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Vol. 39 (# 21) Year 2018. Page 18

Problems of Improving the Quality of Teaching Fine Arts in General Education School in Modern Russia

Problemas para mejorar la calidad de la enseñanza de las Bellas Artes en la Escuela de Educación General en la Rusia moderna

Elena S. MEDKOVA 1

Received: 12/01/2018 • Approved: 06/02/2018


Contents

1. Introduction

2. Methods

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

Acknowledgements

References


ABSTRACT:

The article considers topical problems of teaching fine arts in general education school of modern Russia on the basis of mastering models of artistic thinking based on the achievements of modern and contemporary art. The author gives a detailed historical digression of the contradictory history of the introduction of avant-garde ideas into the educational process of higher school and general education schools throughout the 20th century in Russia. The article presents the materials of the research of the modern state of teaching fine arts in school. It analyzes the content of the most popular textbooks on fine arts from the positions of balance in their conceptual settings on the basis of their content/form balance, saturation with examples of works of contemporary art authors, introduction of new pedagogical techniques based on the creative potential of technologies of all kinds of art. The author presents the results of the research of the notions of fine arts' teachers on the priority of classical or modern/contemporary art, their awareness in the field of contemporary art and readiness to work reasoning from the new principles of priority of the laws of form making. The characteristics of the perception of elementary formal units of the language of fine arts by the rank and file of teachers of fine art are given. The typical structure of distribution of the educational institutions of Moscow is described from the point of view of introduction of modern art techniques (avant-garde trends) into school practice. The article outlines the conditions for overcoming the crisis phenomena of stagnation and improving the quality of school education in the field of fine arts.
Keywords: quality of education, fine arts, general education school, education in Russia, art pedagogy, contemporary art

RESUMEN:

El artículo considera los problemas actuales de la enseñanza de las bellas artes en la escuela de educación general de la Rusia moderna sobre la base de dominar los modelos de pensamiento artístico basados ​​en los logros del arte moderno y contemporáneo. El autor ofrece una digresión histórica detallada de la historia contradictoria de la introducción de ideas vanguardistas en el proceso educativo de las escuelas de educación superior y educación general a lo largo del siglo XX en Rusia. El artículo presenta los materiales de la investigación del estado moderno de la enseñanza de las bellas artes en la escuela. Analiza el contenido de los libros de texto más populares sobre bellas artes desde las posiciones de equilibrio en su configuración conceptual sobre la base de su contenido / equilibrio de forma, saturación con ejemplos de obras de autores de arte contemporáneo, introducción de nuevas técnicas pedagógicas basadas en la creatividad potencial de tecnologías de todo tipo de arte. El autor presenta los resultados de la investigación de las nociones de maestros de bellas artes sobre la prioridad del arte clásico o moderno / contemporáneo, su conocimiento en el campo del arte contemporáneo y la disposición para trabajar el razonamiento a partir de los nuevos principios de prioridad de las leyes de forma haciendo. Se dan las características de la percepción de las unidades formales elementales de la lengua de las bellas artes por parte de la base de los maestros de bellas artes. La estructura típica de distribución de las instituciones educativas de Moscú se describe desde el punto de vista de la introducción de las técnicas de arte moderno (tendencias de vanguardia) en la práctica escolar. El artículo describe las condiciones para superar los fenómenos de crisis del estancamiento y mejorar la calidad de la educación escolar en el campo de las bellas artes.
Palabras clave: calidad de la educación, bellas artes, educación general, educación en Rusia, pedagogía del arte, arte contemporáneo

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1. Introduction

Topicality. The pedagogy of art is part and parcel of the new vision of the world that is emerging in contemporary art and artistic culture, as well as of the respective areas of theoretical understanding of artistic processes (art criticism, art history, art studies, cultural studies, aesthetics, and art psychology). On this basis, previous normative pedagogical models are reconsidered. In connection with the intensification of the processes of the emergence and replacement of artistic paradigms in the art of the 20th and 21st centuries, the problems of updating the content and methodological base of the educational disciplines of general education school that are part of the "Art" subject area (Fine Arts, Music and World Art Culture) periodically acquire an urgent topicality. In this respect, an acute discussion that arose in connection with the development of the next Conception of the educational field "Art" at the "Congress of Representatives of Associations of Music, Fine Arts and World Art Culture Teachers" (August 12, 2016) and at the round table "Art Education in School" with the participation of the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation O. Yu. Vasilyeva in the framework of the exhibition "The Academy and the School of Watercolor of Sergei Andriyaka" in the Central Manege of Moscow (April 18, 2017), as well as during the public discussion of the Conception, seems to be significant. The materials of the public discussion are published on the website of the Russian Academy of Education (http://www.predmetconcept.com/subject-form/art).

The field of the research. Due to the small volume of the article, we will consider a particularly acute controversial question about the content of the academic subject "Fine Arts". In general education school of modern Russia, this subject is taught from the 1st to the 8th grades, and covers such areas of art as painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture, arts and crafts of the peoples of Russia, design. In the course of the discussion, there was a confrontation between those who insisted on a narrow interpretation of the subject "Fine Arts" as teaching "draftsmanship and drawing" purely in a realistic manner and those who broadly interpreted the goals of the educational subject in the spirit of developing creative abilities of children and formation of a common aesthetic culture and aesthetic needs of students. The first paradigm was formulated by the representatives of the academic spheres from the Russian Academy of Arts (Doctor of Science in Pedagogy, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, Professor S.P. Lomov) and from the Academy of Watercolors and Fine Arts (People's Artist of Russia, Full Member of the Russian Academy of Arts, Rector of the Academy of Watercolors and Fine Arts N.N. Andriyaka). The second – by the representatives of educational organizations in the field of art education, which include: "Institute of Art Education and Cultural Studies of the Russian Academy of Education" (Doctor of Science in Pedagogy, Corresponding Member of the RAE, Professor L.G. Savenkova, Doctor of Science in Pedagogy, Corresponding Member of the RAE, professor N.N. Fomina, Doctor of Science in Pedagogy, Professor I.E. Kashekova) and the Scientific and Practical Center for Continuous Art Education of the Moscow Committee of Education (Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, People's Artist of Russia, Professor B.M. Nemensky, Doctor of Science in Pedagogy, PhD in Philosophy, Associate Professor, L.A. Nemensky).

The drawing and imitation of the visible reality or development of creative abilities – how does this formulation of the question relate to the problem of teaching the foundations of art of the 20th and 21st centuries in general education school of modern Russia? The answer to this question is contained in the peculiarity of the new paradigm of the correlation between art and reality in the artistic culture of the 20th and 21st centuries, which involves the replacement of the concept of "vision" as a connecting conductor between reality and the work of art for the concept of "representation" and, correspondingly, the replacement of activities to "reproduce" reality for the activities of its "modeling". Modeling – total, conscious and purposeful – is the main method of work of the artist of the 20th century, the very essence of the art of the 20th century. To prepare for such a complex activity as modeling, it is necessary to create special pedagogical conditions within general education school to form the creative abilities of an individual. So the public discussion on the Conception of the subject "Fine Arts" revealed the main painful point of art education in Russia – the problematical character of the transition to a new paradigm.

