Multiple Intelligences Kinesthetic Visual Spatial Musical

Multiple Intelligences in Art

In fields traditionally driven by "talent," such as music and the visual arts, it is easy for teachers to slip into the idea that certain students have more musical aptitude than others or that other certain students will always struggle with visual arts. However, to some degree, such attitudes may be the result of the teacher's own education, where his or her special abilities were emphasized, praised, and treated with importance.

Everyone knows that playing the violin and playing the clarinet are quite different. We do not expect someone who has studied the violin to pick up a clarinet and immediately play it well. People do not always realize that such subdivisions exist in art as well. The person skilled at pottery may not be particularly good at drawing or painting.

This kind of thinking about art can be extended to Gardner's idea of multiple intelligences. While the final result of working in the visual arts is something that can be looked at, such works often have kinesthetic or tactile qualities. Mobiles move, and wonderful collages can be made using materials of different textures. This is simply a finer focus on Gardner's point that spatial intelligence, for example, can be used not only for producing sculpture but also for learning to sail or for study of the human anatomy (Gardner, 1995).

There is no need for an art teacher to focus strictly on visual-spatial intelligence, and to do so excludes the ways in which other forms of intelligence might enhance the artistic experience for a student. Clearly, visual art involves visual-spatial intelligence, but even when emphasizing this aspect of art, other intelligences can be used. Some art is two dimensional, such as painting and drawing, but others, such as mobiles, sculpture or pottery, depend on three dimensions. But in addition, the art teacher can use visual aids to enhance the artistic development of students. Posters or other illustrations that demonstrate perspective can be placed around the room, or that show directionality of light, or instructions on how to make a pinch pot.

Motor movement can be incorporated in other ways. Working outside (because of the mess), large pieces of paper might be hung from tree branches. Students could use large paintbrushes and fling paint on to the paper instead of carefully painting it on where it should go. In this activity, the paint itself would have a kinesthetic quality, flying through the air and often moving after it lands on the surface of the paper.

Other forms of intelligence can be capitalized on in the instruction of art, however. Watch any artist at work, and the observer will see a lot of movement. Photographers move around quite a bit searching for just the right angle or setting up equipment. Painting and drawing both require the body to move. However, small works require only small movements. If the teacher hangs very large pieces of paper around the room and challenges the students to fill the paper using, say, five very long lines, then the students will have to move their entire bodies.

Another activity a teacher might try would be to have the students create a college using their sense of touch only. First the teacher could have the students tear or cut various materials such as felt, burlap, corrugated cardboard, yarn, crepe paper and other highly tactile materials into irregular pieces. Then, working in pairs, one student could be blindfolded. This person would select what he or she wanted in the college, and determine its placement, by feel only. The partner would assist by putting glue on the item for the blindfolded student. Then of course they would change roles. It would be interesting to compare collages made with both sight and feel to those made by feel alone.

Musical intelligence is another type of intelligence easily incorporated into art instruction. Many great composers of the Romantic era attempted to create visual images through music. Thus we have such compositions as "Afternoon of a Faun." Younger students might have a hard time illustrating their impressions of "Afternoon of a Faun" from hearing the music, and showing illustrations of the story might cause the students to simply imitate what they've seen rather than focusing on the music. Instead, the art teacher might team with the music teacher so the students have a basic understanding of rhythm and dynamics. Then they could listen to a work with simpler imagery, such as "The Moldau" by Smetana. This piece of work is short enough to hold younger students' interests, and evokes a simpler image: the growth of the mighty Moldau River from a tiny stream to a great torrent that rushes to the sea.

Once the students have the basic idea of the music, they can be divided into small groups. Each group could have, perhaps, nine feet of butcher paper, divided into three sections. One or two students would work on the first three feet, showing the Moldau as a tiny stream. In the middle section one or two students would show it as a broader river, while the last group would show it at its greatest as it spills into the sea. The students could listen to the music as they work.

Older students might listen to "Pictures at an Exhibition," by Mussorgsky. In this piece, short segments of music try to express individual paintings as the composer imagines walking through a gallery, examining each picture in turn. For instance, one is of children playing while another is of chickens scratching in the sand.