Essentialism emphasizes the essential value of art education and advocates discipline-based art education. Essentialists believe that art teaching should be subject-oriented and serialized, advocate systematic curriculum design and guidance methods, and evaluate children's academic performance with subject standards. The representatives of essentialism are eisner and Genach. Eisner emphasized that the main value of art education lies in its unique contribution to personal experience. He pointed out that "art is an extremely special aspect of human culture and practice, and the most valuable contribution that art can make to human practice is directly related to its characteristics." The contribution that art can make to human education is exactly what other disciplines can't. Therefore, any educational plan that takes art as a tool for other purposes first will dilute the meaning of art, and art should not condescend to serve other purposes. "Art education is not a tool to serve other purposes, but it plays a unique role in basic education, so the status of art in school curriculum has been valued and improved.

Contrary to the instrumentalist, Eisner proposed that artistic ability is not the result of natural development, but the result of learning and education. "Art learning is not the natural result of children's growth and maturity. Art learning can be promoted through education and guidance. " In that case,? What can I teach you? Eisner thinks that the field of art teaching should include three aspects: artistic creation, artistic criticism and artistic history. To make these three aspects of teaching effective, we need a systematic and continuous curriculum design, instead of calendar-centered teaching of painting turkeys at Thanksgiving and decorating programs at Christmas. And teaching should be evaluated as much as possible, because both tangible and intangible evaluation is of great benefit to teachers and students' teaching and learning.