The history of the issue. In order to more clearly imagine the urgency of the problem of replacement in the sphere of mass art education in Russia, a pedagogical paradigm oriented towards realism, for a model based on the principles of contemporary art, it is necessary to clarify certain features of the historical development of both art culture and art education in Russia for the last hundred years.

The 20th century in Russia gave rise to two models of correlation of topical artistic practice and artistic pedagogy. This is a post-revolutionary model of the 1920s, formed in conditions of free self-determination of artistic pedagogical practice and a Soviet ideologically biased model that arose in the 1930s. In the 1920s in Russia, based on the avant-garde movements, a dynamic integrated system was created that united contemporary art, pedagogical practice and fundamental theoretical research. A vivid example of this is the artistic, theoretical and pedagogical practice of V.V. Kandinsky, K.S. Malevich, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, V.A. Favorsky, L.S. Popova, N.A. Ladovsky, brothers A.A. and V.A. Vesnins, A.M. Lavinsky, etc. Russian culture in the face of these artists has very clearly manifested itself in the avant-garde movements of the 20th century – Abstractionism, Suprematism, Cubo-Futurism, Constructivism. These currents united a common desire to speak the language of the basic forms of art – color, volume and plane, rhythms, constructions, composition. In parallel to the creative activity, there was an active theoretical understanding of practice. As O.A. Yushkova writes, "the desire to create a universal method, almost mathematically verified, is a characteristic feature of the art of the 20th century ...the search for the sum of basic rules or laws for form making was a kind of obsession ...and directed artistic thought into the realm of analysis" (Yushkova 2008, p. 184). V.V. Kandinsky in his theoretical and practical work "Point and line in the plane" began with a point that, like in mathematics, drew after itself the subsequent series of concepts – line, angles, pictorial plane, geometric figures, color, the ratio of elements to composition. According to the concept of V. Kandinsky, all these primary elements of the pictorial language still in an abstract, pre-figure form have the completeness of content and symbolism: "A geometric point is an invisible object. In the material sense, the point is zero. In this zero, however, various "human" properties are hidden" (Kandinskii 2004, p. 74). K.S Malevich echoes him: "I can investigate or study only when I can take out a unit that has no connection with everything around it" (Malevich 1922, p. 6). Having founded the Institute of Artistic Culture (INKhUK), and then the Russian Academy of Art Studies (RAKhN, later the GAKhN), V.V. Kandinsky set goals, through a comprehensive study of art by specialists in the humanities and natural sciences, to create "a science that studies analytically and synthetically the basic elements of both individual arts and art in general" (Institute of Art Culture in Moscow (INHUK). At the Department of Fine Arts of People's Commissariat for Education. Program, 1933, p. 140). In the curriculum of INKhUK in 1920, developed by V.V. Kandinsky, it is argued that "the theoretical study of any art should have as its starting point the analysis of the means of this art ...the question of analyzing the means of expression of art should be put thus: what is the effect on psyche: a) of painting in its color-three-dimensional form; b) sculpture in its three-dimensional form; c) architecture in its three-dimensional form; d) music in its sound and time form; e) dance in its temporal and spatial form; f) poetry in its vowel-sound and time form" (Institute of Art Culture in Moscow (INHUK). At the Department of Fine Arts of People's Commissariat for Education. Program, 1933, p. 140). In INKhUK, the core of professors, representatives of the avant-garde was formed, who later created the foundations of "formal pedagogy", known also under the name of "formal pedagogical method of VKhUTEMAS " (Theory of Composition as Poetics of Architecture, 2002, p.141) on the basis of VKhUTEMAS (Higher Art and Technical Workshops, later – VKhUTEIN). Within the workshops, they developed a propaedeutic course based on the principles of formal methodology and consisting of three disciplines: "Space" (N.A. Ladovsky), "Volume" (A.M. Lavinsky), "Color" (L.S. Popova, A.A. Vesnin). The issues of the first two courses were synthesized by associates and followers of N.A. Ladovsky – V.F. Krinsky, M.A. Turkus and I.V. Lamtsov in their work "Elements of the architectural and spatial composition". The main idea of ​​the work was formulated by a teacher and architect V.F. Krinsky: "The purpose of the abstract form is purely theoretical. This is the theory of form in general. This is scientific discipline of thinking in space" (Theory of Composition as Poetics of Architecture, 2002, p. 224). V.A. Favorsky worked in VKhUTEMAS in the same period. The programs of his courses "Introduction to the Theory of Spatial Arts" and "Theory of Composition" testify to the fact that in the pedagogical concept of V. Favorsky, the following concepts of art form had the highest importance: the unity of space and time, where time becomes the fourth dimension of space, composition as a unity of different spatial and non-simultaneous elements, material, format, motor-tactile and visual-motor qualities of the visual surface, compositional and imaginative role of verticals, horizontals, diagonals, motion and statics, color as the quality of surface and space and other components of form (Favorskii 1964, pp. 93-95). Giving the priority to form, V.A. Favorsky by no means neglected content and proceeded from the idea of ​​"the content of form". He wrote: "The object-spatial form, the relation of the object to space will indeed express the basic style of the work and will be a figurative form of the world outlook" (Favorskii 1964, p. 101).

Within the walls of the Petrograd Museum of Artistic Culture (MKhK), later the State Institute of Artistic Culture (GINKhUK), K.S. Malevich and his associates in UNOVIS (Affirmers of New Forms of Art) who moved with him from Vitebsk to Leningrad (N.M. Suetin, L.A. Yudin) worked on the same problems. They were joined by a number of masters of avant-garde art, among them K.I. Rozhdestvensky, V.E. Tatlin, M.V. Matyushin, P.N. Filonov with students. K.S. Malevich headed the "Formal Analytical Department" and worked on problems of form. The results of his research were revealed in the work "Introduction to the Theory of Surplus Element in Painting" (the composed type is destroyed). M.V. Matyushin, together with M. Ender, who worked in the "Department of Organic Culture", published in 1932 a textbook with tables on color studies "Handbook on Color", which addressed the problems of color theory with reference to architecture.

