Implications of Gregory Bateson's Ideas for a Semiotic of Art Education on JSTOR

This article examines how a classroom art lesson can reproduce a Cartesian pattern of thinking where creativity is represented as an autonomous act and the aesthetic is seen as a property of an art object - which also is considered to have an autonomous existence. The ideas of Gregory Bateson, as well as insights from the field of semiotics, are used to illuminate how the individual (as artist) is part of a larger ecology of relationships and how these relationships serve as the information pathways essential to the survival of the larger system. The recent work of Ellen Dissanayake is used to clarify how art, as "making special," can involve giving everyday relationships (sign systems that communicate) an aesthetic dimension - which is a view of art that corresponds more closely to the ideas of Bateson and to an understanding of the aesthetic dimensions of the sign systems that we use to communicate about relationships.