative reproduction of a chain of ideas and impressions stored in memory.
Imagination has many varieties: phantasmagoric - in E. Hoffman, philosophical and lyrical - in F.I. Tyutchev, romantically sublime - in M. Vrubel, painfully hypertrophied - in S. Dali, full of mystery - in I. Bergman, real -strict - by F. Fellini, etc.
Imagination is understood as the mental cognitive process of creating new images by processing materials of perception and representation obtained in past experience. Imagination is inherent only to man. It allows you to imagine the result of work, drawing, design and any other activity before it begins.
Depending on the degree of activity, a distinction is made between passive and active imagination, when the products of the first are not brought to life. Taking into account the independence and originality of the images, they talk about creative and reconstructive imagination. Depending on the presence of a consciously set goal to create an image, intentional and unintentional imagination are distinguished.
Imagination arises in situations of uncertainty, when a person finds it difficult to find in his experience an explanation for any fact of reality. This situation brings together imagination and thinking. As Vygotsky L.S. emphasized, “these two processes develop interconnectedly.” Thinking ensures selectivity in transforming impressions, and imagination complements and concretizes the processes of mental problem solving and allows one to overcome stereotypes. And solving intellectual problems becomes a creative process.
In addition to the fact that imagination significantly expands the boundaries of knowledge, it allows a person to “participate” in events that are not encountered in everyday life. This “participation” enriches his intellectual, emotional, moral experience, allows him to more deeply understand the surrounding, natural, objective and social reality. And the richer a person’s experience, the more material his imagination has at his disposal.
Consciousness and subconsciousness, reason and intuition participate in artistic creativity. In this case, subconscious processes play a special role here.
American psychologist F. Barron used tests to examine a group of fifty-six writers - his compatriots - and came to the conclusion that among writers, emotionality and intuition are highly developed and prevail over rationality. Of the 56 subjects, 50 turned out to be “intuitive individuals” (89%), while in the control group, which included people who were professionally far from artistic creativity, there were more than three times fewer individuals with developed intuition (25%). High role the subconscious in artistic creativity already led ancient Greek philosophers (especially Plato) to interpret this phenomenon as an ecstatic, divinely inspired, bacchic state.
In contrast to the scientifically based picture of the world, which prefers to rely on proven knowledge, the picture of the world created by artistic creativity allows not only the existence of an area of the unknown, but also tries to model its possible image. In artistic creativity, what is possible acquires the status of an existing one, stimulating the conscious identification of its signs or features in real life. Thus, aesthetic activity structures the projective activity of the imagination, directing it into the mainstream of rational knowledge. Thus, cognitive activity, on the one hand, is included in the mass consciousness of everyday life, and on the other, receives a powerful impetus for the development of its specialized areas. Artistic creativity - the area of dominance of the thought experiment - takes on the role of leader of the cognitive process in cases where science is still powerless to give an accurate picture of the phenomenon or calculate possible options for its development. The connection of historical knowledge with the field of artistic creativity and the process of its comprehension was not an invention of modern times. It was inherited and traditional. Over time, there was only a concretization and redistribution of the functions of scientific and artistic in the interest of society in the culture of the past and present.
Scientific knowledge dismembers space and time for the convenience of their study. Artistic creativity creates a chronotope - the unity of space-time, where time becomes, according to M.M. Bakhtin, the fourth dimension of space. Artistic images make the discoveries of science psychologically acceptable to ordinary consciousness. Moreover, they give rise to the need to further expand the horizons of individuals, even those who do not have the necessary highly specialized knowledge. The laws of image creation are becoming a sphere of specialized knowledge, attracting special attention from researchers. Aesthetic systems capture the way of understanding the world that has developed at the level of professional culture; they postulate a picture of the world in the form in which it is accessible to both the thinker and the practitioner. Aesthetic systems help create a field for experimentation that cannot be done in the laboratory. They also provide the opportunity to test the viability of created material and ideal constructs, defining the artistic development of reality as its role in understanding the world through the study and creation of cultural creations.
Thus, we can conclude that creativity in general, and artistic creativity in particular, is a means of improving thinking. What cannot be comprehended by scientific methods can be represented through artistic images. What cannot be immediately verified by a social experiment is modeled in the collision of a work of art.