The same impressive unity of creativity and its theoretical interpretation in the pedagogical system on the basis of formal criteria was demonstrated by K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, whose pedagogical activity is connected with the Academy of Arts of Petersburg (Leningrad) until 1932. The creative and pedagogical method of the artist, named by him "a science of seeing'', was based on the principles of binocular vision and the "planetary" point of view. As a result of the artist's research, a theory of "spherical perspective" appeared. K. Petrov-Vodkin believed that the axes structuring the object "are subject to the center of the fall the Earth-Center". Hence, he concludes about "the absence of verticals and horizontals in a new vision" (Petrov-Vodkin 1991, p. 299). K. Petrov-Vodkin came out in his spatial vision beyond the Earth, where the laws of Euclidean geometry operate and created an artistic parallel to the new scientific concepts of "non-Euclidean" geometry of N.I. Lobachevsky and G.F.B. Riemann. K. Petrov-Vodkin proved that it is form, both of the creative method and of the new pedagogical concept of the artist, that is in the center. He wrote: "The struggle between form and content – that is indeed a composition", "our "higher mathematics" is color, density, glow and interaction" (Petrov-Vodkin 1991, p.298).

In accordance with the principles of the theory of "formal" artistic pedagogy, the category of "artistic culture" is proposed as the basic concept common to all programs on art of the Higher School, the Unified Labor School, the courses of retraining of school teachers and professors of fine arts. This concept, according to N.N. Fomina, "was used in an unusual criterion for us, from the standpoint of which the artistic quality of the work is judged" (Fomina 2002, p. 29). In the "Regulations of the Department of Fine Arts and the Art Industry on the Issue of Artistic Culture", developed with the participation of V.V. Kandinsky, the following list of elements of artistic culture, meaningful for the practice of art education, is cited: "1) material: surface, texture, elasticity, density, weight and other qualities of material; 2) color: saturation, strength, relation to light, purity, transparency, independence and other color qualities; 3) space: volume, depth, measurement and other properties of space; 4) time (movement): in its spatial expression and in connection with color, material, composition, etc.; 5) form as a result of interaction of material, color, space and as its particular form, composition; 6) technique: painting, mosaic..." (Fomina 2002, p. 29). According to V.V. Kandinsky, a substantial nucleus of art education is the spatial and temporal characteristics of art. It is noteworthy that A.V. Bakushinsky connected the artistic development and education with the same experience of the study of spatial arts in his general work "Art Creativity and Education. Experience in the Study of Spatial Arts" (1925). The concept of "artistic culture" was considered not only as a content kernel, but also as the essence of the strategy of art education. The emphasis was placed on the fact that the very concept of artistic culture contains "a creative moment; creativity involves the creation of a new, invention; artistic culture is nothing else than the culture of an artistic invention" (Fomina 2002, p. 29). The role of a tutor who equips a student with scientific methods of cognition of art and creative work with the basic elements of artistic culture, and also "directs a student towards discovery, in the sense of a diversified application of the same material" (Fomina 2002, p. 29) was assigned to a professor. A student was given freedom of creative development, which was fixed at all levels of education in the right to choose a tutor. The Collegium on the Affairs of Fine Arts has established in its documents that "The masses of people, in the person of the studying young, in the very fact of the teaching will be able to see what movements in art are living and creative" (Fomina 2002, p. 29). It can be said that art education, the practice of art and its theoretical comprehension at that period existed in a harmonious unity.

Since the 1930s, the world cultural heritage was rethought from ideological and class positions. In the documents of the People's Commissariat for Education, it is postulated: "Recognizing for the proletariat the full right to carefully review all the elements of the inherited world art... In this case, the heritage of the past must be mercilessly cleansed of all the impurities of bourgeois decay and debauchery" (Struggle for Realism in Fine Arts. Materials, Documents, Memories, 1962, p. 99). The Leninist theory of "two cultures in one culture" was taken as a basis for the revision of the heritage, according to which in any culture there was progressive or popular art, connected with the class interests of the oppressed people and art of reaction that reflected the interests of the oppressors. Socialist realism was maintained as the heir of all progressive art: the art of antiquity, the Italian Renaissance and Russian critical realism of the 19th century. The need for a theoretical interpretation of both the contemporary artistic process and the world heritage was no longer necessary. The establishment of art history as a science with its own methodology on the Soviet grounds was interrupted for many years. At the same time, not only the "formal" school, but also the emerging structuralism has suffered. In the ratio of the basic categories of art – "content-form" – the emphasis is shifted to content, as evidenced by the numerous proclamations: "We consider art content to be a sign of the truth of a work of art" (Struggle for Realism in Fine Arts. Materials, Documents, Memories, 1962, p. 120). The category of "content", through the intermediate concepts of "ideology", "class nature", "idea", "moral intelligence", "meaning", is semantically coming close to the notion of "program nature" and "plot", a plot ideologically and class consistent. The concept of form is contrasted with the content. In terms of the process of the "content/form" ratio, the movement from "content" to "form" becomes axiomatic – the birth of content by means of form is completely rejected. The purpose of form is reduced to imitation of naturalistic recognition codes, necessary in order to convey an ideological message in a form accessible to the people. As a result, in scientific institutions and at all levels of the educational system, a curtailment of studies of the specifics of the language of art and of developing appropriate programs, a return to the principles of the academic and naturalistic school of teaching art disciplines take place.

In the 1960s-1980s, the process of restoring the model of the 1920s began. With great difficulties, the idea of ​​the versification of modern Russian art and its return to the channel of world artistic processes is affirmed. A reanimation of the positions of the school of formal pedagogy of the 1920s at the level of higher education takes place. In particular, by the efforts of V.A. Favorsky and L.A. Bruni, the traditions of pedagogy of VKhUTEMAS have been preserved in the work of the First Monumental Workshop, the school of which was attended by many artists and architects. Due to the activities of V.F. Krinsky and M.A. Turkus, the principles of teaching of the avant-garde were practiced within the walls of Moscow Architectural Institute. In the 1960s, the VKhUTEMAS course "Space" and the model method of studying the three-dimensional composition was restored at the Department of the Moscow Architectural Institute by V.F. Krinsky and A.V. Stepanov, and in the 1970s-1980s the same was done by V.F. Krinsky, I.V. Lamtsov, M.A. Turkus in relation to the propaedeutic course of VKhUTEMAS, which was revived under the name of "Three-dimensional Composition" (TDC). The propaedeutic course "Color" was developed in the department "Painting" in the 1970s-1980s in the same institute. At the level of undergraduate education, the principles of "formal pedagogy" were introduced into the pedagogical process of the Children's Art School of Architectural and Artistic Profile "START" under the Moscow Architectural Institute on the basis of the author's program of I.M. Abaeva and O.A. Barmash "Innovative Program for the Development of Creative Potential of Children with the Means of Architecture and Design "START".

