esp’ Pet strata Tes : ay lady he * . 2 wet setett < vat ix os) a4 ee ba? “Oe etyt ea oe ee eae HEF ay = Premed) PG Ses wate. Pen Y 10d F mek ies Sets: 3, ) “' x te Ves 96 OY it i roe ys . : cee : i ee tod ? . Spear nt Merete ee - < - me ‘ z 52 eS tg =< bs ‘ < we at He Rn . viyte - * eats t oe : : 2 Pssegsgtss, Parse ‘ _ wares eet et, oe J é ey estes me Wiese, Alsat er eta cat COI re pene 74 tt? AAs =e we aay + “~— oes + : rf otha “hy Uae, ar Aid irs thal > t sy 0 AL A BS im % tk \ Het t 4 " Hd x 5 A 7 pra ttl ti ge inet Freep en ben. “Se THE UNIVERSITY — OF ILLINOIS - © LIBRARY Q a ee, ele u * e's oxi CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its renewal or its return to the library from which it was borrowed on or before the Latest Date stamped below. You may be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for each lost book. Theft, mutilation, end underlining ef books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissai from the University. ) TO RENEW CALL TELEPHONE CENTE 333-8400 ) UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT RBANA-CHAMPAIGN APR 18 1997 APR 9 7 1997 SUL 3 0 1997 JUL 2 8 {997 | |e 11 2001 JAN 09 2003 When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous du¢ date. L162 { iH Aq THE ONT eHOT! we Siocg i CREAT ~: LIBRARY 37292 85a e . =” See oreo VCIUIC_ UIeS Latest Date stamped below. A | charge is made on all overdue books. a U. of I. Library 9324-8 THE ART OF SEEING "C1 jo Aog ew AG ‘assOF{ OY} CUINATY puke JOIIeYyD MW ayy I SET AoyQ ADL ~ THE ART OF SEEING MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING BY CHARLES HERBERT WOODBURY, N. A. AND ELIZABETH WARD PERKINS CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHT, 1925, By CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS Printed in the United States of America “ + ii “HOW FROM AGE TO AGE THE ART OF PAINTING CON- TINUALLY DECLINES AND DETERIORATES WHEN PAINT- ERS HAVE NO OTHER STANDARD THAN WORK ALREADY DONE. “The painter will produce pictures of little merit if he takes the works of others as his standard; but if he will apply himself to learn from the objects of nature he will produce good results. This we see was the case with the painters who came after the time of the Romans, for they continu- ally imitated each other, and from age to age their art steadily declined. “After these came Giotto, the Florentine, and he—reared in mountain solitudes, inhabited only by goats and such like beasts—turning straight from nature to his art, began to draw on the rocks the movements of the goats which he was tending, and so began to draw the figures of all the animals which were to be found in the country in such a way that after much study he not only surpassed the masters of his own time but all those of many preceding centuries. After him art again declined, because all were imitating paintings already done; and so for centuries it continued to decline until such time as Tommaso the Florentine, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by the perfection of his work how those who took as their standard anything other than nature, the supreme guide of all the masters, were weary- _ing themselves in vain. Similarly I would say as to these mathematical subjects, that those who study only the au- thorities and not the works of nature are in art the grand- vl sons and not the sons of nature, which is the supreme guide of the good authorities. ‘“Mark the supreme folly of those who censure such as learn from nature, leaving uncensured the authorities who were the disciples of this same nature !”’ LEONARDO DA VINCI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Elements of Design have been adapted from the theories of Doctor Denman Ross in the Syllabus for Drawing used in the public schools of Boston. The adaptation has been executed by Mrs. Theodore Andrews, in connection with her Saturday Class at the Chil- dren’s Art Centre, Rutland Street, Boston. Many of the drawings which illustrate the book were made by the chil- dren of that class. . The drawings of kindergarten age were done by the chil- dren at the kindergartens of the Froebel League and the New York Kindergarten Association in the city of New York. Mrs. John Johansen, of New York, most kindly allowed the use of the Japanese illustrations, which were photo- graphed from one of her books. CONTENTS EA. GENERAL PURPOSE OF A COURSE IN OBSERVATION . GENERAL PRACTICE OF A COURSE IN OBSERVATION TABLE SHOWING SUBJECT-MATTER OF A COURSE IN OB- PARP OL SERVATION OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED IN A COURSE IN OBSERVA- TION. TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION PART III DIRECTION I. 2. 3: LINE STORIES . MEASURE VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL . REPRESENTATION I. os ae Fe ACTION FIGURES EvEerRyY-DAy PERSPECTIVE MEMORY DRAWING AND INFORMATION DRAWING . MODELLING LIGHT AND SHADE EAR ALN SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS, INTERMEDIATE GRADES . APPLICATION OF MEANS TO INTERMEDIATE GRADES 1X PAGE 21 22 30 42 57 69 76 89 109 132 148 153 161 167 Xx CONTENTS MEMORY DRAWING IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING FOR ADULTS PART V TyPE MONTH FOR THE KINDERGARTEN NORMAL SCHEDULE TYPE WEEK FOR PRIMARY GRADES . TYPE WEEK FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 TypPE WEEK FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 REVIEW PRACTICE FOR THE END OF THE YEAR ABNORMAL SCHEDULE TYPE YEAR FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 . TYPE YEAR FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE KINDERGARTEN AT THE END OF THE KINDERGARTEN PERIOD AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE PRIMARY GRADES AT THE END OF THE PRIMARY PERIOD AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES . AT THE END OF THE INTERMEDIATE PERIOD PART VI ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION ELEMENTS OF DESIGN ELEMENTS OF COLOR INDEX "G37. 44 eee PAGE 178 183 195 197 198 198 199 201 203 207 210 OME oi 221 oat 244 279 289 FIG, on II. 12. ay 14. Gt TG. ILLUSTRATIONS The Air Chariot and ya ie the Horse. By a boy cieh soe el). . . Frontispiece Trees Altrating. Cause and Effect Teechitig By children from 5 to 16 anki The Fatal Dance of Salome. By a boy of 14. Diagram for Line Stories Flags Illustrating Results of Exercise in Line Stories. By children of 3 and 4 Diagram for Action Figures . Japanese Diagram for Action Figures . Action Figures Stories. By two boys of 4 Action Figures Stories. By two boys of 4 Illustrations with Single-Line Action Figures. By a boy of 14 Showing Transition from Single to Double Line in Ac- tion Figures. By children of 13 and 14 Showing Transition from Double-Line Action Fig- ures to Clothed Action Figures. By children of 13 and 14 atte he: Illustrating Problems in Every-Day Perspective, I. By two boys of 13 . Illustrating Problems in Every-Day Sea II. By children of 11 and 16 Memory Drawings Made Before and After Train- ing. By children of 3 and4 . ne Memory Sequence, I. By aboyof6 . xi PAGE Se 41 59 77 90 gI 94 95 IOI 103 105 LET Pai I3I 139 . Xil FIG. 1 Firge 18. 19. 20. 21; 22: 22. 24. 25. 26. a 28. 29. 30. ais 23: 33, 34. 35: 36. ILLUSTRATIONS Memory Sequence, II. By a girl of 8 . Drawing in Light and Shade. By a girl of 14 Figures in Few Lines, Passing from Action Figures to Action Lines. By children of 14 . Memory Drawing of Live Animals. By a girl of 14. Altered Poses, Drawn from Memory. By a girl of 16 Illustrations for Stories. By children of 14 Memory Sequence. By an adult of over 70 . Illustration with Use of Action Lines. By a girl of 14 Illustration with Use of Action Lines. By a boy of 14 Illustrating Subconscious Memory. By a girl of 16 Memory Sequence Drawings of Animals in Motion. By a girl of 8 Memory Sequence Drawings of Animals in Motion. By a boy of 16 . Memory Sequence Drawings of Animals in Motion. By a girl of 17 Vertical and Horizontal Examples ie Lesson No. I in Design Oblique Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 2 in Design Square Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 3 in Design Oblong Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 4 in Design Triangular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 5 in De- sign Circular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 6 in De- sign iy x Pes ee SOUL oe Half-Circle Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 7 in Design PAGE 145 152 163 168 169 179 185 218 219 224 225 226 227 261 263 265 267 269 271 273 Pd in is 4 y F ‘ ’ i a ee | ae TEE a pe a Ae ie dia 2 te Re | \ ua A ; 7 ie : f 2, .) 7 nee ; At hy fate . 2 Sri; pa — edt P¥ ; “a ‘ ‘ wp ad 28 AAs ‘ez he Tit ap ae ms fab! fa - es ie ie) ih - yt i ae 4 ‘ / ms he? ? is fl y SS ew a a Age i 2 t ‘ a 3 : 3 a a’ 7 ' : he t ae y .% : o ae e . _ The name changes with change of country. _ The form is unchanged except by death. Leonardo da Vinct, , : | . " F ra Oars 4 ' - be : ree, . ap A ae y r Oe ag wl , fa ny _~ a fe ' Vb ie Laie 7 q Dg! ‘ 7 GENERAL PURPOSE OF A COURSE IN OBSERVATION Among our most valued possessions is a simple faith in the reliability of our eyes. It is common to hear a person say “‘I know what I see,’’ and so establish a fact beyond question, the supposition being that eyesight is a positive thing, however much mere opinions may differ. To doubt the eyes is to most people an assault on the intelligence wholly unjustified by reason of the definiteness of sight. This instinctive resentment unfortunately has only too much basis in fact. The intelligence is doubted, but, more than that, the accuracy of the eyes as well. The process of see- ing is not the simple one of directing the eyes at a special spot and getting a correct and literal visual image as a result. Whatever the image may be on the retina of the eye, consciousness of it must lie in the mind, and it is there that the final conclusion is formed. If the mind is dulled or preoccupied, or by any reason unable to take a fresh im- pression, the visual image will be imperfectly recorded, whatever sight may ‘offer, and the thought of the image will take the place of what we have physically seen. It matters very little to us what our eyes give us if we are unaware of it, for a visual image is of no service until it has been recorded by the brain. The fortunate man is the one who knows what he sees because his mind is so open as to take the new facts as they come before him. To the majority of people, seeing is largely a matter of habit. After the first few years, when the world is strange and we have much to discover, we reach the period when 3 é THE ART OF SEEING we can classify. It is then we begin to see what we know, confusing what may be before us at the moment with the memory of similar occasions. We do not take the