That is why it is necessary to develop creativity in a child from a very early age, because it is this that gives rise to a living fantasy, a vivid imagination, and develops and improves thinking. Creativity, by its nature, is based on the desire to do something that has never been done before, or to do something that existed before you in a new way, in your own way, better. In other words, the creative principle in a person is always a striving forward, for the better, for progress, for perfection and, of course, for beauty in the highest and broadest sense of this concept.
Druzhinin V.N. notes that creative people often surprisingly combine maturity of thinking, deep knowledge, diverse abilities, skills and peculiar “childish” traits in their views on the surrounding reality, in behavior and actions.
You can often hear the following words from parents and even teachers: “Well, why does he waste valuable time writing poetry - he doesn’t have any poetic gift! Why does he draw - he won’t make an artist anyway! Why is he trying to compose some kind of music - it’s not music, but some kind of nonsense!..” This is a very dangerous delusion. It is imperative to support any desire for creativity in a child, no matter how naive and imperfect the results of these aspirations may be. Today he writes awkward melodies, unable to accompany them with even the simplest accompaniment; composes poetry in which clumsy rhymes correspond to clumsy rhythms and meter; draws pictures that depict some fantastic creatures without arms and with one leg... But behind all these naiveties, awkwardness and clumsiness lie the sincere and therefore the truest creative aspirations of the child, the most genuine manifestations of his fragile feelings and not yet formed thoughts.
He may not become an artist, a musician, or a poet (although at an early age this is very difficult to foresee), but perhaps he will become an excellent mathematician, doctor, teacher or worker, and then the most beneficial ways will make themselves known. his childhood creative hobbies, a good trace of which will remain his creative imagination, his desire to create something new, his own, better, moving forward the business to which he decided to devote his life.
LIST OF REFERENCES USED:
Asmolov A.G. Cultural-historical psychology and the construction of worlds. – M.-Voronezh, 1996
Bakhtin M.M. Towards a philosophy of action. – M., 1986
Borev Yu. Psychology of artistic creativity. – M., 1999
Borev Yu. Aesthetics. – M., 1988
Vygotsky L.S. Imagination and creativity in childhood. – M., 1991
Druzhinin V.N. Psychology of general abilities - St. Petersburg, 1999
Leontyev A.A. Teach a person imagination... - M., 1998
Nemov R.S. Psychology. – M., 1995
Psychology with a human face: a humanistic perspective in post-Soviet psychology / Ed. D.A. Leontyeva, V.G. Shchur. – M., 1997
Psychology. Dictionary. 2nd ed. – M., 1990
Ukhtomsky A.A. Honored interlocutor. - Rybinsk, 1997
A sick spirit is healed by chants
E. Baratynsky
Art therapy, if understood as the targeted use of certain psychological and medical effects of artistic creativity and perception, seems to be a very recent phenomenon from a historical point of view.
But we would hardly be mistaken in saying that it is, not in name, but in essence, the same age as art itself. And that means a person. After all, what we now call art is the original sign and indisputable evidence of human existence in the world. No matter how far into the past knowledge extends, we see that the being confidently and without reservations called man has always created certain spatial or temporal forms that contain and express something greater than themselves. And because of this, they retain in the person himself an unconscious, and sometimes even conscious, feeling of belonging to another, greater, enduring, to some deep, invisible dimension of the world and himself. Looking ahead, I will say: such an experience is vitally significant and healing in the most generalized, undifferentiated sense of the word.
Indirect confirmation that art therapy is rooted in immemorial antiquity can be found in the practices of so-called traditional or “primitive” societies, which psychologically and physically influence people through the rhythmic-intonation, motor-plastic, color-symbolic aspects of rituals.
The arts in the more modern sense of the word, which emerged from the primary ritual-magical syncret, have also demonstrated therapeutic potential since ancient times. In particular, the legends about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans indicate that the purposeful use of one or another musical mode changed the internal state, intentions and actions of people. Plato clearly saw the educational and therapeutic potential of the arts. True, he also saw that under certain conditions their effect could become destructive - but what healing agent could not say the same? No matter how mysterious the full meaning of Aristotelian catharsis remains, there is no doubt that it means a certain renewal and purification of the soul under the influence of stage action, etc., etc.
