My favorite books about artistic intelligence and research through art

Karen Gallas introduced me in the early 1970s to the integration of various forms of artistic expression in the education of young children, based on the work of Sylvia Ashton-Warner and Elwyn Richardson in New Zealand and the British Infant School movement, which inspired experimental education in the United States. 

Languages of Learning grew from Gallas’s classroom research exploring how artistic thinking enabled children with various language, cultural, and learning differences to participate fully in the learning process that she presented as “arts as epistemology” in a symposium with Maxine Greene and others published in the Harvard Educational Review. These foundations in childhood continuously inform artistic inquiry in all of life.

Jung’s Red Book (Liber Novus) is a masterpiece of art-based research.

Although he called his creations ‘nature,’ not ‘art,’ I describe art as a force of nature. In addition to saving his soul during a period of personal crisis, the ‘self-experiment’ perfected the methods, establishing him as a world-renowned figure and arguably the most sustained influence on psychotherapeutic practice to date. His firsthand experimentation exemplifies how personal artistic inquiry can transcend itself to be of use to others.

Where Jung’s heirs kept the manuscript in a vault for almost fifty years after his death, possibly concerned that the intimate expressions might jeopardize his “scientific“ image, the resoundingly positive response to it will set an important precedent for future art-based research. 

Pat Allen demonstrates how art interpretation involves reflection on her creations in an ongoing process of responding creatively to their expression, as contrasted with explanation, analysis, and uncovering hidden ‘meaning.’ As authors say, writing helps them understand what they think, and thought keeps moving like a stream.  

I am often asked whether art-based research can present the art alone without commentary. Documentary films do this in their combination of film footage and narration, but with painting, dance, music, and other art forms, expository reflection suggests how the personal expression furthers understanding and usefulness to others.

Pat Allen models this process by integrating her written responses to visual images into a convincing work of art that I see as presenting artistic inquiry as a new art genre.

Ruth-Mateus-Berr at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and her team of colleagues demonstrate the interface between art-based research and social transformation.

With the support of the Austrian Science Fund, they are conducting an ongoing project furthering social empathy for people living with dementia and improving their lives through art created in community. The research offers what Mateus-Berr calls artistic “portrayals” and “interpretations” of the dementia experience, in various art forms including digital media, with the goal of learning about the condition and changing perceptions of it.

The project catalogue documenting the ongoing research, which has been continuously presented in various art venues including the Venice Biennale, can be viewed at the DEMEDARTS website.

Ross Prior is the creator of a world community committed to advancing the practice of art-based research that has grown from his founding of the Journal of Applied Arts & Health.

A primary goal of the journal, and this collection written by contributors to it, is Prior’s effort to build confidence in artistic practice as research that generates “authentic artistic knowledge” and helps artists deepen their insights into “what they do.” 

In response to the current demand for evidence-based research, he consistently asks—how is the evidence defined? Isn’t the outcome of artistic inquiry the art itself, with social impact determined by its rigor, quality, and persuasiveness? Can we confidently make the case for art’s inclusion in research furthering learning, human understanding, public health, and global well-being?