trouble to look unless we have spe- cial interest in doing so—the tree is a tree to us with none of the personal characteristics it might have if we really looked. We live in surroundings of generalized form. Even when our interest is given to an object, the habit of casual sight is strong, and it is necessary to clear the mind of pre- conceived ideas in order to receive a fresh impression. Trained sight is impossible without an open mind. The problem of sight-training is very different from that involved in the training of the hand, for the eyes themselves are less to be considered than the mind. We learn to see better mentally rather than physically, and all of our ef- fort has to be directed to this end. The value of Observa- tion lies in the accurate information we acquire for the use of the mind, which sorts it, and chooses and builds from it constructive thought. The Course in Observation follows closely the natural development of the mind, and builds on experience as it is gained little by little. It would be useless to require any- thing beyond the mental reach of the student; such work, though it might be mechanically adequate, would be lacking in all of the quality of personal expression. We see this plainly in the dull drawings so often made from casts where the only object has been to imitate the light and shade without appreciation of the beauty of line or of the quality of falling light. When we compare such drawings with the far cruder attempts of some child to tell his own story in line or color, there is no question as to which has a real interest. As a matter of technic there would be no comparison between the cast drawing and the GENERAL PURPOSE 5 childish attempt, but there the superiority stops, for mere imitation is inferior as a motive and is only a means for which the end is lacking. Technic itself is a method of expression, good or bad, as it accomplishes its object. We may have great admira- tion for a skilful technic; but it must accomplish its purpose, or it has no general value. There is no virtue in bad tech- nic of any kind, for it fails in the most important element of clear expression. Logically one might assume that it would be necessary to have something to say before it could be said, and we might expect the means to follow the thought as the need develops. The aim of the Course in Observation is to train the vision from the mental side, increasing the accuracy of sight at the same time, and furnishing the student with the means for putting his thought in simple line or color. Al- though he may use the same material as the artist, it is not necessary that his accomplishment be measured by the standards of Art. There is a common belief that a drawing of any kind must have some connection with Art, and it is judged accord- ingly. The remote relationship is there, but it is no nearer than that of an ordinary letter to Literature. An early drawing or one made by a person not specially gifted should be taken as a simple graphic statement, adequate if under- standable, but not to be tested by a standard beyond its purpose. | The Course in Observation starts at a point where even at the age of a few years the children have already gained some general experience. They have accumulated a certain amount of information and have interests and opinions. Drawing is one of their natural modes of expression. Their drawings are at first arbitrary, a matter of marks only, 6 THE ART OF SEEING which have meaning to them and give them something visible to which to pin their thought; but they are unin- telligible to any one else. Following this period will come the time when they wish to say something that can be under- stood, and for this they must use a language based on our common habits of sight. The normal order of the development of the mind gives a logical sequence of steps toward graphic expression. The first conscious and intended motion a baby makes is to reach for something, either a light or some object that has attracted his interest. He recognizes a world outside of himself, and, by fixing his attention on some special spot, he has his first experience with direction. His general desire to touch is the reason for the gesture, but the attainment of his object must wait on information, for he has no knowl- edge of measure. Direction and measure together connect us with the uni- verse, and they must be the foundation of whatever phys- ical relation we have with it. Without direction and meas- ure there is neither mind nor matter, for there is no direc- tion without consciousness, nor matter without dimension. A line in the abstract sense stands for direction and meas- ure, and is represented either in mathematical terms or in drawing. It is not to be supposed that a simple drawn line can have intrinsic interest in itself. However necessary it may be to acquire the skill to make it and to gain an obedient hand, the process is simplified if the line can be identified with some personal interest. This can be done at an early stage, as small children have no idea at first how objects look, and their interest lies in what is happening. It is simple to give the thought of line as a graphic gesture and represent with it motion, direction, and the action of a GENERAL PURPOSE ‘aL story. A point for the place of the child, another for the object, and the two connected by a line would typify the action of reaching. Practically, it is drawing a straight line from point to point and would be a dull CORMAN if it had no personal significance. The value in this training lies chiefly in the fact that the attention must be given to the definite limits of the line; mental vagueness brings failure. Incidentally, the power to draw an accurate line is quickly acquired, even in the case of very young children. It will be generally found that skill of hand is quite as much a matter of skilled mental direction as of actual manual dexterity. The thought comes before the act. If the thought is vague, the hand, unless in case of long habit, will be ineffective. The use of any tool or technic is more quickly learned if there is a definite need for it. In the Course in Observation the mental side of technic is considered of first importance, and the hand-training is expected to follow as a logical result. The line stories have little to do with sight, but they give a training in accuracy of thought and conscious intention, and at the same time make use of a graphic language as a way of telling of a personal interest. When we pass from the use of line as a symbol to employ- ing it for the purposes of representing the appearance of objects, the whole mental attitude has changed, and we add another element to direction and measure. We then state the condition under which we live, which is that of three dimensions, and the resulting solid we call mass. In our drawing we have two of these dimensions, and the third is only implied. It is this implied dimension that taxes all of our visual experience. We can only express it by the well-known re- 8 THE ART OF SEEING sults of its presence. A solid, for instance, under conditions of direct light, must cast a shadow; and a cast shadow even without further description of the form will, in some cases, imply the solid. We know this in the case of lettering which is drawn with shadow only; the solid letters seem to stand in relief though the actual contour has not been drawn. In a general way we see results and recognize by our ex- perience what must have caused them. The intelligent study of what we see must give first place to cause, for in a minor way we are creating the object we draw, stating by the results we describe some form which in the material world would have corresponding mass. If our result is il- logical the cause is impossible. A shadow in the wrong place, for instance, might describe a face that no one would care to claim. The fact of mass is experienced by a baby on his first in- dependent expedition about the room, and he gradually acquires an idea of the limits of the objects which obstruct him. Later, these objects become form to him with special individual characteristics. The general impulse when we begin to draw is to return to this original experience and think of the boundary of the mass, rather than how it may look. It is always difficult to pass from the thought of the isolated object as represented by outline to its appearance as affected by light, but we have again as an aid the thought of cause. With that in our mind the problem sim- plifies itself. We all know that most objects we see have a light side and a dark side, and from general experience, without refer- ence to light as a cause, we might conclude that fact to be one of the ways of solids. The information would be valu- able, but a great amount of looking would be required be- fore another fact could be added. All solids do not have GENERAL PURPOSE 9 shadows as we see them, and there are many minor varia- tions between light and shadow which will not be classified. Cause is the only possible clue, and it will save misspent years. Observation is constructive looking, not mere curiosity, but examination for a purpose with reference to both cause and effect. It is not the attempt to memorize a visual image after the manner of the Chinese, who are forced to learn four thousand characters before the classics may be read, but rather from the beginning of the training it is the search for the laws of nature and man. It must be realized that drawing as it is used in the following Course is intended to serve a double purpose. It is not for the sake of making a picture, as we generally un- derstand the word, or even as an artistic attempt; though it will lay a firm foundation for both. The main objects are the mental training in accuracy of thought necessary for real observation, and the measure of that thought given by the attempt to express it. The principles involved are so universal that mental habits are formed which are of the greatest value in all other studies. To sum up, we have a mental state caused by a visual experience which we wish to describe to others without words, but through general appearances. The artist would have more to say of his visual experience than we, for he has knowledge of its larger value, and his emotional reac- tions are keener, but we are following his path and acquir- ing material which will lead to an understanding of his superior attempt. Whatever the attainment of the student may be, it is necessary that he should know what he sees, why he sees it, and what is worth seeing. GENERAL PRACTICE OF A COURSE IN OBSERVATION | There are two ways by which the mental place of a hu- man being may be readily discovered, whether child or adult—through words, spoken or written, and