Let's return to art therapy today, which is becoming an increasingly visible, even fashionable, component of psychological practice. It branches out and gives rise to new directions: music therapy, animation therapy, bibliotherapy, choreo-, puppet-, color-, fairy-tale therapy, therapeutic modeling, therapeutic theater... The widest range of mental and physical ill-being of a person is covered by art therapy practice: a tendency to depression, anxiety, disorders sleep, pressure, speech, sensorimotor sphere, communication abilities, problems of correction, rehabilitation, support for people with disabilities... The actions of the art therapist are “targeted”, sometimes even prescription in nature. So, lists are created musical works, listening to which is indicated in a particular case; plays are specially composed, the collisions of which should help performers resolve similar traumatic situations in their home or studio life.
Let me note: this approach to art, although justified by a good purpose and effectiveness, is of a utilitarian-applied nature: the therapist uses individual, essentially peripheral features of types of art and specific works, correlating them with the equally specific circumstances of the client’s life. Universal essence art, the artistic transformation of existence, that which, according to M. Prishvin, encourages the writer to “seriously translate his life into words,” remains in the background. Below I will consider the possibility of a different approach, which I almost “let slip” at the very beginning of the article.
The wonderful teacher-animator and art therapist Yu. Krasny called one of his books “Art is always therapy” (3). The book is about seriously ill children and extremely specific methods of working with them in an animation studio, but the title eloquently suggests that immersion in the sphere of artistic exploration of the world is healing and beneficial in itself. And not only for a person recognized as sick.
This is confirmed by both science and pedagogical practice. Thus, domestic and foreign research in the field of musical psychology reveals the beneficial effects of music in personal and intellectual terms ((4); (5)), and speaks of its holistic positive impact on the child, starting from the prenatal period (6). Intensive classes fine arts not only intensify the general mental development of adolescents, but also correct distortions in the value sphere (7), increase mental activity and overall academic performance of schoolchildren (8). It is well known that in those educational institutions where at least some type of artistic creativity is given worthy attention, the emotional tone of children increases, they begin to have a better attitude towards learning and school itself, they suffer less from the notorious overload and school neuroses, they get sick less often and learn better.
So it’s time to talk not only about art therapy for those who already need it, but also about general “art prophylaxis” - and prevention, as we know, is in all respects better treatment. In anticipation of the time when something similar will become possible in domestic general education, we will try to figure out how the experience of artistic creativity and communication with art can have a healing effect on the human personality.
We'll have to start from afar. But first let's make some important reservations.
The first of these is necessary to prevent one too obvious objection. Many phenomena of art of recent times, especially of our day (I’m talking about art of a serious professional level), to put it mildly, are not carriers and “generators” of mental health; As for the internal state and fate of some talented people of art, you would not wish this on your children and students. What are the grounds for asserting that mental health is so closely related to artistic creativity? I’ll say right away: the shadow sides of modern culture, including artistic culture, are quite real, but their discussion must be carried out, starting, directly and figuratively, "from Adam". We cannot undertake anything similar within the framework of this work, and therefore, keeping this side of the matter in mind, we will talk about the unconditionally positive aspects of human artistic creativity, which undoubtedly prevail on the scale of cultural history. In addition, the above objection applies exclusively to the professional artistic environment of a certain historical period. We are now talking about art in general education, and here its positive role is beyond doubt and is confirmed by the examples given above. As for the differences between “universal human” and professional artistic experience, this topic also requires a special in-depth discussion. Let us limit ourselves for now to a brief hint: in modern secularized and extremely specialized culture, these two spheres differ almost in the same way as physical education and sports that are beneficial for everyone highest achievements fraught with psychological and physical injuries.
And the second disclaimer. The considerations presented below do not pretend to be conclusive in the traditional, “strictly scientific” sense of the word. Like everything in the “foreign scientific”, humanitarian sphere of knowledge, they strive not for “accuracy of knowledge”, but for “depth of penetration” (9), and are addressed to the holistic, not fully verbalized experience of the reader as a partner in dialogue.
So, first of all: what are the most common, deep-seated and non-situational causes of our psychological distress and potential mental ill-health? Figuratively speaking, one of them lies in the “horizontal”, the other in the “vertical” dimension of existence, while man himself, with his conscious and unconscious difficulties and contradictions, is constantly at the point of their intersection.
Trouble “horizontally” is rooted in the fact that our conscious “I”, standing out at the beginning of life from the primary undifferentiated integrity, necessarily opposes itself to the surrounding world as some kind of “not I” and, in the conditions of modern rationalized culture, “solidifies” in this natural, but one-sided opposition; “fences” its territory, as if enclosing itself in a transparent but impenetrable psychological shell of alienation from the world, as if initially external and alien to it. It excommunicates itself from participation in the unified being.
