An art course curriculum for non-art majors to meet college general curriculum requirements in Taiwan

College non-art majors in Taiwan are relatively well-informed about Western culture and tend to value it over traditional Chinese cuhure. They tend to know little about art in general and Chinese traditional art in particular.

The thesis of this dissertation is that Western art can be an effective way to cause nonart major students in Taiwan to come to understand and value Chinese traditional arts. Therefore, an Art-Based Arts Curriculum (hereafter referred to as "ABAC") developed in general education is a particularly effective plan for such a curriculum. The ABAC is an interdisciplinary approach interrelating the visual arts with non-visual arts and a crosscultural method comparing Chinese and Western arts traditions focusing on aesthetic considerations. For example, the ABAC model developed in the study compares Chinese and Western art in a paralleled period (e.g., early Ching dynasty [1644-1796] and Western art: Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical periods [1600-1850]). Furthermore, the ABAC model interrelates visual arts with music, poetry, and dance to compare their aesthetic modes (i.e., literal qualities, formal quahties, and expressive qualities).

The ABAC development follows a three-level pedagogical logic as follows: (1) to establish Chinese students' self-esteem sufficient to develop an open-minded approach to new art concepts; (2) to exhibit the merits of Chinese and Western arts; and (3) to encourage Chinese students to appreciate Chinese arts through an interdisciplinary and cross-cuhural approach.