through drawing. Each externalizes thought in a different manner, and both are necessary for complete expression. Drawing is frequently a clearer test than oral or written words, because in order to draw with any result there must be a clear conception beneath the imperfections of expres- sion. Confusion betrays itself more directly in line than through words. Communication by means of drawing may become as im- portant a way for self-expression in daily life as speaking or writing, and should be taken much as we take speech, as a natural method of expressing a thought. No quicker de- velopment should be expected in drawing than in the use of words when learning a language. There will be but few re- sults until the foundation is thoroughly laid, but if the teaching is consistent and the large principles followed, pupils of any age will be able to describe in line and in color whatever has impressed them in the day’s work and play at home or in travel abroad. Communication is the essen- tial point. People should look at their own and each other’s drawings as though reading a story. When men and women are trained to use a universal graphic language freely, both in business and in leisure, a great public will have been formed competent to recognize 10 GENERAL PRACTICE 11 and encourage talent and to require a living art in their -houses and public buildings, their monuments and _ their schools. A generation can be so trained to observe and know what and why they see, that the intention of the painter will be recognized and his performance accepted in so far as it declares that intention and a vision worth re- vealing. As a way to make the growing, unaccustomed leisure of workers productive and to increase a general power of ob- servation, drawing has no superior. And the children of the rich who live in cities will learn to use their hands and eyes to good purpose through a Course in Observation without the necessity of inventing artificial means to give them per- sonal responsibility in thought and action. The children of no special talent will in later life use the ‘results of their visual training in drawing and painting as opportunities for graphic expression may present themselves in the professions, business, and other activities. To draw a design, a map, a figure in motion, is often to convince at once, to gain time, and to save energy. Facts reach the mind through the eyes more promptly and impressively than through the other senses. The children of special talent, when trained according to a Course in Observation, will have nothing to unlearn when they reach the Art School. The teachers in our public and private schools are laying the foundation for this fulfilment whenever they succeed in giving the children an objective measure by which they can check up their own powers of increased or diminished observation. There is no reason why people as a whole should not re- ceive direct training in the arts of personal expression and the complexities involved be put back where they belong in the personal equation of the creative artist. The artistic 12 THE ART OF SEEING sense is not a thing by itself, but the superior development of a common quality, and the fog of controversy that hangs about the appreciation and teaching of the Fine Arts is, for the most part, unnecessary. It is possible for all citizens to the degree of their intelligence to draw and paint, and to know why one drawing is good, another bad, a third in- different, although they cannot penetrate to the sources from which final quality arises. All conventions tend to close the mind. In the perform- ance of many of our daily actions, as habits are subconscious conventions, thought is unnecessary and we rightly live by convention. But whenever it becomes essential to observe and consider, the teacher must be beware of conventions. To give a child a final best way of thinking about or doing anything involving constructive thought is like putting a budding plant in a vacuum and expecting it to grow. To see life directly and without preconceived ideas is the basis of individual expression. When a person has begun to look without fear and to make his personal choice, he is set in a direction to develop his full resources. No matter how rich in derived material his thought may be, he does not begin to increase in the quality of personal taste until his mind and his eyes co-ordinate. In science or in the Fine Arts the advances are made by those who have vision, who see with their minds. We begin early to spoil this possibil- ity in children when we let them copy and repeat, using no personal effort and taking no mental responsibility. We weaken their observation, start them on a long sequence of self-deception, and praise them when they reproduce the thoughts of others, not realizing that assimilation of ideas comes from personal. use alone. The few principles on which the Course in Observation is based, put into practice, constitute all the equipment that GENERAL PRACTICE 13 the mature artist carries with him. He has no other tools at any stage of his career. His originality also depends on how faithfully he has looked at the world, unhampered by short-cuts and conventions. Beauty as a result expressed through the arts is an objective recognition of a relation between the great laws of order. There is no easy way by which this result can be obtained. As we develop a Course in Observation by teaching how to see and to express in line and color what is seen, we find the essential difference between the older teaching and the new to be the emphasis on mental training. The training of the mind is put first in the knowledge that an adequate technic will follow, instead of training primarily the hand in the hope that the mind may follow. We help the pupil to direct his attention, that he may learn to see from a personal need and therefore think of what he sees; the doing to be the result of the thinking and seeing. The training of the observation is a cumulative process. The power to observe is inherent in the mind, but the range of that power depends on use and experience. Our effort is to build from the mental place of each person; not to im- pose arbitrary ideas and habits, but to start him in a direc- tion that will lead to free development of every kind. Educators distinguish three stages in young children’s mental development. Doctor Dewey calls these stages the Manipulative, the Symbolic, and the Realistic stages. In the first the children acquaint themselves with the ma- terial, generally by breaking or misusing it; in the second they fashion each his own personal symbol, using the ma- terial but not to convey thought directly; in the third, with the wish to communicate, they begin to use the material as a vehicle for ideas. When the last stage has been reached, unless some way of thinking and seeing better is suggested 14 THE ART OF SEEING to them, they gradually give up all attempt to communicate in a graphic language and confine their personal expression to words, which as symbols send them back to the second stage of development, from which only accident may free them in later life. Children feel the need for ‘‘realistic’’ expression long be- fore they express that need or ask for help. Parents and teachers, through a dread of imposing both ideas and tech- nic before the children are ready, often miss the very op- portunities for which they are waiting. It is evident that no child should be forced from the symbolic into the “‘real- istic’? stage, but if he lingers in the unconscious use of symbols he should have every chance to realize for himself that he is not communicating or enjoying the sharing of ideas, as are the others in his class. When this opportunity is given he will soon feel that his personal symbols are in- adequate. Drawing and painting, as a measure of observation, a training in clear thinking, should be so usual a means of ression_as to be fundamental in the curriculum of every Observation will use drawing as a universal graphic lan- guage in every study that can be reinforced through the cultivation of better observation. The time element, so great a problem in all schools, will be taken care of automatically when the basic value of graphic expression as an objective proof of a mental con- dition is recognized; for a better quality of thought will be obtained in every subject that can be directly co-ordinated with observation. Much time is still lost through superficial methods which attempt to furnish information on isolated subjects, instead of training the mind itself to work in any direction and on any subject required. GENERAL PRACTICE 15 Although parents do not expect children to continue a training in music or to perfect themselves in a new language without lessons, both teachers and parents often express surprise when the children in their charge do not observe and draw accurately with a minimum of time and attention given to the subject. Adults also, after being told that they will be able to learn a graphic language, jump to the con- clusion that an easy way has been discovered by which they can learn to draw. If it is understood from the start that the aim of a Course in Observation is mental training, re- sults will not be expected until they have been justified by close attention and a measure of continuous practice. The object of the Course is not to make necessary work easy, but to make hard work interesting. The attempt is often made to teach appreciation of the Fine Arts by furnishing the pupil with historical facts and comparisons. In order to appreciate, a personal conclusion must be reached. We may apprehend and give full rec- ognition to the facts, but until they are connected with personal experience we stop short of appreciation. The common use of the word implies willing acceptance as well as recognition. The facts must be furnished, or no personal conclusions can be drawn; but unless the link is supplied be- tween the intellectual recognition of pictures, periods, and painters, and the spontaneous acceptance involved in per- sonal choice, the teaching has failed. As great works of art are the result of superior emotion and observation, they can only be appreciated by those who have observed and felt the experiences of the masters, each according to his own efforts and in lesser degree. It is obvious that an arbitrary teaching of facts divorced from personal experience sets up a false standard and con- fuses the public mind. The mental training in drawing 16 THE ART OF SEEING and painting gained through a Course in Observation should supply a basis of direct personal experience for a teaching in appreciation of the Fine Arts, and give as well a founda- tion for the practical arts and sciences by which every