I-10: Court – Art and Attitudes to Art Are Local Rather than Universal

'The experience of working outside one's culture points up, dramatically at times, the degree to which notions about art and attitudes to art are local rather than universal –  if there are attitudes which are universal." (Newick, 1973, cited in Court, 1992, p. 53)

"Prior to the 1980s, scholarship about drawing in non-Western cultures was stronger in anthropology, psychology (often with its fieldwork evidence interpreted at second hand) and cross-cultural psychology, than in either art history or art education [...]. Notable exceptions were Margaret Trowell's seminal work about art and art education in Africa, and the serious treatment of cultural influences in text books by McFee and Lark-Horovitz et at. During the second half of the 1980s, there was a marked increase in attention to social, intercultural and non-Western topics at conferences and in art education publications.

On the completion of my first drawings study in 1981 [...], it became clear that to proceed with the line of enquiry which the data were suggesting would require a different kind of theoretical underpinning, one which made 'culture' central to the problem. While this kind of analysis is the essence of anthropological enquiry, it is also found in the work of distinguished psychologists, such as Winnicott, Bruner and Vygotsky [...]. The latter stresses the importance of the socio-historical origins for higher psychological processes, which include drawing. He is also among the first to suggest mechanisms by which culture is internalised by each person. Many social scientists now stress the significance of social mediation, which refers to the importance of nurture (in contrast to nature) and context (in contrast to the individual). In art education research, Brent Wilson's most recent work is informed by such views [...]." (Court, 1992, p. 53; see also Court, 1989)