M. Duh

Modern visual arts education enables students permanent creative expression, while art appreciation plays an equally important role. This article presents the results of a study that monitored the level of art appreciation abilities of 10-year-old primary school students from north-eastern Slovenia utilizing a sample of 1,429 students (n = 1,429). The study explored whether there are differences with regard to gender and stratum. Results indicate that the level of appreciation abilities is rather average. No statistically significant differences were noted as regards stratum (urban, suburban), there were however gender-related differences as girls displayed a higher level of appreciation abilities. The results allow us to conclude that our visual arts education arena pays insufficient attention to the development of art appreciation.Key words: perception and reception of artworks; primary school pupils; visual art appreciation; visual arts education.SažetakSažetakModerna likovna umj...

Perception of colours is connected with many dimensions. Different authors describe that colours (with their physical characteristics and physiological effects) psychically influence on our life, a place, in which we work and our expressed emotions. Individual colour has its own characteristics, symbolic values and influence on the human soul and body. Humans like different colours. We are choosing, using and expressing with them round our own will and emotions. The colour expression of children and their attitude towards colours changes and upgrades itself through their development.
In our study, we were interested in the relationship between literary characters' person¬ality and colours used in the illustrations of these characters of fifth grade students. We also re-searched the link between used colours and their popularity with students. In doing so, we were interested in the existence of differences according to gender. Our study was made using modified grading scale of colours and various emotional states of students to verify the link between emotions and colours, their favourite and unpopular colours. Results and illustrations show that students have different preferences towards colours and therefore towards literary characters' positive or negative personality. This also depends on students' experiences with colours. All this is visible within different students' choice of colours within illustration of literary characters.

An overview of the literature on gifted students suggests that students can be gifted by showing intelligence and/or creative abilities. Whether teachers are able to recognize intelligent and/or creative students is a matter of being skilled
and can have a tremendous impact on students’ course of education. In out study, we included students of Slovenian primary schools who were either recognized as gifted or non-gifted by their teachers. To find out what differences occur in the creativity levels of gifted and non-gifted students, their creativity levels were recorded using the LV1Test, measuring their artistic-creative and artistic-appreciative abilities. Data analysis reveals that the gifted students were more successful in gaining a higher average score on the test, as well as the
majority of individual items in the test.