Page 118 - Razvoj kompetenc prihodnosti v pedagoških študijskih programih

Marjana Dolšina Delač

stylistic analysis to contextualization (Baxandall, 1978; Belting, 1983),¹ and di-
dactics turning from mere verbal information delivery to the active partic-
ipation of students (Šteh, 2004) dictate teaching approaches that consider
altered social dynamics and take advantage of various technological pos-
sibilities. The new synergy of electronic devices with all aspects of life re-
quires students to be digitally proficient; in parallel, the intangibility, the non-
physicality of functioning in the digital world, calls for an accentuated in-
volvement of all the senses in teaching and learning.
Within this context, the elective university course Contemporary Ap-
proaches to Teaching and Learning Art History was conceived as an experi-
mental platform for future teachers to explore, test, and reflect on innovative
didactic strategies. Combining theoretical discourse with practical imple-
mentation, the course encouraged students to design and execute art his-
tory lessons tailored to secondary school contexts, employing contemporary
didactic methods. The primary objective was to examine how different ap-
proaches, especially those integrating sensory engagement and digital tools,
affect the quality of student motivation and conceptual understanding. The
course served as both a pedagogical laboratory for testing new ideas and
a reflective space for future teachers to analyse their practice in relation to
broader didactic theory.

Theoretical Review: Traditional Approaches and Contemporaneity
Art-historicalhistoriographyrecognisesasuccessionofparadigmaticphases,
each developing its own methodology for analysing artworks, contributing
related terminology, thus shaping a new approach to the discussion of art,
each one more holistic than the previous (Dolšina Delač, 2020, Kuhn, 1998).²
Even though the transfer of the scientific discourse to the field of education
typically occurs only with a lag of several decades, the discipline’s paradigm
shifts have always been the incentives for rethinking art-historical didactics
(Dolšina Delač, 2020). Art history as the history of great names, established
by the biographical writers of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries with Giorgio

¹ Baxandall (1978) discusses social facts as crucial components in developing specific visual skills
and habits emerging as distinct characteristics of the artist’s style. Belting (1983) recognizes
traditional art history as embodied in models of stylistic history, which presented art as an au-
tonomous system evaluated by internal criteria. He questions boundaries between art, artists
and culture that may be crossed only with new methodological tools and interpretation. Sim-
ilar to Baxandall he states that anthropological interests predominate narrowly aesthetic ones
and introduces social art history as well as contextualisation in general.
² For a basic overview of art historical historiography, see Kultermann (1990).

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