Both intellectually and emotionally, a person develops an image of a beginningless and endless world, living according to its own, purely objective natural and social laws and indifferent to its fleeting existence. A world of impersonal cause-and-effect relationships that determine a person, to which it is only possible to temporarily adapt. In this regard, theorists reflect on the “ultimate atomization of the consciousness of the modern individual” or (like psychologist S.L. Rubinstein) they say that in such a world there is no place for man as such; Poets come up with the image of the “desert of the world”, which (let’s remember for later!) creativity helps us get through.
Of course, not every person, much less a child, will indulge in such reflection. But when a person’s unconscious memory of his own integrity and universal nature, of the original ontological unity with the world, his need to make sure that “in the desert of the world I am not alone” (O. Mandelstam) do not receive a response and confirmation, this creates a constant common basis for psychological ill-being , irreducible to specific everyday problems and situations.
The remarkable ethnographer W. Turner described an archaic but effective form of overcoming, or more precisely, preventing this disease as a cyclical, regulated change of two ways of existence traditional society, which he defined as “structure” and “communitas” (i.e. community, belonging (10). Most of In life, each member of a strictly hierarchical and structured society resides in his own age, gender, “professional” cell and acts in strict accordance with the system of social expectations. But in certain periods this structure is abolished for a short time, and everyone is ritually immersed in the direct experience of unity, which embraces other people, nature, and the world as a whole. Having touched the single fundamental principle of being, people can return to everyday functioning in their fragmented social structure without threat to mental health.
It is obvious that in other historical and cultural conditions the phenomenon of communitas in this form cannot be reproduced, but it has many analogues: from the culture of carnival to the traditions of choral singing, from ancient mysteries to participation in religious sacraments (however, in this case the “vertical » dimension of the problem under discussion, which will be discussed further). But now it is important to emphasize something else: a person, without realizing it, seeks involvement in something “greater than himself.” And the absence of such experience - positive, socially approved - turns into absurd, sometimes destructive and pathological breakthroughs of the blocked need of the “atomized individual” to break out of the “flags” of his individuality and join a certain “we”. (Let us recall the impact on listeners of certain directions modern music, about the behavior of football fans and about many much darker manifestations of crowd psychology, and on the other hand, about depression and suicide due to psychological loneliness.)
What therapeutic or, better yet, preventive significance can the experience of artistic creativity have in this matter?
The fact is that the basis of its very possibility is not individual sensory or any other abilities associated with the implementation of activities in one or another form of art, but a special holistic attitude of a person to the world and to himself in the world, which is highly developed among artists , but is potentially characteristic of every person and is especially successfully actualized in childhood. The psychological content of this aesthetic attitude has been repeatedly described by representatives different types art, different eras and peoples. And its main feature is precisely that in aesthetic experience the invisible barrier that isolates the self-enclosed “I” from the rest of the world disappears, and a person directly and consciously experiences his ontological unity with the subject of aesthetic attitude and even with the world as a whole. Then the unique sensual appearance of things is revealed to him in a special way: their “external form” turns out to be a transparent carrier of the soul, a direct expression of the inner life, related and understandable to man. That is why he feels himself, at least for a short time, involved in the existence of the whole world and its eternity.
“I strived,” he says in his autobiographical work V. Goethe, look with love at what is happening outside and expose myself to the influence of all beings, each in his own way, starting with the human being and further - downward - to the extent that they were comprehensible to me. From here arose a wonderful kinship with individual natural phenomena, internal consonance with it, participation in the chorus of the all-encompassing whole” (11, p. 456)
“And only because we are related to the whole world,” says our great writer and thinker M.M. Prishvin, with the power of kindred attention we restore the general connection and discover our own personal in people of a different way of life, even in animals, even plants, even in things” (12, p. 7). Artists who lived in different times and often knew nothing about each other, testify that only on the basis of such experience can a truly artistic work be born.
Thus, aesthetic experience, which - we emphasize! - in appropriate pedagogical conditions every child can acquire, helps to heal the ontological crack and restore the unity of a person with the world “horizontally”. In any case, to give a person to experience the possibility, the reality of this unity. And such an experience, even if it is rare, is not fully reflected, is not retained in consciousness, will certainly remain on the unconscious, or rather, on the superconscious level, and will constantly support a person in his no matter how complex relationships with the outside world.
Note: we needed to mention superconsciousness, and this means that we have come to the line beyond which our thoughts move to the “vertical” plane of the issue under discussion.
