Integrating Red Culture into Higher Education Art Curricula: A Curriculum Transformation Framework for Mixed-media Painting

Abstract

This study examines how revolutionary culture can be integrated into the course Techniques of Mixed Media Expression in Painting at Baise University. It focuses on how cultural resources can guide creative inquiry, visual decisions, and material choices in studio practice. Previous research has discussed historical learning, thematic creation, and exhibition feedback, but has paid less attention to the links between cultural understanding and material decisions. Using a literature review, conceptual analysis, and course-based application, this study proposes a four-stage curriculum transformation framework. The stages involve selecting and organizing cultural resources, turning cultural narratives into creative questions, linking visual decisions to material experiments, and organizing studio tasks and feedback. Source cards, composition drafts, material samples, and task instructions help connect these stages. Resources related to the Baise Uprising and the Xiangjiang Battle illustrate how the framework can be applied. Proposed tasks ask students to identify the sources of their ideas, compare material effects, and explain their choices and revisions. The study offers a practical structure for translating cultural integration principles into traceable studio learning tasks. As the framework has not been tested in classrooms, its feasibility and teaching effectiveness remain to be evaluated.