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Works of fine art present an inexhaustible source of imagination, aesthetics, and creativity and can stimulate the development of personal creativity. Communication with artworks is possible if trained to understand and aesthetically experience them. It is therefore important to be in contact with the rich symbolic meanings of the language of art. If we want to educate students to be able to communicate and understand the cultural dynamics of art forms and to successfully communicate with art forms in the future and develop their visual art literacy, we should implement artistic educational content in higher education. Contact with artworks allows students to better understand their thoughts and feelings and, if using appropriate methods, an artwork can stimulate students to be creative. This paper investigates the influence of Surrealist paintings (made by Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali) on stimulating the artistic creativity of 46 first-year students of Early and Preschool Education at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Split, Croatia. The results are presented using a qualitative methodology, i.e. a specific method of aesthetic transfer (perception, reception, and reaction) that brings the observer of the artwork into aesthetic interaction with the work and stimulates their experience of the work along with their creativity. Experiencing the artworks of Surrealism aroused students' emotions and aesthetic experience, allowing them to create background stories about the observed. Using various freely chosen art techniques, they also made their own artworks, which influenced the development of student creativity.

The research presented here aims to determine how art education influences students' preferences for the 20th-century art movements. An educational experiment that spanned through one school year was conducted on 200 primary school students. It included three types of intervention: observing works of art from the 20th century, introducing works of art using a puppet, and the students' art activities/artwork based on the 20th-century art movements. The results show that the model of art education is an important factor in changing students' preferences for the 20th century art movements. Students reacted positively to each kind of education, as evidenced in the wider acceptance of 20th-century art (abstract, fauvism, cubism, pop art, and surrealism). The type of education did not influence preferences (as much) when it came to classical art and visual works without artistic value. We concluded that puppets and independent creative work should be used more often in art education.

School system has not proven successful in educating gifted students. Artistically gifted students are a group of students requiring special education approach. The aim of this paper was to explore the extent to which classroom teachers and students as future teachers are able to identify artistically gifted students. The study involved a total of 160 respondents, among which 80 classroom teachers and 80 students at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Teacher Education in Split. The results showed statistically significant differences in the identification of artistically gifted students between groups of teachers and groups of students, future teachers. The results showed that there is a statistically significant difference in the assessment of several factors of giftedness of students in the surveyed teachers compared to students of Teacher Education. A statistically significant difference is present in Factor 1 (Art Abilities) where p (0.00) <0.05, and in Factor 3 (Motivation in Artistic Expression) where p (0.00) <0.05 and in Factor 4 (Use of Fine Arts) where p (0.04) <0.05. A statistically significant difference between students and teachers is not present in Factor 2 (Art Interests) where p (0.78)> 0.05. Furthermore, the results showed that teachers and students of Teacher Education share the opinion that gifted students will have a high level of learning, possess a large number of artistic ideas and show interest in figurative and abstract forms of artwork.

The aim of this study was to investigate the differences of young school children in the visual preferences of paintings from the 20th century. The study was conducted at 4 elementary schools around Split, Croatia. A total of 200 children participated in the study, of which 87 were girls and 113 were boys aged 6-10 years. Visual preference testing was conducted individually where pupils assessed, on a 5-point scale, the degree to which they liked 36 paintings that were presented in pairs on the computer screen. The results showed that pupils preferred paintings made before the 20th century and paintings without artistic value. Boys and girls equally prefer paintings from the 20th century, with the exception of surrealism, which boys preferred better. Pupils, irrespective of age, better prefer fauvism, pop art, and surrealism, as opposed to cubism and abstract art. Apparently, children prefer more fine lines with a distinctive motif, cleaner colors, and 3-dimensional diagrams of signs and space (fauvism, surrealism, pop art); and they less favored paintings from the 20th century where it is hard to perceive the spatial relationships, which are abstract or difficult to figuratively recognize (cubism, abstract painting).