The ultimate expression of the aesthetic experience that has been discussed so far can be considered the famous line of F.I. Tyutchev: “Everything is in me, and I am in everything!..” It is not difficult to understand that these words express not only a certain special attitude towards the world, but better to say - with the world, “horizontally” spread around us. Here, a different level of self-awareness and self-awareness of a person is discerned, the presence of a different, larger “I”, commensurate with “everything”, capable of containing “everything”, and thanks to this, the reason for our internal troubles, which lies in the “vertical” dimension of existence, is clearly outlined.
In religious and philosophical literature, in the works of many psychologists, in the spiritual and practical experience of people of different times and nations, as well as in the experience of self-observation of numerous creatively gifted people, we find evidence that, along with the empirical “I” of our everyday self-awareness, there really exists another, “higher “I” , which carries within itself the fullness of possibilities, which we partially actualize in the space-time of earthly life and in the conditions of a limited socio-cultural environment. Without being able to discuss this topic in detail within the framework of this article, I will only note that without such an assumption it is impossible to talk seriously about creativity; phenomena such as self-education, self-improvement, etc. become inexplicable.
This supreme “authority” of individual human existence is called differently: the higher “I” - in contrast to the everyday, “true” - in contrast to the illusory and changeable, “eternal” - in contrast to the mortal, transitory, “free” - in difference from determined by a set of biosocial or any other “objective” factors, “spiritual” “I” (13), “creative “I” (14), etc.
By coming into contact with this “I” of superconsciousness on the paths of spiritual self-improvement, or in the process of creativity in one area or another, or receiving it as if “for free” in the flow everyday life, a person feels himself with a previously unknown clarity, intensity, certainty and completeness. Of course, such peaks, like the experiences of unity with the world that we talked about earlier, cannot become our permanent state, but the absence or deep oblivion of such an experience - this, figuratively speaking, “vertical gap” - becomes the cause of deep internal disorder of a person, irreparable by any changes in his external life or private recommendations of a psychologist consultant that do not affect the essence of the matter.
The philosopher will define this gap as “the discrepancy between the essence and existence of man”; humanistic psychologist - as a lack of self-actualization, as “deprivation of higher needs” (A. Maslow); a psychotherapist can with sufficient reason see in it the reason for the loss of meaning in life - the root of all diseases (V. Frankl). In any case, the point is that not only are we not actually “ourselves,” which may not be achievable in its entirety, but we live on the distant periphery of ourselves, not trying to restore the lost connection with our own true “I” ", approach him. We live not only in an alien world, but essentially aliens to ourselves.
And again the same question arises: how can early (or even not only early) experience of artistic creativity help a person in this situation?
Let's go back a little. In aesthetic experience, a person, sometimes unexpectedly for himself, crosses the usual boundaries of his “ego”, lives common life With big world, and this creates fertile ground for a kind of revelation about oneself, for a “meeting” with a larger self, commensurate with this world. A man, in the words of the poet Walt Whitman, suddenly discovers with joy that he is bigger and better than he thought, that he does not fit “between his shoes and his hat”...
This kind of “meeting” is experienced and recorded in the memories of many masters of art. Then they have ideas that clearly go beyond their limits. usual possibilities, and, nevertheless, are embodied. In the process of creating or performing a work, a person feels like an “instrument” in the hand of “someone” much more powerful and insightful, and sometimes perceives the result detachedly, as something to which he has no direct relationship. Such self-reports are usually characterized by trustworthy sobriety and lack of affectation. The level of awareness of this experience is different - from the experience of emotional and energetic uplift, creative daring, transcending one’s own boundaries to a conscious, almost at the level of methodology, attraction of the “creative self” to cooperation - as, for example, in the practice of the great Russian actor M. Chekhov (15) . I will not try to interpret in any way these psychological phenomena, the very existence of which is beyond doubt. Something else is important for us now: artistic creative experience(and, probably, any truly creative experience) is, to a certain extent, the experience of “being yourself.” It allows you to overcome, at least temporarily, the “vertical gap”: to experience the moment of unity of the everyday – and the higher, creative self; at least - to remember and experience the very fact of its existence.
Let me note: when talking about creativity, I do not mean “creating something new”; it is only a consequence, external evidence of the creative process, and the evidence is not always clear and indisputable. By creativity, I understand, first of all, the manifestation of “internal activity of the soul” (16), which is realized as the free (not determined from the outside) generation and embodiment of one’s own plan in one or another area of life and culture.