The traditions of theory and practice of artistic pedagogy of A.V. Bakushinsky, aimed at the creative development of students, were retained by his students G.V. Labunskaya, E.A. Flyorina, N.P. Sakkulina and others originally on the basis of the House of Artistic Education of Children of the People's Commissariat for Education of the RSFSR, and later within the walls of academic research institutes. It was with the restoration of principles aimed at creative development that the restoration of the model of the early 1920s in general education school began. The processes of the humanitarization of school began with the decision of the Collegium of the Ministry of Education of the USSR "On Measures to Improve the Aesthetic Education," in which the task of developing scientific research in the field of elaboration a system of aesthetic upbringing and education was again set. The Commission for Aesthetic Education was organized under the Union of Artists of the USSR. It was headed by B.M. Nemensky. The All-Union experiment on fine arts at the Institute of Art Education was led by B.P. Yusov. In the 1980s, programs on fine arts for general education school of B.M. Nemensky and B.P. Yusov were adopted. In them, the creative development of children was proclaimed the main goal of art education in general education school. The concept of form in art was partially rehabilitated by B.M. Nemensky by introducing the term "language of art", which implied specific methods of the figurative language of various arts. B.P. Yusov, in the framework of the conception of polyart education and upbringing, proposed a model of the "hierarchy of basic signs of art". At the top of this hierarchy, according to B.P. Yusov, there were light/color (rainbow) and sound (rhythm, vibration, intonation), as the most general categories resonating with the cosmos, then downwardly located: the visual-symbolic level of the imagination (space, color, shape/symbol); sign level (sign, handwriting, words, concepts, plot, design, epic prose, literary prose, oral speech); sound-motor level (music, theater, dance); generalized paintings, mass-production technical picture (printed mass-production forms, books, texts, mass songs, shows, movies, TV, video, radio, etc.). The essence of the hierarchy, according to the author, was that it allowed "every component to transpose through all other, every art – painting or dance – to be carried out on the whole hierarchical scale" (Yusov 2004, p. 192). The common tribute to the past in the above programs is that the priority for both authors is the content – the subject is fixed not only in general for annual courses, but also for each lesson. The form is assigned a secondary role of expressive means in the implementation of a given program topic. Both programs were focused on the classical heritage and the realistic paradigm in fine arts.

Unresolved problems. At the level of historical review, it can be stated that the principles of "formal pedagogy", developed in the 1920s on the basis of a new model of the vision of contemporary art for higher education, have not been incorporated into the curricula of the Russian general education school. The creative possibilities of abstract principles and laws of form making were not mastered by the practice of mass art education in the general education school. Modern art has not become the initial basis for determining the principles of art pedagogy in the practice of mass art education in Russia.

2. Methods

Thus, the purpose of our research is to determine the ways and strategies for promoting ideas and pedagogical models of art of the 20th and 21st centuries in the modern educational process at the level of art education for children and teenagers. To achieve these goals, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

to analyze the structure of textbooks relevant to the teaching of fine arts for the present period;

to study the level of readiness of teachers of general education schools to change approaches in art education from the standpoint of contemporary art;

to study the level and structure of knowledge about contemporary art of art teachers;

to determine the level and structure of the demand for modern art by teachers of fine arts of general education school;

to reveal the possibilities and direction of creative interpretation of the elements of abstract form by the average teaching staff in general education schools;

to determine the distribution area of the model of "formal pedagogy" (VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN model) in the modern educational process at the level of artistic education of children and teenagers;

to identify the most successful versions of programs based on "formal pedagogy" (VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN model), for their popularization and dissemination in the professional community of art teachers of general education school.

According to the goals and objectives of the study, quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (analysis of textbooks and programs, analysis of creative works of teachers) research methods were applied.

First of all, the sets of current educational programs and textbooks were analyzed for content, structure and priorities. Based on the identified problems, questions for professors of fine arts were formulated. To study the preparedness of teachers of general education schools to change approaches in art education from the standpoint of contemporary art and the level and structure of their knowledge of contemporary art, the results of a questionnaire survey of teachers were summarized and short-term training courses on the basis of the Institute of Art Education of the Russian Academy of Education in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kolomna, Taganrog, Saratov, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Vladimir, Stary Oskol, Kursk, Yekaterinburg, Ulyanovsk, Kirov, Kazan, Lipetsk, Astrakhan, Yaroslavl, Perm took place.

Extra-mural courses of advanced training of fine arts and world art culture teachers on the basis of the Pedagogical University "First of September" were used as a basis for obtaining the idea of ​​the possibilities and direction of creative interpretation of elements of abstract forms by fine arts' teachers of general education schools. To do this, creative tasks were included in the final work package: writing an essay on the topic: what means to you (the task was to express emotions, free associations, symbolic meanings, links to poetic or other texts, etc.) a spot, a line, a point, any kind of geometric figure; to illustrate a text in any technique.

To determine the range of distribution of the "formal pedagogy" model (the VKhUTEMAS/ VKhUTEIN and Bauhaus models) in the modern educational process at the level of artistic education of children and teenagers, the structure of Moscow educational institutions was built and analyzed, and then the experience of similar institutions in the country as a whole was explored.

At the last stage, training programs, mostly developed and adapted for mass distribution were analyzed and singled out.

In total, the study took two years, from mid-2015 to mid-2017, and proceeded according to the above plan.

3. Results

Analysis of the content and structure of textbooks relevant to the teaching of fine arts for the present period. At the current stage, several programs and textbook sets coexist in the educational space of art education in Russia: the program and textbooks by B.M. Nemensky, programs and training sets by the authors who worked with B.M. Nemensky (T.I. Koptseva, I.E. Kashekova), the program and a training set by the authors continuing the traditions of B.P. Yusov (L.G. Savenkova, E. Ermolinskaya). These sets of textbooks were analyzed in three directions: the balance of content/form; the presence of examples of works of contemporary authors; new pedagogical methods based on the form making capabilities of technologies of all kinds of art.

According to the first position, it can be stated that all sets of textbooks are based on the thematic principle: the wording of the theme of the year, the themes of the cycles, the subjects of each assignment. So, T.A. Koptseva’s set in general is developed under the theme "Nature and the artist", what immediately sets the orientation to representativeness. The themes of I.E. Kashekova’s textbooks are typical: a textbook for the 1st grade – "Big and Small Artists about the Main Thing", a textbook for the 2nd grade – "Artistic Image and the Alphabet of Art", a textbook for the 3rd grade –"The Magic World Filled with Miracles", etc. In the textbook for the second grade, completely dedicated to the "alphabet of art", i.e. formal issues, when the themes of lessons are formulated, the concept of "artistic image" is in the first place: "Line, Touch and Artistic Image," "Color and Artistic Image," "Form and Artistic Image," etc. At the level of tasks, it is realized not by the experiment with form, color or line, but by the selection of expressive means for the embodiment of a specific imaginative motive, indicated in the textbook (Kashekova & Kashekov 2013).

