DRAWING
I
LINEAR GEOMETRIC DESIGN DECORATION
I already have mentioned the fact that the material of the geometric
insets may be applied also to design.
It is through design that the child may be led to ponder on the
geometric figures which he has handled, taken out, combined in numerous
ways, and replaced. In doing this he completes an exercise necessitating
much use of the reasoning faculties. Indeed, he reproduces all of the
figures by linear design, learning to handle many instruments--the
centimeter ruler, the double decimeter, the square, the protractor, the
compass, and the steel pen used for line ruling. For this work we have
included in the geometric material a large portfolio where, together
with the pages reproducing the figures, there are also some illustrative
sheets with brief explanations of the figures and containing the
relative nomenclature. Aside from copying designs the child may copy
also the explanatory notes and thus reproduce the whole geometry
portfolio. These explanatory notes are very simple. Here, for example,
is the one which refers to the square:
"SQUARE: The side or base is divided into 10 cm. All the other sides are
equal, hence each measures 10 cm. The square has four equal sides and
four equal angles which are always right angles. The number 4 and the
identity of the sides and angles are the distinguishing characteristics
of the square."
The children measure paper and construct the figure with attention and
application that are truly remarkable. They love to handle the compasses
and are very proud of possessing a pair.
One child asked her mother for a Christmas gift of "one _last_ doll and
a box of compasses," as if she were ending one epoch of her life and
beginning another. One little boy begged his mother to let him accompany
her when she went to buy the compass for him. When they were in the
store the salesman was surprised to find that so young a child was to
use the compass and gave them a box of the simplest kind. "Not those,"
protested the little fellow; "I want an engineer's compass;" and he
picked out one of the most complicated ones. This was the very reason
why he was so anxious to go with his mother.
As the children draw, they learn many particulars concerning the
geometric figures: the sides, angles, bases, centers, median lines,
radii, diameters, sectors, segments, diagonals, hypotenuses,
circumferences, perimeters, etc. They do not, however, learn all this as
so much dry information nor do they limit themselves to reproducing the
designs in the geometry portfolio. Each child adds to his own portfolio
other designs which he chooses and sometimes originates. The designs
reproduced in the portfolio are drawn on plain white drawing paper with
China inks, but the children's special designs are drawn on colored
paper with different colored inks and with gildings (silver, gold). The
children reproduce the geometric figures and then they fill them in with
decorations made either with pen or water-colors. These decorations
serve especially to emphasize, in a geometric analysis, the various
parts of the figure, such as center, angles, circumference, medians,
diagonals, etc.
The decorated motif is selected or else invented by the child himself.
He is allowed the same freedom of choice in his backgrounds as he enjoys
for his inks or water-colors. The observation of nature (flowers and
their different parts--pollen, leaves, a section of some part observed
under the microscope, plant seeds, shells, etc.) serves to nourish the
child's æsthetic imagination. The children also have access to artistic
designs, collections of photographs reproducing the great masterpieces,
and Haeckel's famous work, _Nature's Artistic Forms_, all of which
equipment is so interesting and delightful to a child.
The children work many, many hours on drawing. This is the time we seize
for reading to them (see above p. 197) and almost all their history is
learned during this quiet period of copy and simple decoration which is
so conducive to concentration of thought.
Copying some design, or drawing a decoration which has been directly
inspired by something seen; the choice of colors to fill in a geometric
figure or to bring out, by small and simple designs, the center or side
of the figure; the mechanical act of mixing a color, of dissolving the
gildings, or of choosing one kind of ink from a series of different
colors; sharpening a pencil, or getting one's paper in the proper
position; determining through tentative means the required extension of
the compass--all this is a complex operation requiring patience and
exactitude. But it does not require great intellectual concentration. It
is, therefore, a work of application rather than of inspiration; and the
observation of each detail, in order to reproduce it exactly, clarifies
and rests the mind instead of rousing it to the intense activity
demanded by the labor of association and creation. The child is busy
with his hands rather than with his mind; but yet his mind is
sufficiently stimulated by this work as not easily to wander away into
the world of dreams.
These are quiet hours of work in which the children use only a part of
their energies, while the other part is reaching out after something
else; just as a family sits quietly by the fireside in long winter
evenings engaged in light manual labors requiring little intelligence,
watching the flames with a sense of enjoyment, willing to pass in this
way many peaceful hours, yet feeling that a certain side of their needs
is not satisfied. This is the time chosen for story telling or for light
reading. Similarly this is the best time for our little children to
listen to reading of all kinds.
During these hours they listened to the reading of books like _The
Betrothed_ (of Manzoni), psychological books like Itard's _Education of
the Savage of Aveyron_, or historical narratives. The children took a
deep interest in the reading. Each child may be occupied with his own
design as well as with the facts which he is hearing described. It seems
as though the one occupation furnishes the energy necessary for
perfection in the other. The mechanical attention which the child gives
to his design frees his mind from idle dreaming and renders it more
capable of completely absorbing the reading that is going on; and the
pleasure gained from the reading which, little by little, penetrates his
whole being seems to give new energy to both hand and eye. His lines
become most exact and the colors more delicate.