There is a lot of evidence, from theological to experimental and pedagogical, confirming that man - every person - is a creator by nature; the need to create within in a general sense the words, “live from the inside out” (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh) most intimately characterizes the very essence of man. And the realization of this need is a necessary condition for mental health, and its blocking, which is so characteristic, in particular, of modern general education- a source of implicit but serious danger to the human psyche. As modern researcher V. Bazarny says, a person can be either creative or sick.
Returning to the figurative and symbolic coordinates of our presentation, we can say that true creativity is born precisely at the crossroads of the horizontal and vertical axes - the restored relationship of a person with himself and with the world. When a person sees the related world around him through the eyes of a higher, creative self and realizes the possibilities of the creative self in the images, language, and materiality of the surrounding world. This harmony is embodied in any truly artistic work (no matter how complex or tragic its specific content may be) and directly affects the viewer, reader or listener, awakening in him the memory, albeit unclear, of the original unity with the world and the great “ inner man"in himself.
This is where a question naturally arises. It is obvious that creativity and artistic creativity are by no means synonymous, that creative self-realization is possible in all areas of human activity and in all of his relationships with the world; Why do we so emphasize the importance of art and artistic creativity for the mental health of a person, and especially a growing person?
We are talking, first of all, about the age priority of art. It is in this area that almost all children of preschool, primary school, and early adolescence can, in favorable pedagogical conditions, acquire an emotionally positive and successful experience of creativity as such, the generation and implementation of their own ideas.
Next. Is there another area of culture in which children of 9, 7, 4 years old can create something that is recognized as valuable by society and the highest professional elite? Valuable not because a child did it, but valuable as an independent fact of culture? And in art this is exactly the case: outstanding masters of all types of art for more than a hundred years have seen in children their younger colleagues capable of creating aesthetic values, and are not even averse to learning something from them. And one more thing. A young (but still not a 4- or 7-year-old!) physicist or mathematician does, in principle, the same thing as an adult scientist, only many years earlier: there is no “children’s science.” But children's art exists: being artistically valuable, a child's work at the same time bears a pronounced age mark, easily identifiable and inseparable from artistic value works. This speaks, from my point of view, about the deep “natural conformity” of artistic creativity: a child acquires full-fledged creative experience in the most age-appropriate forms for him.
There are, however, difficult-to-explain phenomena when a child creates a text or a drawing that does not bear any age mark either in the emotional and meaningful sense, or even from the point of view of the perfection of the implementation of the plan, and could belong to an adult artist. I am not ready to discuss and explain this amazing phenomenon in detail - I will only remind you that even an adult artist in his work can be “bigger than himself.” Or better yet, it can be “oneself.”
A. Melik-Pashayev
Literature
- Ideas of aesthetic education. Anthology in 2 volumes. T.1, M.: “Art”, 1973
- Aristotle. Poetics. (On the art of poetry.) M.: State Publishing House fiction, 1957
- Krasny Yu.E. ART is always therapy. M.: Publishing house LLC Interregional Center for Management and Political Consulting, 2006.
- Toropova A.V. Development of personality integrity through sensory filling of the child’s musical consciousness. / Methodology of pedagogy music education (scientific school E.B.Abdullina). – M., MPGU, 2007. P. 167-180.
- Kirnarskaya D.K. Musical ability. M.: Talents-XXI century, 2004.
- Lazarev M. New paradigm of education. Art at school, No. 3, 2011
- Sitnova E.N. The influence of artistic and aesthetic education on personality development in adolescence and youth. Author's abstract. PhD thesis, M., 2005
- Kashekova I. Numbers and only numbers. Art at school, No. 4, 2007
- Bakhtin M.M. Aesthetics of verbal creativity. M.: Art, 1979.
- Turner, W. Symbol and ritual. M.: Nauka, 1983.
- Goethe, V. Poetry and truth. Collected works, vol. 3. Fiction publishing house, 1976.
- Prishvin M.M. The power of related attention. M.: Art at school, M., 1996.
- Florenskaya T.A. Dialogue in practical psychology. M.:, 1991
- Melik-Pashaev A.A. The world of the artist. M.: Progress-tradition, 2000.
- Chekhov M.A. Literary heritage in 2 volumes. M.: Art, 1995
- Zenkovsky V.V. The problem of mental causation. Kyiv, 1914