man must live. One of the objects of a Course in Observation is to give emphasis to a few principles and balance to their applica- tion in such a manner as to present a method for the unify- ing of much scattered work in the schools. | ! Such a co-ordination of work should present but few diffi- culties in the kindergarten, where both the principles and the material for the course are already present, even in the cases where the necessary balance between hand work and the directing of the mind has been lost sight of. The standards established in the kindergarten, if continued in the primary grades, will produce work of such an order in the upper grades that whether the pupils enter the high school or begin to support themselves their minds will be open to many impressions and activities. The Course in Observation can be adapted to suit all the conditions for children’s work in connection with museums of natural history and of art. It is especially productive in museums planned for children, and has been developed in connection with such a museum. If much of the drawing, painting, and modelling, as well as work in design and the appreciation of art, done in children’s museums is carried on according to the principles and practices of the Course, the mental training will be of a superior order and the drawings will show qualities of vigor and originality, and a gain in memory. In nature work of all descriptions, particularly when pursued in camp and field, as by Boy and Girl Scouts, the Course will be found to add a new interest and a sense of GENERAL PRACTICE 17 personal responsibility to all observation of plant and ani- mal life. In the preparation of this Course the effort has been made to present principles so directly and simply that they can be taught by the grade teacher with supervision. It is ar- ranged to leave open many ways for drawing teachers who have time and imagination to develop the matter according to their own opportunities. If the directions are followed faithfully, adequate results for the pupils should be ob- tained. Throughout the practice the purpose must be held in mind: to acquaint the children with the large making of the world, with causes and effects, and to establish the habit of intelligent observation at all times. PART II There is no result in nature without a cause; understand the cause and you have no need of the experiment. iT bonceda da. Vine A COURSE IN OBSERVATION MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING TABLE SHOWING SUBJECT-MATTER ( Line Stories Lines Symboliz- ( Direction { Vertical and Horizontal ing Speed and | Measure Action Motion DRAWING Action Figures , Proportion Emotion | Representation Everyday Perspective Composition Imaginative Drawing Memory Drawing with Modelling Light and Shade | Psychological Emphasis in Design Design Five Principles of Design Simple Geometrical Forms COMPOSITION ees Color Teaching with Design Color Relations 21 OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED IN A COURSE IN OBSERVATION The Course in Observation is not a new method. It isa way by which a few basic principles can find practical ap- plication. The Means employed are not arbitrary nor necessarily novel. They have been chosen for directness in purpose and for human and dynamic qualities. After a study of the Means it will be seen that drawing as a proof of observation can be used in every school grade, and in connection with most of the children’s work—English, his- tory, geography, nature study, and even with languages to fix a simple vocabulary. Results in drawing should be as definite as in writing or reciting. The first requirement should be that the pupil has stated his thought clearly. Although a thorough training is necessary for supervisors and normal teachers of the Woodbury Course in Observation, the usual grade teacher who has a good working knowledge of educational psychology should be able to teach the course under careful supervision. It should be possible for parents and all persons in direct charge of children, after study of the Course, to give the children habits of intelligent observation from the begin- ning, and to prevent such drawing as is done in the nursery from being repeated by the children, for it fails to reflect the development of their interests. All the Means can be applied, in intensive form, to older students, and excellent results have been obtained from per- sons over middle life, who find not only that.they can use 22 OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED 23 drawing as a language but that their power to observe has been greatly increased. The Course can be carried on in large classes and in mixed classes of varying ages within the usual maximum time al- lowed for drawing in the schools. Continuity is a major factor in the work if graphic expression is to be used as an everyday language. Co-ordination with other studies should make it possible that at least one of the Means be employed each day, if only for a few minutes. We repeat: the object of the Course is to give such train- ing that thought may be clearly stated through graphic expression and color, and that the means may be supplied from the original sources rather than from the accomplished work of others. Personal interest, initiative, and responsi- _ bility are emphasized, and the attention is directed so that the students may learn to think and therefore how to see, in the conviction that what the mind can directly conceive the hand can do; that is, that technic is the result of think- ing and seeing and cannot be separated from the mind. The usual impression is that the use of a graphic language comes by inspiration or not at all. If a child or an adult, having a pencil in his hand and a vague impression in his mind, does not succeed at once in making a record of a sub- ject the verdict is that he has no talent for drawing. He is unlikely. to persevere, as the thought of a language to be learned is not in his mind. No doubt this impression arises from the fact that the rare, talented person appears to draw without thinking. The observation and association from which he draws have become subconscious habits. He has learned the language as the child of English parents learns French when born in France, unaware that effort is necessary. Except in these 24 THE ART OF SEEING unusual cases most of us must give the same thought to our intention in drawing as we would to learning the words by which to express a definite idea in any new language. In a modern city few persons realize how much they live in preoccupying ideas or emotions, oblivious of the objective world except as it serves their predominant interest. In these conditions it is not uncommon to find a highly edu- cated adult in a city occupation who has never looked at an object except to use it. A Course in Observation forces such a person to think about objects in order to draw them and to open his eyes to an objective world. It is evident that no one can draw without thought ween a start has been made in directing the attention to the ob- servation of light and form. The marks made on paper should be taken as a graph of the progress made in obser- vation, rather than as an attempt at artistic result. They should be read in this sense by both pupil and teacher. The materials used in the Course are those ordinarily employed for the teaching of drawing and painting, but with a few exceptions. Erasing is not allowed, and indelible crayon or lithographic pencil serves for drawing. Large sheets of unprinted news-paper are used freely. As the pupils must compare their records and stories, their work should be done only on one side of the paper. It is essential when learning to observe through a train- ing in drawing or color that the pupils make their. records, read their whole thought, and try again. The ability to do direct, accurate work is developed in this way. The reason for using indelible pencil and taking away erasers is to avoid an attempt to draw without any clear idea of what is to be accomplished. Many students, and even painters, proceed on a vague trial basis, hoping that each change will be an improvement, but with no clear idea OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED o5 or purpose. When plenty of paper and an indelible pencil are used, if a subject is badly thought and therefore badly seen, the mistake is visible at once, even to its maker, who clears his vision and looks again. An analogy in words would be an endeavor to correct a sentence before it had taken shape with the necessary noun and verb. The indelible crayon will be supplemented by pencil and charcoal as the pupils advance, but no so-called finished drawings are wanted. These close the children’s minds to further explorations in the older classes, as do stereotyped trees and flowers in the kindergarten. When the children are older, and work for a special object is required, some erasing may be done. An advance student might well profit from copying the picture of a master whose ways of expressing thought he was anxious to study; but experience makes it certain that no mental or technical freedom can be attained through the use of frequent minute corrections, either in a direct drawing or when making a copy. If copying as a method of training led anywhere, the life-copyists in European galleries would all be original painters. Five years of laboratory experiment have proved that the following Means are efficient in carrying out the prin- ciples of a Course in Observation, and successful in pre- venting a relapse into bad habits and static methods on the part of teacher or pupil: 1. Durection.—Under this heading a ores in Line Stories. Measure. The Vertical and Horizontal. 2. Action Figures.—Used for Motion. 26 Am B&W 7. THE ART OF SEEING Emotion. Proportion. Later (at six years old) for Everyday Perspective. Everyday Perspective. Composition. Color. Memory.—Under this heading Drawing and Modelling from Memory in a spe- cial balance with direct work. Such direct drawing is called, for convenience, ‘“‘Infor- mation Drawing.” Light and Shade.—On a basis of teaching in Cause and Effect. When applied consistently the Means give the olla results to the work of every pupil: Gy 2. 3- 4 st 6. 