On the issue of the saturation of textbooks with examples of contemporary art, it can be noted that disproportion is clearly in favor of realistic and classical art. In the training set by T.A. Koptseva (1st to 4th grades) there are only two names of relatively contemporary artists – A. Derain and O. Rodin (Koptseva, Koptsev & Koptsev 2012). In the set by I.E. Kashekova, examples of works of contemporary artists (V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, J. Miro i Ferra, P. Mondriaan, J. Morandi) are present only in the textbook for the 2nd grade, devoted to the "alphabet of art", and are completely absent in the textbooks for the 1st, 3rd and 4th grades. In the set by B.M. Nemensky, examples of contemporary art are concentrated in the textbook for the 7th grade, dedicated to the issues of design. The most saturated with examples of contemporary art of architecture, painting and design is the set by L.G. Savenkova/E. Ermolinskaya/E.S. Medkova. At the level of the 8th grade, it also gives a systematized picture of the modern period in all types of art (Ermolinskaya Medkova & Savenkova 2014).

From the standpoint of introducing new pedagogical methods based on imaginative possibilities of form creation, the analysis of training sets showed that none of the authors set such tasks for himself or herself. The approach, which implies covert indications of formal solutions of various topics and imaginative decisions, prevails. An attempt to consider the problems of form making is concentrated in the set by I.E. Kashekova. But, what is typical, all formal topics (line, spot, color, form, composition) are concentrated in the topics of the 2nd grade and no longer appear in any of the textbooks of the other grades.

Results of the questionnaire survey. In total, 1200 people from 18 Russian cities were surveyed during the period of 2016/2017. On the question of preferences for classical (up to the end of the 19th century) or contemporary art (20th-21st centuries) – 85% chose classic art, 15% – modern art. 96% of the courses' students gave preference to the art of the first half of the 20th century (modernism), 4% to the art of the second half of the 20th century (postmodernism). In open questions about preferences for stylistic movements of the 20th and 21st century, an interesting tendency was revealed. Up to 80% of respondents attributed such movements as Impressionism and Post-impressionism to the art of the 20th century. The stylistic movements of the first half of the 20th century – Fauvisme/Cubism/Expressionism/Surrealism was named by 75% of respondents. In the same list, Abstractionism was present in 50% of the answers. From the directions of the second half of the 20th century, such movements as op-art and pop-art were the most often named (up to 30%), due to the popularity of V. Vasarely and E. Warhol. In the field of architecture, up to 84% of the respondents named such a movement as Soviet Constructivism. Up to 56% named Functionalism associated with Le Corbusier, 42% – "organic" or "brutal" architecture exemplified by F.L. Wright and Sydney Opera House. With a large gap, only 4% named Deconstructivism ("The Dancing House" in Prague).

As for the types of art, researchers discovered unevenness of knowledge in the field of painting, architecture and sculpture. In open questions, the greatest number of surnames of contemporary masters was named in the field of painting (on average 10-12), then in the field of architecture (5-6) and at the last place in sculpture (2-4). The most popular among the painters are P. Picasso, H. Matisse, S. Dali, K. Malevich, V. Kandinsky. Among the architects – V. Tatlin, Le Corbusier, F.L. Wright. Among the sculptors, the most popular is O. Rodin (76%), who is also regarded as the author of the 20th century. He is followed by domestic sculptors – Tsereteli, Shemyakin, then – by H. Moore.

When asked about the satisfaction with the information field on issues of contemporary art, the answers were negative – up to 78% of respondents were not satisfied. Among the list of sources of information on modern art offered on a choice the most preferred was the Internet (up to 60%). Further, with a large gap, television, the press, museums, exhibitions and special literature follow (5-6% each). The notes point out the lack of accessible popular literature on contemporary art.

On the abstract question about the need to update the educational programs on fine arts, the response of the teaching community is generally positive – up to 50%. However, the question whether they are ready to switch to programs based on the material of contemporary art – the answer was more likely negative (only 2-3% said "yes").

The results of the creative workshop showed the features of figurative understanding of the simplest pictorial means (spot, outline, contour, color) by the teachers of fine arts. Below, we give a few vivid examples of essays with different orientations.

In his essay "The Line of Life", N. Yu. Dadychkin comprehends them as symbolic categories of growing up and becoming a personality. It starts with the question "Have you ever thought that school gives us a pair of compasses of knowledge for drawing the square of life?" And then a kind of symbolic painting of the life line follows: "The search for the squaring the circle is an exercise that gives food for thought, but does not lead to a physical result. One who can say for sure how useful this exercise is – is a happy man, not torn by doubts, not burdened with unnecessary contradictions. Each person has his or her own picture of the world. It is so hard to understand what is not inscribed into it. From the very birth and all childhood, such sketches and the first bright spots of emotion arise. Every day, until youth, the canvas acquires clarity and its color scale. By the 1st grade we already have a contour. ...In school years, the frame is strictly outlined and an integral image of being is created... In adolescence, a person suddenly pays attention to the outline... And here someone with some timid, uneven lines of new concepts and deeds introduces a certain chaos of thoughts and feelings and, perhaps, stops, admiring the changes that have emerged in an unusual relief. Drawing apart the narrow framework of consciousness, we understand that inside us is not a square sheet of paper, but a square opening of a window. And, looking there, we will understand that rain, snow, gray color is only the weather of our feelings...".

The course student, E. A. Makivi, gives an ontological and psychological interpretation of the circle: "Circle. The thing in itself. Self-sufficiency and completeness. Harmony and perfection. Atom, a drop in weightlessness, a soap bubble, an air balloon, the Globe, the Sun... Any volume in a free state tends to a sphere. Man internally also tends to the state of the sphere – to equilibrium, rest, steady concentration. Maybe it's worth returning to the state with foundation in the subconscious. The embryo in the womb develops in a position close to the shape of a sphere. Sometimes a person simply needs to be alone with him or herself, and if he or she was a drop of water, he or she would certainly take the form of a sphere. Having accumulated in him or herself the energy of harmony, a person can open up to others from a new side. He will generously share his thoughts, feelings, emotions of a joyful state, as the sun shares its heat".

E.A. Artyomova in her essay "Lines" defines life as a fabric, going out to the most ancient mythological conceptions: "Our glance constantly glides over numerous objects. Thin, long or short contours-lines are their images in our memory. Our life is a carpet of lines various in nature, volume, color and length. They can be parallel, can cross, break off and attract new variants to themselves". Elizaveta Alexandrovna feels herself as a ray, a light thread of the universe: "Each ray-person carries his or her own history. Together, people form an energy sphere. As a result of the exchange of images and information, the rays are enriched and form new worlds. This is the infinity of the universe. But collisions that lead to destruction and death are also possible". In her graphic works, she marks two stages in the development of the world model. At the first stage, clusters of curling organics vary the prenatal spherical forms and demonstrate some primary stages of the emergence of life from chaos or from mother's womb. The second stage, apparently the modern stage of the development of the universe, is represented in the form of a surreal, mechanized figure of a human in which the once curling spherical masses form the chains of self-centered cosmoses. It is chaos, pierced and entangled by thousands of individual life trajectories of ray-persons. The author presents his life as an upward spiral of organic biomasses harmoniously balancing light and darkness in its aspiration. The line is comprehended by E.A. Artyomova as a creator of life in the most diverse aspects of its manifestation. She believes that it is indeed very important to explain and show this to a child who, by mastering the art of line, in fact, develops one of the elements of his own human nature, develops in himself such a purely human ability to create and break into other worlds.