When the reading has reached some point of climax we hear remarks,
exclamations, applause or discussions, which animate and lighten the
work without interrupting it. But there are times when, with one accord,
our children abandon their drawing so as to act out some humorous
selection or to represent an historical fact which has touched them
deeply; or, indeed, as happened during the reading of the _Savage of
Aveyron_, their hands remained almost unconsciously raised in the
intensity of their emotion, while on their faces was an expression of
ecstasy, as if they were witnessing wonderful unheard-of things. Their
actions seemed to interpret the well-known sentiment: "Never have I seen
woman like unto this."
* * * * *
ARTISTIC COMPOSITION WITH THE INSETS: Our geometric insets, which are
all definitely related to one another in dimensions and include a series
of figures which can be contained one within the other, lend themselves
to very beautiful combinations. With these the children make real
creations and often follow out their artistic ideas for days and even
weeks. By moving the small pieces or by combining them in different ways
on the white background, these very insets produce various decorations.
The ease with which the child may form designs by arranging the little
pieces of iron on a sheet of paper and then outlining them, and the
harmony which is thus so easily obtained, affords endless delight.
Really wonderful pieces of work are often produced in this way.
During these periods of creative design, as indeed during the periods of
drawing from life, the child is deeply and wholly concentrated. His
entire intellect is at work and no kind of instructive reading would be
at all fitting while he is engaged in drawing or designing of this
nature.
With the insets, as we have said, we have reproduced some of the classic
decorations so greatly admired in the Italian masterpieces; for
instance, those of Giotto in Florentine Art. When the children try with
the insets to reproduce these classic decorations from photographs they
are led to make most minute observations, which may be considered a real
study of art. They judge the relative proportions of the various figures
in such a way that their eye learns to appreciate the harmony of the
work. And thus, even in childhood, a fine æsthetic enjoyment begins to
engage their minds on the higher and more noble planes.
II
FREE-HAND DRAWING--STUDIES FROM LIFE
All the preceding exercises are "formative" for the art of drawing. They
develop in the child the manual ability to execute a geometric design
and prepare his eye to appreciate the harmony of proportions between
geometric figures. The countless observations of drawings, the habit of
minute examination of natural objects, constitute so many preparatory
drills. We can, however, say that the whole method, educating the eye
and the hand at the same time and training the child to observe and
execute drawings with intense application, prepares the mechanical means
for design, while the mind, left free to take its flight and to create,
is ready to produce.
It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that
wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing
constitutes. The ability _to see reality_ in form, in color, in
proportion, to be master of the movements of one's own hand--that is
what is necessary. Inspiration is an individual thing, and when a child
possesses these formative elements he can give expression to all he
happens to have.
There can be no "graduated exercises in drawing" leading up to an
artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the
development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the
spirit. That is our reason for not teaching drawing directly to the
child. We prepare him indirectly, leaving him free to the mysterious and
divine labor of reproducing things according to his own feelings. Thus
drawing comes to satisfy a need for expression, as does language; and
almost every idea may seek expression in drawing. The effort to perfect
such expression is very similar to that which the child makes when he is
spurred on to perfect his language in order to see his thoughts
translated into reality. This effort is spontaneous; and the real
drawing teacher is in the inner life, which of itself develops, attains
refinement, and seeks irresistibly to be born into external existence in
some empirical form. Even the smallest children try spontaneously to
draw outlines of the objects which they see; but the hideous drawings
which are exhibited in the common schools, as "free drawings"
"characteristic" of childhood, are not found among our children. These
horrible daubs so carefully collected, observed, and catalogued by
modern psychologists as "documents of the infant mind" are nothing but
monstrous expressions of intellectual lawlessness; they show only that
the eye of their child is uneducated, the hand inert, the mind
insensible alike to the beautiful and to the ugly, blind to the true as
well as to the false. Like most documents collected by psychologists who
study the children of our schools, they reveal not the soul but the
errors of the soul; and these drawings, with their monstrous
deformities, show simply what the uneducated human being is like.
Such things are not "free drawings" by children. _Free drawings_ are
possible only when we have a _free child_ who has been left free to grow
and perfect himself in the assimilation of his surroundings and in
mechanical reproduction; and who when left free to create and express
himself actually does create and express himself.
The sensory and manual preparation for drawing is nothing more than an
alphabet; but without it the child is an illiterate and cannot express
himself. And just as it is impossible to study the writing of people who
cannot write, so there can be no psychological study of the drawings of
children who have been abandoned to spiritual and muscular chaos. All
psychic expressions acquire value when the inner personality has
acquired value by the development of its formative processes. Until this
fundamental principle has become an absolute acquisition we can have no
idea of the psychology of a child as regards his creative powers.