7° Sureness and Quality to the line. Feeling and Proportion to the figures. A reasonable Perspective, and therefore added inter- est, to the pictures. ‘\. The Elements of Composition. A knowledge of Color Relations. A logical development in Memory Drawing that strengthens observation for every purpose and gives a foundation for vital Design. A further increase in Observation through the Study of Light and Shade with the thought of Light as a Cause. The training in straight lines, always connected with a story, is not for the value of the lines themselves, but tc OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED Q7 give freedom and quality to the drawings. This line train- ing, based on action stories, should be used like a ‘‘daily dozen”’ as an exercise to be returned to in practice whenever the line becomes feeble. It is not to be considered merely as a technical drill, for its value lies in the thought back of the desire or action that directs the hand. In reality, the line is feeble not from want of practice in the hand, but - from want of intention in the pupil’s mind. With a training in Measure and the establishing of the standards of the Vertical and the Horizontal, the Line Stories form an introduction to the basic principles of De- sign which the children use in a great variety of ways. Action figures are used from the beginning, first for mo- tion and emotion, then for proportion. As the children at- tain good proportions in their action figures the lines are doubled, giving bulk, and the figures clothed, after which the figures resolve themselves into ‘‘Action Lines,” such as any painter would use in beginning a drawing. In the primary and in the secondary grades action figures serve in the practice of ‘‘Everyday Perspective.” This perspective is thoroughly practical for adults as well as for children. It gives mental training of unusual quality, in- troduces and supplements a later study of formal perspec- tive, adds reality to the children’s sketches, and measures their interest in drawing, as it becomes possible for them to work out accurately problems in a world of action before their eyes. Much of the want of quality found in industrial design can be traced to the fact that good models are copied and combined by excellent workmen with skilful technic whose memories, however, are untrained and therefore unavail- able. One of the results of a training in Memory Drawing is to give personal quality and invention to design, for all 28 THE ART OF SEEING the material that has been seen is combined and reproduced from subconscious as well as conscious memories. The’ variety, originality, and richness of medizval design can be accounted for because it was produced in this way and usu- ally directly adapted to the object to be decorated. The Chinese and Japanese practice is of this order. Beginning with the kindergarten, a knowledge of color relations is developed and studied in connection with De- sign on a basis of the primary colors. When color is used in the children’s imaginative drawings the single basic point is made that all color is relative. Later work in color is on the basis of the Woodbury teaching and practice in the study of color relations. Imaginative drawing is encouraged at all times. It is in these and in the Memory Drawings that the results of the training in observation show most clearly. The various Means are effective because they are directly personal and connected always with the children’s interests. We accept the children’s facts and lead them to question their own work. No copying is done in the Course in Observation unless for special reasons. The evil of copying les in the fact that the mental food has been predigested. The drawing or painting copied is already the result of one person’s deductions. A drawing should be original thought, even if of slight importance. It is necessary to have the original matter before the pupils or they can draw no deductions of their own. This practice of drawing directly from the object puts the emphasis on individual responsibility. Memory Drawing develops unusual power of observation and of visual memory, as well as a capacity to co-ordinate and use all available knowledge of the object to be drawn. Few persons have as good a visual memory as they give OUTLINE OF THE MEANS USED — 29 themselves credit for. They can only visualize familiar objects, which shows that they draw from a knowledge of the facts, not by visualization as they believe. An engineer will succeed in drawing a new and compli- cated machine from memory. Set him to draw the ‘‘Dis- cobolus’’ and he will fail. Put the painter without scientific training to draw a simple machine and the failure will be as great. It has been proved that the effort to draw from memory has great educational value, in that it focuses and strengthens vague memory associations by attaching them to a need for practical use when a special object is in question. Drawing and modelling from memory, in their true bal- ance with direct drawing, are used from the start. When light and shade are added to this training the older chil- dren, thus equipped, can go to a museum of natural his- tory or of art and draw an entire cast or an animal from memory. The teaching of light and shade is on a basis of cause and effect; that is, a knowledge of what light must do in any given circumstances. Illustration No. 2@ deserves special attention because of its psychological interest. The drawing on the left-hand side of the page was the result of a morning spent in a mu- seum by a girl of sixteen. Having seen too great a number of things, she only remembered a few, and those imperfectly. The drawings to the right of the page were done a week later without a further visit to the museum. TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT We all know the type tree found in most children’s draw- ings from the kindergarten, through the primary; even per- sisting in the secondary classes. This tree bears a few thick branches, each ending in a sharp point, or it is reminiscent of the earliest Christmas tree which some one has shown the children a fatal best way of drawing. These trees, as well as type houses and people, are the result of the children’s vague memories or ideas imposed by adults. They block all personal observation and be- come harmful conventions most difficult to break. When the teacher allows the children to repeat type objects in their drawings and apparently gives his approval, the habit may become fixed in the children’s minds, not only perpetu- ating drawings of this order, but closing the doors to intel- ligent curiosity in many directions. It is even possible to alter a child’s whole life through this form of teaching, and fix a literary habit of getting things at second-hand which separates him from any direct personal information of the world in which he lives. Observation is rapidly improved and obstructing conven- tions disposed of when pupils cease to generalize vaguely about the object they attempt to draw and, through a compelling interest, retain the thought of a special object rather than a general type imposed on their minds through another’s observation. The children’s knowledge of trees, houses, and people, for instance, instead of remaining static, is daily increased when they must ask themselves the questions: ‘“What sort of tree am I drawing—an apple, pine, or oak?”’ “‘Which 30 TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 31 sort of tree do I want in my picture, and why do I want it there’?’’ ‘‘What kind of tree would grow near the house I am thinking of ?’’ Then follow the questions: ‘‘How does an apple-tree look?’’’ ‘‘Where do the branches start ?’’ ‘Is an apple-tree as tall as a two-story house ’?”’ ‘‘Would a tall pine be higher than a three-story house ?’’ ‘‘What sort of house am I thinking of ?”’ ‘‘What kind of people live in it?’ Red Riding Hood’s Grandmother would live in a cottage, the Fairy Prince would live in a palace, and Cin- derella in a small house. The teacher must ask invariably what order of tree Jack or Mary meant to draw when this cannot be told from looking at the tree. If the kind is not clear, the chil- dren will be anxious to find out how that tree grows; and if no special tree is in a child’s mind, he will soon begin to think of one when planning his story. In this way a fundamental interest is aroused which will prevent that block in the mind produced by inability to fix the attention on any spe- cific object. A child of four is still an isolated person with symbols of his own making and for himself alone. He will make a few scratches on a sheet of paper and call them a man or a horse. When it is pointed out to him that his drawing in no way resembles a man or a horse he will often say: ‘‘I like it that way.’’ In this the child is unlike primitive man, who would have made his figure or his horse more like if he could, for his symbols were related and used as a language. We repeat that if left to themselves children will often have a long struggle in making the transition from a world of their own to one shared with others, but they reach the point sooner or later at which they wish to be understood. In most cases a child will try to improve his symbols and finally give up the effort to express through the medium of 32 THE ART OF SEEING drawing, because the laughter and critical comments of his elders give him no clue to seeing or drawing to better purpose. This change from isolation and egotism to a world in which common symbols are shared through writing and drawing is a great transition. The objective signs of the change must come gradually, and the teacher should not wonder if so momentous a process requires patience on his part, rather than a desire for superficial finish. Except in the case of the inspired teacher, most teaching of drawing or so-called ‘‘art’’ has been of an external order. In fact, we still attempt, through convention or imitated best ways imposed on the children, to produce something tidy and in- telligible which will repeat an adult’s experience and has no connection with a child’s own life. Such teaching would be excusable if the aim were to master a language formed of accepted characters, like Chinese, but there is no place for it in our effort to cultivate direct personal experience through observation. In so far as we succed, we lay the only possible foundation for a training in the Fine Arts as well as for clear thinking. When we teach mental training through drawing our chief object should be to leave open all avenues for orig- inal observation. Yet we still begin our teaching by closing them one after another through imposed conventions. We remain unsatisfied until the child’s ambition also is to do a tidy copy while the wonders of the universe remain un- recognized. Seven years old is known traditionally as ‘‘the age of reason,’’ because the normal child is logical at that age and can reason to good purpose. From a much earlier age chil- dren have a sense of things that belong together, the dawn of wisdom found in world-wide relations. Many parents © TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 33 smile when this sense of fitness is manifested by some keen childish observation, usually embarrassing to the adults present because of its truth and aptness, but here is found the seed of all intelligent teaching—from known things to the less known. A child’s early conclusions should be respected, and he should be led in all he studies to ask questions, not the aimless questions of habit, but the intelligent questions which he is glad to ask and we to answer. The success of the principles of Cause and Effect, when consistently applied, can be most clearly demonstrated in the teaching of drawing, and they can be observed in their application to other objects. In every phase of the chil- dren’s growth, when commenting on any drawing, the fol- lowing questions should be asked in whatever paraphrase best suits the occasion: First, ““HavE you TOLD YOUR story?’ That is, has the child expressed what was in his mind. Second, ‘‘HAVE YOU TOLD YOUR STORY WELL ?”’ Has he through carelessness or lack of thought failed to ex- press himself clearly. According to the child’s response the teacher should question further: ‘‘If you have not told your story so that we can know what you meant to say, had you any clear thought about it? And if you have not told your story well, was your thought clear enough ?”’ The grade teacher, necessarily inexperienced in drawing, is often amazed after a teaching by Cause and Effect to find in the children’s drawings a true graph of the develop- ment of each child’s mind, which might well be used to illus- trate and amplify a mental test. It is always easier to explain an effect if we can discover and refer to the cause. When a child burns his finger on a stove for the first time he learns about the effect, but he only gets a working knowledge which can be generally 34 THE ART OF SEEING applied when he understands the cause and finds out that fire is to be reckoned with. In a general way we never learn anything except arbitrary facts until we know causes. Knowledge is based on what we know of cause; we get in- formation only when we live in effects. Children are often protected from the consequences of their actions, and the connection between cause and effect is broken. When this is the case the value of failure is lost, and children or adults who do not trace effect from cause live in a world of surprise and luck rather than a world of aw. In teaching Observation through drawing, failure should be made as valuable and as significant as success if it is used as a measure of progress. The recognition of the law of Cause and Effect should be universal and not left to specialists. It should be part of the equipment of every trained person in seeing things as they are. Type Lesson in Cause and Effect Teaching The teacher’s first object is to interest all the children and to make each child feel personally responsible for his own expression when he draws his conclusions as to whether the teacher and the other members of the class understand what he meant to say. In this lesson the teacher has told the class that each child might choose his or her subject, and the drawings have been handed in. They should be put up on screens, and large paper should always be used. When possible, every child’s drawing should receive some comment. The teacher looks at the first drawing, then shows it to the class, asking some child whether he knows what story it tells. If the child cannot say, any member of the class who thinks he knows is asked, or comments on the drawing are made by the teacher. If no one can say, the author is asked ESE. 2. Trees Illustrating Cause and Effect Teaching. By children from 5 to 16, 36 THE ART OF SEEING to tell the story. By this time it has become apparent to him that he has not managed to convey his intention. The teacher should make no criticism, but let the lesson sink in, unless, as is often the case, the child has taken a subject without external dramatic interest, which had best be told in words instead of line. This distinction the teacher should emphasize at every opportunity, especially when the child, in order to explain, has put written words coming from the mouths of his characters. We have a great educator in the moving picture, consid- ered as a visual story. Nowadays, when every child is fa- miliar with the movies, the teacher can find in any current visual story incidents where too many words are needed to convey a thought, which is therefore unsuitable for pictorial expression. The teacher should point out the fact that some stories are better told in words than in line, and why; also when it is better to use different mediums. The children eventu- ally will show an instinctive discrimination in their choice of material and medium for expression. | The next drawing in the lesson is clear as to subject. It shows a boy on a ladder which leans against the branch of a tall tree, while a girl stands at the foot of the tree with a basket. The boy is small, the girl very tall, the rungs of the ladder are few and far apart, and the branches of the tree are larger than the trunk, the fruit is large and round. The teacher’s question is answered at once. The subject is ‘‘Autumn,’’ expressed by a boy picking apples while his sister holds a basket. The teacher asks: ‘‘If the boy were standing on the ground how much smaller than his sister would he be ?”’ He would only come up to her waist, it is discovered, and some one questions whether such a baby boy would be allowed to TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 37 climb a tall ladder. The teacher then asks whether there is anything queer about the rungs of the ladder, and it is found that the rungs are so far apart that the boy could not possi- bly have climbed that ladder. At last we question the tree. Are the branches of trees larger than the trunk? Why not? Do the boughs of apple-trees grow straight up in the air? How big does an apple look when we see it from the ground? Could that tall girl get through the door of the little house we see in the corner of the picture? It is often better, in a limited time, to spend much of it on one sketch, commenting only on some salient character- istic in the others, or to let the children find the difficulty, asking them what the picture means and then to find any evident inconsistency. As the children discover for them- selves—through the evidence of their own eyes and their reason—first, whether the drawing tells the story and, second, what the chief defects are in the telling of the story, the criticism is definitely impersonal, for the laws declare themselves and are not arbitrarily announced by a personal authority. Also the children’s interest is so keenly aroused by this way of teaching that the matter in hand occupies their minds completely. When the drawings are being used in connection with an- other study, that is, to increase observation and dramatic material in English, History, Nature Study, Geography, even Languages (in memorizing vocabularies), the comment must primarily be on whether the story is clearly told; ex- cept when a glaring inconsistency directly interferes with the point of the story. Further examples of Cause and Effect teaching are given in connection with each of the means employed in the Observation Course, and the teacher will discover new oc- casions for its application in every daily lesson. This form 38 THE ART OF SEEING of teaching is exhilarating both for the teacher and the class, and it will soon be discovered by the teacher that he can, in some degree, measure the children’s improvement in intelligent observation by his own increased powers. As the usual way of looking at a drawing is for technical results rather than for purpose, it will be difficult for some teachers to change their mental attitude in this regard. That this point of view should be changed for one of greater intelligence is of the highest importance. In looking at drawings, whether by children or adults, when teaching ob- servation the motive, not the accomplishment, must come first —not what has been said, but why did the person say it. A teacher would not consider the words alone when read- ing a pupil’s essay—the meaning of the words would come first, the form of words would be considered afterward. The minds of teacher and pupil should meet first on motives, and the work should be read from the point of view of in- tention, and not of exterior form alone. Teaching by Cause and Effect, whether applied to draw- ing or any other subject, leads naturally to a personal, practical application; it directs the attention, and gives valu- able results in mental as well as technical progress in a re- markably short time after the teacher has enlisted the chil- dren’s natural curiosity and interest. Whenever we en- courage the children to look for Cause and Effect we lead their minds away from disassociated things; we give them living facts instead of dead information. The following suggestions are for a direct training of the ‘ observation with reference to Cause and Effect. In this connection accuracy in the drawings is unobtainable and un- important. Tell the children that we can never see a force except through its results. It is always implied in what we see. TEACHING BY CAUSE AND EFFECT 39 Use as examples the carving forces of the world: wind, rain, frost. Tell the children that sand dunes and waves are shaped by the winds. Describe the glacier and how it changes the earth; how rivers and all running waters change the land. Tell them that weight also is a modifying force. The teachers will find this form of teaching valuable as introduction to all simple geology. When the children begin to realize what wind, represent- ing force, can do in various ways, take the wind as a com- mon term and ask the children for stories of bending trees, blowing flags, a line of smoke, an inclined sailboat, clothes on a line, etc. These stories should be illustrated, first by a drawing of the object unmodified, then by a drawing of the object modified by the force in question. When possible the draw- ings should be in pairs, the intent being to show the result of a physical force acting on an object. Suggestions follow for illustrations and stories in con- nection with this training. Suggest stories of Niagara and the great waterfalls; of raindrops on the sand. Let the children draw the outline ‘of a sand dune. Ask them to change the line to show how the dune might be changed by the action of a prevailing wind. For a simple illustration such drawings can be made one over the other on the same paper. Suggest stories of the patterns made by the waves on the sand. Tell a story of sand castles and of how they look after they are finished and when the waves have done their work on them. Suggest that the waves are really little mountains but 40 THE ART OF SEEING with a form that changes more rapidly because of the