Art in Social Studies: Exploring the World and Ourselves with Rembrandt

Autor/in	Ahmad, Iftikhar
Titel	Art in Social Studies: Exploring the World and Ourselves with Rembrandt
Quelle	In: Journal of Aesthetic Education, 42 (2008) 2, S.19-37 (19 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0021-8510
Schlagwörter	Social Studies; Artists; Art History; Citizenship Education; Thematic Approach; Culture; European History; Geography; Economics; Individual Development; Global Approach; Civics; Socialization; Foreign Countries; Netherlands + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Gemeinschaftskunde; Artiste; Artist; Künstler; Künstlerin; History of art; History of arts; Kunstgeschichte; Citizenship; Education; Politische Bildung; Politische Erziehung; Staatsbürgerliche Erziehung; Themenzentrierter Unterricht; Kultur; Geografie; Volkswirtschaftslehre; Individuelle Entwicklung; Globales Denken; Staatsbürgerkunde; Socialisation; Sozialisation; Ausland; Niederlande
Abstract	Rembrandt's art lends itself as a fertile resource for teaching and learning social studies. His art not only captures the social studies themes relevant to the Dutch Golden Age, but it also offers a description of human relations transcending temporal and spatial frontiers. Rembrandt is an imaginative storyteller with a keen insight for minute details. His narrative of the culture, society, economy, geography, and contemporary events of seventeenth-century Dutch life is as vivid and perceptive as a historian's eloquent text. How people lived in community, how the city of Amsterdam functioned, how important religion was to people, how diverse and cosmopolitan the culture was, how interdependent the world was in the seventeenth century, and what the social and civic ideals of the Dutch people were during the Golden Age--Rembrandt's paintings, etchings, and drawings neatly organize these and other social studies themes into visual messages. More importantly, the people's appreciation and interpretation of Rembrandt's work helps them learn about not just Dutch society and culture of four hundred years ago but also about themselves. The passion, emotions, conflicts, and inspirations of his subjects are essentially human and eternal, arousing empathy in every generation and cross-section of society. In this article, the author looks at Rembrandt's art for the purpose of teaching and learning social studies in the contemporary interdependent world--a world that is chronologically and geographically distant from the Dutch Golden Age but in many respects shares its enduring values, norms, ideals, pursuits, challenges, and possibilities. To do so, the author employs a conceptual lens--the curriculum thematic strands of the National Council for the Social Studies--to examine Rembrandt's art in order to explore life and make meaning of the story that is being told about the human condition, and to seek out its relevance to the people and the world in the early twenty-first century. (Contains 9 figures and 20 notes.) (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	University of Illinois Press. 1325 South Oak Street, Champaign, IL 61820-6903. Tel: 217-244-0626; Fax: 217-244-8082; e-mail: journals@uillinois.edu; Web site: http://www.press.uillinois.edu/journals/main.html
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10