Thus, unless we know how a child should develop in order to unfold his
natural energies, we shall not know how drawing as a natural expression
is developed. The universal development of the wondrous language of the
hand will come not from a "school of design" but from a "school of the
new man" which will cause this language to spring forth spontaneously
like water from an inexhaustible spring. To confer the gift of drawing
we must create an eye that sees, a hand that obeys, a soul that feels;
and in this task the whole life must cooperate. In this sense life
itself is the only preparation for drawing. Once we have lived, the
inner spark of vision does the rest.
[Illustration: Designs formed by the use of the geometry squares,
circles, and equilateral triangle, modified by free-hand drawing. In the
design on the right the "flower" within the cross is made with
compasses: the decorative detail in the arms of the cross and the circle
in the center are free-hand. The design on the left is similar to a
decoration in the Cathedral at Florence, in the windows round the apse.]
Leave to man then this sublime gesture which transfers to the canvas the
marks of creative divinity. Leave it free to develop from the very time
when the tiny child takes a piece of chalk and reproduces a simple
outline on the blackboard, when he sees a leaf and makes his first
reproduction of it on the white page. Such a child is in search of
every possible means of expression, because no one language is rich
enough to give expression to the gushing life within him. He speaks, he
writes, he draws, he sings like a nightingale warbling in the
springtime.
* * * * *
Let us consider, then, the "elements" which our children have acquired
in their development with reference to drawing: they are observers of
reality, knowing how to distinguish the _forms_ and _colors_ they see
there.
[Illustration: Decorations formed by the use of the geometry insets.
That on the right is a copy of the design by Giotto shown below the
picture of the Madonna in the Upper Church of St. Francis d'Assisi
(Umbria).]
[Illustration: Making decorative designs with the aid of geometric
insets. (_The Washington Montessori School, Washington, D. C._)]
Children are peculiarly sensitive in their appreciation of color. This
sensibility began to grow in the sensory exercises in the early years.
Their hands have been trained to the most delicate movements and the
children have been masters of them since the days of the "Children's
House." When they begin to draw outlines they copy the most diverse
objects--not only flowers but everything which interests them: vases,
columns and even landscapes. Their attempts are spontaneous; and they
draw both on the blackboard and on paper.
As regards colors, it should be recalled that while still in the
"Children's House" the children learned to prepare the different shades,
mixing them themselves and making the various blends. This always held
their eager interest. Later the care with which they seek to get shades
corresponding exactly to natural colorings is something truly
remarkable.[8] Over and over again the children try to mix the most
diverse colors, diluting or saturating them until they have succeeded in
reproducing the desired shade. It is surprising also to see how often
their eye succeeds in appreciating the finest differences of color
and in reproducing them with striking accuracy.
[Illustration: Water-color paintings from nature, showing spontaneous
expression resulting from work in natural science.]
The study of natural science proved to be a great help in drawing. Once
I tried to show some children how a flower should be dissected, and for
this purpose I provided all the necessary instruments: the botanist's
needle, pincers, thin glass plates, etc., just as is done at the
university for the experiments in natural science. My only aim was to
see whether the preparations which university students make for
botanical anatomy were in any way adaptable to the needs of little
children. Even at the time when I studied in the botanical laboratory at
the university I felt that these exercises in the preparation of
material might be put to such use. Students know how difficult it is to
prepare a stem, a stamen, an epithelium, for dissection, and how only
with difficulty the hand, accustomed for years exclusively to writing,
adapts itself to this delicate work. Seeing how skilful our children
were with their little hands I decided to give them a complete
scientific outfit and to test by experiment whether the child mind and
the characteristic manual dexterity shown by children were not more
adapted to such labors than the mind and hand of a nineteen-year-old
student.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
My suspicion proved correct. The children with the keenest interest
dissected a section of the violet with remarkable accuracy, and they
quickly learned to use all the instruments. But my greatest surprise was
to find that they did not despise or throw away the dissected parts, as
we older students used to do. With great care they placed them all in
attractive order on a piece of white paper, as if they had in mind some
secret purpose. Then with great joy they began to draw them; and they
were accurate, skilled, tireless, and patient, as they are in
everything else. They began to mix and dilute their colors to obtain the
correct shades. They worked up to the last minute of the school session,
finishing off their designs in watercolor: the stem and leaves green,
the individual petals violet, the stamens--all in a row--yellow, and the
dissected pistil light green. The following day a little girl brought me
a charmingly vivacious written composition, in which she told of her
enthusiasm over the new work, describing even the less noticeable
details of the little violet.
These two expressions--drawing and composition--were the spontaneous
manifestations of their happy entrance into the realms of science.
Encouraged by this great success, I took some simple microscopes to
school. The children began to observe the pollen and even some of the
membrane coverings of the flower. By themselves they made some splendid
cross-sections of the stems, which they studied most attentively.
They "drew everything they saw." Drawing seemed to be the natural
complement of their observation work.
In this way the children learned to draw and paint _without a drawing
teacher_. They produced works which, in geometric designs as well as in
studies from life, were considered far above the average drawings of
children.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] We give to the children first only tubes containing the three
fundamental colors, red, yellow, and blue; and with these they produce a
large number of shades.