na- ture of the force that is changing them. Ask the children to tell what force has made a wave and what a mountain. Suggest stories of the effect of weight in modifying shapes. Let the children draw a pine-tree; then draw the same tree with its branches loaded with snow; an apple-tree with the branches laden with fruit. Tell the following type of story: A boy has a stone in his hand, he drops it into a pool. The stone makes a hole in the water; the water rushes to fill up the hole so fast that it jumps into the air above the level of the pool. Then the little hill made of water, by its weight, drops again and goes too far down. It leaves a ring around the hole higher than the surface of the pool. Then up comes a little hill again and pushes this ring out, and the same thing is repeated until the water is covered by ring after ring, all drawn about the hole where the stone went in. Let the children draw the circles on the water that would be caused by the dropping stone. The teacher must be warned not to force the point in drawing conciusions between Cause and Effect. The chil- dren should find the point as their own conclusion and tell the stories after the teacher has given some illustrations. Ask the children to choose objects and tell a story about the force that has made something happen to the object in question. The teacher, through suggestion, must be open- ing the children’s minds to receive a great variety of ideas of Cause and Effect. They should be able to pick out all sorts of objects and assign their forms to a cause. ‘br jo Aog e Aq) ‘awoyes JO aourGq [eIeyoyy, *f “oe Yay 4s Omer oye sp ER I = TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION In all cases and in every grade when the teacher fails to get adequate results from the Course in Observation, two questions must be asked. The first question is: ‘“‘HAs THE TEACHER FAILED TO REACH AND AROUSE THE ESSENTIAL INTERESTS OF THE PUPIL?’ Until this has been done there is no foundation on which to build. The Course is not a method that can be externally applied, but a way of present- ing and dramatizing a few principles. The second question is: ‘‘HAS THE CONTINUITY OF THE COURSE BEEN SUSTAINED ?”’ Dramatization, that is, the active expression of the thought or feeling in visible or audible terms, is the essence of the teaching in observation through drawing, as the fix- ing of the attention on an external point is so directly in- volved. ‘What thought is in the teacher’s mind when dramatizing a lesson? It must be to treat the material in such a vital, human way that it will be accessible to the pupil. As ameans to this end action is a great factor—the word ‘‘dramatic”’ often stands for action in some form. As it is essential that the pupil should feel a sense of personal responsibility, for he is the person who observes, the more active a share he takes in the lesson the better. Although the special demon- stration had to be suppressed, the quality of teaching was proved when two boys began to argue on some technical point in the football picture drawn by one of them. In or- der to settle the question they followed the usual procedure and tried it out in a tackle on the school-room floor with serious motive and no rough-housing. If the teacher ne- 42 TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 43 glects to let the pupils do their own experimenting when observing or thinking of action, their figures will lose mo- tion and feeling and soon become arbitrary. The impor- tance of this co-ordination of the thought with its physical expression is not generally understood. Some form of dramatization enters into the teaching of every means used in the Course. It is a commonplace of pedagogy that a person completely devoid of dramatic power cannot teach. The teacher who gives the Course in Observation will find himself tested as to his abilities in this direction at every point. There are two places where dramatization must be es- pecially kept in mind: 1. In the presentation of the means used in the Course. 2. In the realization that the pupils’ dramatic resources, both mental and physical, should be called on at every step. Line Stortes It will be noticed in the type lesson for the kindergarten (REF) that the children dramatize the stories through their own physical experience before telling them on the board. Many stories are told later that cannot be so dramatized, but a return to the actual personal experience must be made whenever the line stories become stale or confused. Measure The teacher should present the lessons in measure as a new game in seeing. In the type lesson on measure sugges- tions will be given for dramatizing the material. Vertical and Horizontal In the use of the plumb-line and bottle-level the teacher first presents the law of gravity in dramatic fashion, tying 44 THE ART OF SEEING it up directly with the children’s games and interests, after which the children apply the law with their own hands and eyes to the sketches. In this case, as in others, the teaching is limited to dramatic suggestion in order to lead the chil- dren to draw conclusions from their own work. Action Figures Action Figures have been used in a variety of ways and are not a new element to the teacher. Therefore, when the teacher merely accepts them as a way of teaching figure drawing and fails to understand the principle of motion and human interest on which their use is based, the results will not be successful. The action figure serves as a symbol of motion, and if it is suggested to the children that by using this symbol they can tell stories of people doing things there will be no diffi- culty in the exchange of their primitive figure which is also a symbol but static, with the new figure which stands for action and further development. The only way to lead the children to give up their con- ventional static figures, as with any other bad habit, is to substitute a more interesting element based on a human motive. The children themselves are fundamentally dissatisfied with their figures, and yet the percentage of children who draw people rather than anything else is large. Motion is even more interesting to children than features, and the teacher’s clue is to appeal to that fundamental instinct. ‘We are going to draw thin people in their bones, run- ning and jumping and doing all sorts of things. We can tell our stories better in this way and more of them. Nellie, come to the board and tell us a story of two boys doing TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION A5 something, and we will all see if we can tell what they are doing.”’ If Nellie does not succeed in telling her story, she must dramatize it. ‘“‘Come out here where we can see you and show what your boys are doing. Feel how their arms go. What happens to their legs ?”’ The children must be conscious of each action in their legs and arms, and they must form the habit of going through the action they want to draw whenever they are at a loss or feel a want of experience. If an illustration is needed for school work several children can dramatize the action before they start drawing. The children should never pose directly for each other when drawing action figures. They must look at each other when performing the action to gain better information, in order to observe the facts, but ONLY DRAW FROM MEMORY. An interesting result was obtained in a New York kinder- garten where the teacher had posed four children in order that the others might draw directly from them. She dis- covered to her astonishment that the four models who had not had the benefit of the direct sketch all did better figures than the children who had drawn from the model. In the intermediate grades when the children have graduated from action figures and do action lines before drawing a figure, some action may be dramatized for the children to observe and then draw from memory. The direct or information drawing is only used in com- bination with memory drawing or after the study of light and shade when the dramatic subject is light itself, until the following point of view has been firmly rooted: ANYTHING SEEN SHOULD BE LOOKED AT AND THOUGHT OF FROM THE UNIFYING STANDPOINT OF CAUSE, RATHER THAN PIECE BY PIECE. 46 THE ART OF SEEING A paraphrase by a teacher would be: ‘‘You want to tell a story of Johnny jumping from a beam in his father’s barn. Which is more important to our story—that you think of Johnny’s face, hair, and clothes, or of the jump in Johnny? How would Johnny feel when he jumped? How would his legs go when he felt that way ?”’ When thinking of Cause as they look, has become a sub- conscious habit of mind through the use of all the means taken each in turn from this point of view, the pupils will be able to prove that this mental habit is firmly rooted by the fact that their drawings made directly from nature or any object retain a unifying idea, and therefore the necessary technical means are present to convey that thought. In the final transition from the action figures with doubled lines, which have then been clothed from observation, to ‘faction lines’’ in which the results of the building up of the action figures are shown, it is especially important to point the dramatic interest. The object of the action figures as used 1n the course has been to preserve through every stage the feeling and expression of life and motion. The last stage of “action lines”’ from which thereafter the pupil never departs has been built up on the observation and expression of essentials in the entire course. In the practice of Memory Drawing there is direct co-opera- tion with this passage from action figures to action lines when the object to be drawn is expressed in as few lines as possible. Whenever motion is lost in the passage from one stage to another, a short return must be made to the former practice. The teacher who has had no training in drawing will find that the practice of looking at moving objects with the thought of discovering the leading action lines is fruitful in itself, and will bring increasing interest to the objective drama of life and dramatic presentation. TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 47 Design The vital as opposed to the formal teaching of design and color should be taken from the same point of view as the teaching throughout the Course; that is, of A PuRPOSE HELD IN THE Minp. In design the intention must be in direct con- nection with the material to be used, but at first the dramatic interest can be carried in the principle of Repetition by the repeat alone, when it is based on some of the human reasons for liking to do a thing again and again; in the principle of Alternation in the variety gained by placing first one thing and then another; in the principle of