The essay of N.A. Korotkova "Only a Point" is devoted to understanding the most abstract element of the pictorial language – point. "A small point... It seems that it means so little in the vast world. Here's a line. Line can represent anything. But you yourself were once a point, a small point, a very tiny one. By the will of God, in an instant there appeared in the world one more point – the future you. And at the same moment, somewhere far away or very close someone spilled into millions of small points, leaving a trace behind him or her on Earth. Pencil leaves on paper a line or a trace. But any line is a set of points. Any line begins with a point. The first drawing in our life begins with the point of touch of a pencil to a piece of paper, a stick to wet sand, a finger to a weeping pane. Points, points, points... It seems that you are surrounded by small points that merge into a single whole. The point is the symbol of the birth of the world. Everything begins with it. A point of poetry gives birth to verses, a point of discovery moves civilization, point of conscience will stop us from an unrighteous step. From the point of grain, all the lines of life begin, all the roads are uncoiled from the point of a chew, after passing them, everything falls back into place, everything indeed ends with a point". In this text, the figurative and philosophical poetic basis is summed up under the author's main method – to see the world as a set of points-drops, points-grains, points-planetary systems.

N.I. Galkina, following the example of V. Kandinsky, gives his interpretation of the simplest geometric symbols and illustrates them with graphical examples. Generally speaking, she created a small manual of the semantic and plastic expressiveness of the elements of the graphic language, which can become the starting point for talking with children and for their own experimental work on creating their own collection of graphic and compositional discoveries. The author's associations may not be as perfect as the classical definitions of Kandinsky, but they are closer to children and to the modern understanding of form. Work in this direction can become the first step towards understanding the language of abstract painting. "A point... The principle of principles. Flash of consciousness, which then grows into something weighty. A black point on the white – a certain "puncture", the beginning of the fall deep into the dark unknown space, white – "a hole, a peephole, from which the "light matter" hidden from us tries to pour out. The beginning of life on a lifeless leaf. "Point, point..." And the leaf came to life, and found its face... Dark spot... Indelible... Horrifying... Designing... A spot is a push to find non-standard solutions. The negative gives rise to the desire for action, makes you concentrate and transform energy into positive transformations. A bright, dim spot on a gray background is a loss of color, aging... "A moon was like a dim spot... A light, bright spot on black is a light in a window, a beacon that will lead out of gloom and darkness, give hope... A straight line is peremptory, strict, divides space into top and bottom, left and right. It divides everything, fences, fills space with "building material". Its movement is regular, but having met an opponent equal to itself, it is able to fall and break down up to infinity. It acquires stability and strength in combination with "solid" creatures in the form of regular geometric figures. It frightens with its infinity, it calms with predictability. The wavy line is playful, unpredictable. It can be calm, slow, but having accumulated excess energy, is able to become twisted and, like a long restrained stream, to curl and straighten out, filling a huge space, blurring and dissolving in it. A circle is an endless movement, a source of energy. When merged with other forms, it forms a protected and comfortable space. It lacks stability, but it provokes to search of it. A circle in another circle is double security, proximity to harmony and self-sufficiency".

To understand the specifics of interpretation of abstract art language by the courses' students, it is significant how they chose the topics for the development of test lessons for junior and middle school students. In this respect, several approaches can be distinguished. One of the most common is the symbolic comprehension of the simplest representational means (point, line, circle, color, word) and the achievement on this basis of a large image expansion: "From Line to Image" (O.B. Baryshnikova), "Harsh Music of Rectangular Contours" (L.I. Kuvalkina), "The Use of Geometric and Color Symbols in the Design of the Space of a Fairy-tale City" (N.I. Galkina), "Line in Music and Graphics" (Zh.P. Gogoleva), "Figurative and Symbolic Meaning of Geometric Forms" (A.S. Scherbakova), "Stories in Color"(O.P. Nikolaeva), "Color and Our Feelings. Colored Verses" (G.M. Khalikova). Then follows the approach of constructing the imagery of the entire lesson on the basis of archetypal images: "The World Tree" (E.A. Zhegulova), "From Chaos to Form. Fantastic Animal" (N.V. Vyaznikova),"The Miracle Tree"(E.V. Shishigina), "The Tree-house" (G.F. Samarin),"From Chaos to Form. The Origin of the World in the Oral Folk Art of the Shchors" (T.I. Zelentsova). The last is taken by the theme, in which emphasis is placed on the presentation of the technology of work through the symbolic image: "The Techniques of the Patchwork Rug through the Symbols of Square and the Image of the Carpet of Princess the Frog"(A.N. Kochanovskaya), "The Annals of the Blot. Monotyping" (T.A. Fadeeva), "The World Tree. Collection of Textures "(T.Yu. Vyatkina),"Symbolism of Color and Thread Graphics" (A.D. Krutenkova).

Analysis of the structure of general education institutions of Moscow and their programs from the perspective of introducing methods of contemporary art (avant-garde trends) into school practice. Among state general schools of Moscow, only one school was discovered, in which modern art methods (avant-garde trends) were applied into school practice at program level – it was Surikov Moscow Academic Art Lycée of the Russian Academy of Arts (MAKhL RAKh). This is a specialized educational institution in which students from 10 to 17 years old receive general and artistic education at the same time. The methodological base of the program of the architectural department of the Lycée was the experience of the famous schools Bauhaus and VKhUTEMAS (VKhUTEIN), as well as the original ideas of the group of Moscow architects S.V. Ilyshev and V.V. Yudanova, who created the association "Yo-program". The program is designed to develop in the Lycée students three-dimensional and abstract thinking that can be claimed in modern art practices, in architecture, design, scenography, etc. Work on the program involves the implementation of two major projects per year. The themes of the annual assignments are: "Propaedeutics. Applied Technical and Decorative Aspects of the Work, the Basics of Graphics, Modeling and Architectural Drafting", "Three-dimensional Compositions from Embedded Geometric Bodies", "Three-dimensional and Plastic Objects with the Conventional Name of "Architectural Primitive", "Three-dimensional Compositions with Conventional Name of "Labyrinth", "Solving the Address-emotional Task in Three Dimensions and Color with the Conventional Name of "Triumphal Arch", "Expressiveness of a Self-stressed design. Solving the Problems of the Constructive Plan with the Conventional Name "Bridge", "Transformation of Real Objects into Grapheme – a Sign in Space", "The Concept of "Function" in the Project with the Conventional Name "Self-portrait", "Three-dimensional Vertical Object "Tower" in the Style of the Chosen Architect of the 20th-21st Centuries", "Translation of the Plane into Space. Creation of a Three-dimensional Installation Based on the Motives of Contemporary Artists", "Concept as a Monofunctional Three-dimensional Formation, Thought-out From the Functional, Constructive, Aesthetic, and Other Possible Sides Dictated by the Chosen Conception with the Conventional Name of "the City of Future", "Image as a Decoration or Three-dimensional Illustration to the Selected Literary Work", "Form-Forming Role of the Material: Functional Object of the Interior or Furniture in Full Size", "Oddity of Form as a Priority Task, Domination of Formal Logic Over the Function: Object with the Conventional Name "Artifact", "Installation "Kinetic Sculpture", "Work on the Implementation of the Final Diploma Composition, Preparation for the College Entrance Examination: "Abstract Three-dimensional System in a City as an Image for Solution of Town-planning Tasks" (http://www.art-lyceum.ru/index.php/home/tvorcheskie-masterskie/tvorcheskaya-masterskaya-spetsializatsii-arkhitektura).

