The Limits Of Efficiency And The Responsibility To Save The Nation Of Children’s Art Education ——A Research On The National Exhibition Of Drawings For Children In 1936

Organized by the Central Executive Commission of the National Children’s Year,the Shanghai Executive Commission of the National Children’s Year,the National Child Welfare Association of China,the Bureau of Education of the Municipality of Greater Shanghai,the Shanghai Child Welfare Association and the National Art Education Association,the National Exhibition of Drawings for Children in 1936 was the first nationwide children’s painting exhibition in the Republic of China.Thus,deconstructing this exhibition is of great significance to the study of the history of modern art exhibitions and the history of children’s art education.This article starts from the origin,preparation,implementation and operation mechanism of the National Exhibition of Drawings for Children in 1936,then focuses on different ideas of children’s art education raised by the preparatory committee members and other people who participated in this discussion.By analyzing those discussions,the article reinterprets the state of implementation,the values and interests of children’s art education,and the comments and views on the improvement opinions.Admittedly,the preparatory committee and the commentators indeed led the implementation of the exhibition system and methods with their advanced psychological views on children’s drawing and the concept of children’s art education,which determined the choice and presentation of the content and types of children’s paintings.Furthermore,this exhibition arose a certain renewal of the debate between academia and society on whether the effectiveness of children’s art education was to implement aesthetic cultivation or to train drawing skills since the emergence of the children’s art subject in the late Qing Dynasty.At that time,Although the country was in a state of crisis and the educational situation was therefore complex,the preparatory committee managed to address the effectiveness of children’s art education and its limits through this exhibition-against the pursuit of technical supremacy and the acquisition of cartographic skills on the grounds of national tragedy.However,children’s art education is not irrelevant to the national destiny,and its responsibility to save the nation should be reflected in the concern for the nation’s salvation and the nurturing of humanity.