All other schools, the programs of which were based on the practice of contemporary art (avant-garde trends), function either in the system of additional education or as attached to large cultural centers of contemporary art.

An example of the first group is the "Children's School of Arts "START", in which an additional preprofessional educational program "Architecture" is realized. The basis of the school was the studio "START" attached to the Central House of Architects (1982). At present, there study children from 4-5 to 17 years old, gradually mastering the subprograms: "Art Materials and Technologies", "Graphic Literacy", "Three-dimensional Composition", "Computer Compositional Design". The authors of the program proceed from the premise that "The composite language of architecture and design is the language of abstract, three-dimensional and color-and-texture relations. Architecture, like design, is completely devoid of any visual connection with life, and therefore the forms created by these types of art are practically free from life-likelihood". In the substantiation of the program, the following conceptual reasons for the orientation of the START school to modernity are named: "First of all, the task is to educate a man of the future, keeping pace with the times, getting his bearings in the values ​of today, and second, contemporary art is no exception in the consistent study of the history of culture. For the education of a free person, it is necessary to open to him or her the whole world and all the riches of the world culture, both past and present, without giving preferences to something individual. In itself, tradition is not a creative force, and only by confronting it with antitradition the spirit of genuine creativity forms; third, the avant-garde of the 1920s is a phenomenon of Russian culture, on the basis of which the modern world art developed to a large extent, and the young must also study it, and fourth, today's artist must be able to use modern means, and therefore even works on the themes of the past art are fulfilled by means suggested by our time; fifth, the avant-garde appealing to geometric forms is close and accessible to children; sixth, the avant-garde makes it possible to reveal the creative potential of a child: it is free from the logic of ordinary thinking, canons and rules" (http://start.arts.mos.ru/education_activities/programs/dopolnitelnaya-predprofessionalnaya-obshcheobrazovatelnaya-programma-v-oblasti-arkhitekturnogo-iskus/). The school conducts wide popularization activities to spread its experience. Under the program of the School, teachers in Naberezhnye Chelny, Tolyatti, Novosibirsk, Perm, Tobolsk, Tyumen, Kemerovo, Magadan, Arzamas, Nefteyugansk, Khabarovsk, Seversk, Kostroma, Rostov currently work. In the near Moscow suburbs, to the same type of schools belongs "ARCHIMED Children's Architecture and Art School". The school's curriculum focuses on "non-traditional ways of working with already familiar materials and mastering new technologies" (http://arhimed-school.ru/).

Intermediate position is occupied by studios at higher educational institutions. An example is the Children's Design School "SHUM" (headed by Alexander Vasin), attached to the Institute of Business and Design. The conception of the school opened in 2014 contains tasks on vaccinating children with graphic and typographic culture. Children of 7-12 years old are taught "rhythm, sound, font, infographics and typography, composition and hand printing". For the students of the 10th-11th grades, the programs "Introduction to Design", "Fundamentals of Drawing", and "Fundamentals of Composition" are implemented. Their purpose is "mastering the fundamentals of form making in design". The curriculum includes mastering of the basic elements of form making: "point, line, plane, spot, format space, contrast, scale, proportions, concept of shape design, space and its properties, archetypes, style and texture, space and light" (http://obe.ru/programs/shum/).

Studios attached to the art centers of contemporary and modern art differ from schools, on the one hand, by greater freedom of the educational process, and on the other hand by direct immersion in the environment of contemporary art. At Avant-garde Center on Shabolovka, the studio "Avant-garde Formula" is working for children of 5-7 years old (the head is an artist, teacher and participant of the "Suprematikus" project T.E. Zaitseva).The center is located near the outstanding monument of Russian avant-garde, Shukhov Radio Tower (architect V.G. Shukhov) surrounded by houses built in the style of Constructivism, so that training in the spirit of the avant-garde implies a complete immersion into the surroundings. According to the concept of the creative team, "The studio of the avant-garde center in its programs is based on the propaedeutics of the 1920s, above all, on the pedagogical experience of VKhUTEMAS and Bauhaus". They see their task as "adapting these analytical exercises to children, immersing them into the cultural context of the avant-garde epoch, and hence extending the conversation from purely formal, plastic tasks to social, philosophical and cultural topics". Classes are arranged as "monthly cycles: "Color", "Line", "Photo", "Collage", "Word. Book", "Design", "Object", "Architecture". Each of the cycles allows mastering different artistic techniques, go from plane to three dimensions, from "elementary particles" of art (color, line, photo, word, movement) to composite and complex (collage, assemblage, design, object, performance)'' (Figurina. Festival of Contemporary Art Education. May 15-23, 2015, 2015, p. 230). During weekly lessons, children get acquainted with the experiments and discoveries made by V. Kandinsky, K. Malevich, A. Rodchenko, M. Matyushin, P. Picasso, R. Rauschenberg, P. Klee, and other key figures of modernism (http://avantgarde.center/about; Tatianaozarenie@gmail.com).

Workshops of Artistic Design (headed by N. Selivanov, T. Selivanova) work at the Cultural Center ZIL. The building of the center is an example of the architecture of Constructivism of the 1920s-1930s of the 20th century (the architects are brothers L.A. and A.A. Vesnins). This contributes to the realization of one of the tasks of the Workshops’ program – acquaintance of children with culture and art of the 20th century. According to the concept of the heads of the Workshops "The basic classes of the Workshops' curriculum are aimed at developing project creative thinking, spatial imagination, plastic thinking and in-depth study of formal composition". In the classes on spatial modeling, "students sculpture, mock up of paper and cardboard, make synthetic objects, i.e. develop their tactile sensations, begin to comprehend the real space. Then they come up and create their artificial spaces: architectural models, sculptural constructions "(http://www.art-edu-studio.ru/ru/).

Children's Center MMOMAkid organized at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMOMA) and focused on working with funds and current exhibitions of contemporary art. The course "Two-dimensional Visualization" for children of 4-10 years old is realized in the studio "Fantasy" (headed by S. Galaktionova) and is aimed at getting to know the basics of composition (line, point, surface, mass, color, rhythm, proportions) and patterns of composition (symmetry, dynamics, contrast, nuance). For teenagers, classes are held at the course "Fundamentals of Artistic Perception" (A. Shilmanskaya, M. Osetianskaya), aimed at developing visual culture (http://www.mmoma.ru/).

At the State Center for Contemporary Art (GTsSI), creative workshops that work on the principle of implementing an individual project are opened. In the workshop "Theory and Practice" (headed V. Laponkina and T. Laponkina), children from the age of six are becoming acquainted with the basics of world contemporary art and with various visual techniques and methods, which gives them the opportunity at the end of the annual cycle to create their own artistic project. In the workshop "Design from A to Z" (headed by T. Alyoshin), children work on projects of author's costumes-objects. The workshop ''Theater of the Artist'' for children of 8-10 years old is oriented to theater projects in the spirit of Bauhaus ideas, imagery of the works of such masters as El Lisitsky, P. Picasso, J. Miro i Ferra, A. Calder (http://www.ncca.ru/articles .text?filial=2&id=215).

The studio ''Vernissage'' at the ''Gallery of the 20th Century'' was founded by A. Borshchagovskaya and Vogyo Intoyo, graduates of the Moscow Polygraphic Institute, which continues the traditions of VKhUTEMAS and VKhUTEIN. The studio specializes in the field of polygraphic design and conducts festivals of kites "LeTatlin", in the spirit of the famous conceptual creation of the Soviet constructivist V. Tatlin "Letatlin" (http://vzmoscow.ru/index.php/art-galleries/21-age).

The Children's Art Gallery "Izopark" attached to the Association "Exhibition Halls of Moscow" (headed by Alexei Orlovsky) works on the basis of its own fund of art projects and collections created by students. The work of the teachers of the studio, based on the principles of alternative artistic pedagogy, is aimed at the formation of modern visual thinking of children and teenagers from 4.5 years old to 17 years old. The result of the project activity of Isopark students are the futuristic objects created within the framework of the festival ''Children's Arhstoyaniye'' in the Nikola-Lenivets reserve (https://www.izopark.ru/who-are-we).

4. Discussion

The analysis of the textbooks showed that on the line of the content/form balance, authors prioritize content, prescribed themes and orientation toward specific representativeness. Preference is given to classics and realistic art. Modern art is represented insufficiently and unevenly. According to the types of art, illustrations on painting prevail over examples of architecture and sculpture. The introduction of new pedagogical methods based on the possibility of form making is extremely weak. Operating with the term "language of art" is palliative, as there are no clearly prescribed methods for students to learn the alphabet of this language in different types of art. There is no clear strategy for acquaintance of students with the laws of form making, the principles of free play of form, variability, openness and the infinite prospect of experiment at the level of form. The paramount direction of attention toward the classical heritage leads to the inability to understand the forms and language of contemporary art. The lack of knowledge of methods of analyzing works of art leads to the feebleness in comprehension of deep existential meanings and, finally, to an extinction of interest in the subject under study.

The study of the level and content of pedagogical knowledge in the field of art showed the adherence of the majority to realistic traditions and classics in the arts. Such trends as impressionism and post-impressionism are still experienced as topical. In general, we can note the lack of knowledge in the field of contemporary art, especially of the second half of the 20th century. There is also an uneven awareness in different types of art: adherence to painting, less interest in architecture and lack of interest in sculpture. The reason for the poor familiarity with modern and contemporary art is the inadequacy of the information field and insufficiency of accessible popular literature. Expectations in the field of educational program changes are largely unrelated to contemporary art. The analysis of creative essays has indicated such a mental feature as the prevalence of personal, figurative and symbolic interpretation with reference to the specific representativeness of the formal elements of art.

The analysis of the structure of general education institutions in Moscow and their programs from the perspective of the introduction of methods of contemporary art (avant-garde trends) showed that the model of the "formal school" of studying the primary elements of form in art did not enter the practice of the general education school and exists only in specialized art schools with an architectural and design bias. The process of adapting the principles of the "formal school" to the level of education of children of younger ages takes place only in institutions of additional education. The activating factor in this process is cultural institutions concerned with contemporary art.

5. Conclusion

For us, the model of correlating art education, art practice and its theoretical understanding of the 1920s is exemplary in the following positions: 1) the initial basis of artistic pedagogy is the practice of modern and contemporary art; 2) artistic pedagogy is based on theoretical comprehension of the foundations of modern art, of a new picture of the vision of the world; 3) from the point of view of new theoretical concepts and new methodology based on a new vision of the world, a rethinking of normative models of the history of art takes place. As a result, the creative task of discovering new meanings in all layers of artistic culture comes to the first place in teaching; 4) the content kernel of art education is the study of methods of creative activity and knowledge associated with the modern picture of the world in art; 5) the position of the student is activated by giving him the right to choose and critically comprehend art from the ideologically neutral positions of the language of art itself; 6) the position of the teacher is defined as active accompaniment of the student's creative experiment; 7) the world heritage and contemporary art are considered as a value on the basis of the space-time categories, i.e. formal and neutral in terms of ideology; 8) this model opens up unlimited prospects for working with form and its meanings.

The introduction of this model is the key to improving the quality of art education at the level of general education school and additional education. The measures that can be taken in this regard concern: increasing the number of museum centers, galleries and other cultural institutions exhibiting and popularizing contemporary art; enhancing the status of the heritage of the national contemporary art; saturation of the urban environment with artifacts of contemporary art; intensification of the popularization of contemporary art at all levels, including periodic literature for teachers; development of fundamental research in the field of the introduction of modern models of teaching into art pedagogy; making changes to the educational standard in favor of modern art and new methods of work, taking into account the experience of work in specialized art schools and institutions of additional education attached to museums and galleries of contemporary art; expansion of the system of retraining and advanced training of teachers of fine arts in the field of familiarizing them with contemporary art.

6. Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to the governing body of the "Institute of Art Education and Cultural Studies of the Russian Academy of Education" for supporting the research within the framework of the project "Scientific and Methodological Support of Spiritual and Moral Development of Personality through the Means of Popular Culture" No. GZ 27.8975.2017/8.9. The author’s gratitude is also expressed to all the students of advanced training courses and teachers/professors who participated in the survey. 

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1. Federal State Budget Scientific Institution “Institute of Art Education and Cultural Studies of the Russian Academy of Education, 119121, Russia, Moscow, Str. Pogodinskaya, 8/1, E-mail: elena.s.medkova@mail.ru


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Vol. 39 (Nº 21) Year 2018

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