Progression by drama- tizing the difference in sizes. After these principles have been introduced in this way, the ‘“‘story’’—that is, the dramatic interest—should be based on the material used and the object decorated, and adapted from direct observation of nature and living things. Good designs should be studied and analyzed, especially in relation to their original purpose, but ONLY DRAWN FROM MEMORY. The study of color relations starts with the vivid interest in bright colors common to all primitive peoples and small children. The children’s dramatic interest in color is guided as they are led to discover that the color they like can be made to look brighter through the neighborhood of another color. In this way the drama of color relations is introduced as a lifelong study and interest. Memory Drawing and Modelling It is inevitable that the mind will focus itself more intently on an object about to be withdrawn than on one that is to remain indefinitely. If the object to be observed has also an element of personal interest or surprise, every condition 48 THE ART OF SEEING for centring the full attention is present. In drawing and modelling from memory when possible some salient charac- teristic should be pointed out, the special appearance that makes. an animal or a plant different from all others. Not only a physical but a mental characteristic may be so emphasized with excellent results. The haughtiness of the camel, the alertness of the squirrel, often lead the mind when teaching according to measure alone would leave it blank and dull. Before drawing trees it is excellent practice to suggest to the children that they should “‘act”’ the tree, that is, stand with the thought of the droop of the elm, the sturdiness of the oak, or the straightness of the pine. Not only should the knowledge of what kind of tree they are observing be in their minds, but their thought should be filled with the dramatic personality of that special tree before they register the thought on the paper. The teacher should use the full sequence of memory and information drawing as a dramatic measure for the pupil’s gain in observation. When the first memory drawing is compared with the object and the second memory with the first, the drawings themselves will dramatize the pupil’s advance as well as his needs. It is difficult for many teachers to abstain from picking out the most finished drawing, rather than that which shows the greatest gain in observation. When the point of better observation is made in the work of some one beginning to see more clearly, the whole class will have a vision of further growth. If a performance by a talented person is presented as in any way final, the rest of the class is discouraged by the difference between their result and that of the person with more facility. The measure should be of each person’s gain, according to his own problem and growth, and a rivalry TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 49 in the power of further vision, rather than in one of actual performance. Modelling should be taught in the same way and used in connection with Memory Drawing whenever time allows. Light and Shade Teachers should not attempt to teach light and shade according to Cause and Effect until they have thoroughly dramatized the new point of view in their own minds. It is through their thought of the possibilities of the drama of light that the subject will be put so directly and vividly to the children that they will look with a new intelligence at a familiar world. The teacher should be able to make the pupils feel that to give a record of light through the story of what light does to objects is a far more exciting adventure than the effort to draw any object for its own sake, unrelated to the master subject; that is, if the pupils are told that their effort is akin to that of the great painter, and that their aim is his accord- ing to degree, the dramatic possibilities can be sustained to the level of so worthy a theme and the results will have un- usual quality. It is not necessary that the teacher should be able to draw in order that this point of view may be sustained in his mind as an habitual thought. It is a way of looking that is in- creased through performance, but that can be acquired and initiated in others through the intelligent appreciation of its meaning and possibilities. The teacher must be again reminded that when an attempt is made to establish the thought that drawing is communi- cation rather than an artistic effort, the fallacy often results that no work is required in order to learn the new language. As conventional methods of obtaining standardized prod- 50 THE ART OF SEEING ucts are given up, either for children or for adults, and the drawings show for the first time an honest graph of the in- dividual mind, the difference in finish between the imposed standard and the foundation for a more fruitful growth in personal power is apt to be discouraging, if the necessity for beginning with a record of true personal observation is not realized. The world of art and its language has been placed so far out of the reach of the ordinary citizen that any effort to convince him that the person of talent only goes further on the road he also has a right to follow as far as his personal endowment permits, meets a long inheritance of misunder- standing. Many forms of instruction are based on the conviction that persons of no special talent, yet who must use some form of graphic language in their daily business or profession, re- nounce all personal effort in order to acquire a standardized way of accepted good practice or good taste. It will be commonly said in favor of such methods of teaching ‘‘he has no talent, you cannot expect him to take the artist’s point of view,’’ yet it is not only possible but necessary that every man should look at the world of common things with fresh and curious observation in order to reach his full possi- bilities in any direction. The effort to acquire culture and avoid bad taste by rule has no roots in human needs, and so continues to separate us from our most valuable inheritance. The first reaction to the new point of view is one of relief. The pupil believes in the fresh possibilities, but does not realize that as much work must be done and continuity maintained as in learning any other language. The fact that he is not shut out from learning the language through lack of special equipment does not mean that he can use it for TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 51 speech at once. His first records of observation do not please him, but if he can see them as a measure of his prog- ress in thinking and seeing, and allow his natural interest in his own progress to prevail over the old idea, he will soon be able to use the sense of power gained with continuity and pleasure. Every purpose of education is defeated when children’s natural interest in expressing their ideas and proving their observations objectively is stopped before the standard by which they can measure their fruitful failures has been established. The fear of failure as measured from any but a personal standard destroys what education has pledged it- self to increase—personal initiative and responsibility. To impose an artificial standard is so common, and the child’s instinct to draw, paint, and model shows itself so early, that bad habits of seeing are in force at the age of four years. In order to eradicate these habits and change the idea from teaching an art once a week to that of teaching and prov- ing observation every day, continuity 1s absolutely necessary. To a small child once a week for an hour or even two half-hours, according to adults’ time measure would be once or twice a month. In the interval of the lessons the bad habits are repeated and re-establish themselves. When it can be proved to teachers that time given to the. culti- vation of good mental habits, saves time and the repetition of bad mental habits, the basic value of this visual and mental training will be realized. Under existing conditions the necessary time for reason- able continuity can only be had through the co-ordination of graphic expression with the children’s interests both at home and in school. There are many subjects whose dra- matic interests can be focused and increased by observation drawing, but the supervisor of a course in observation should 52 THE ART OF SEEING work directly with the other teachers and examine the draw- ings in all subjects in order that these drawings be read from a psychological as well as a representative point of view. In this way all the teachers will have a new standard by which to measure the pupil’s need and performance. With children of all ages home work in observation drawing need conflict with no other subject. They would draw in any case, but at random instead of with profit. They will bring their stories to the teacher because they want his understanding of their efforts. Only general suggestions should be made as to subjects for the children’s drawings, unless given in connection with specific work. There must be room for the children’s per- sonal choice and expression, or mental growth is arrested. Suggestions for Home and Holiday Work 1. For children of any age: Observation and drawing of some object in which they have a real interest or about which they need to know more for work or play—ani- mals, horses, dogs, cats, birds, trees, and flow- ers. ‘“‘I can’t draw a horse” has become ‘I can’t draw a motor.’’ But the teacher answers, ‘You can,’ and suggests that looking at horses and pictures of horses ‘‘to see how they go,’ and prove whether they remember what has been seen, is the way to go about the matter. | 2. Illustrating stories of all kinds, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, stories of their own invention: Stories from history, literature, geography, na- ture study, poetry, books of their own choice read at home. TEACHING BY DRAMATIZATION 53 3. For vacation: “A land log,’’ in which the weather, wind, etc., are noted, and the chief events of the day or week illustrated. Color should be used when- ever possible in home work with the thought kept in mind that color is a relation. leeadecdh JOBE DIRECTION When you draughtsmen wish to find some profitable recreation in games, you should always practise things which may be of. use in your profession, that is by giving your eye accuracy of judgment so that it may know how to estimate the truth as to the length and breadth of objects. So in order to accustom the mind to such things let one of you draw a straight line anywhere on a wall, and then let each of you take a light rush or straw in his hand, and let each cut his own to the length which the first line appears to him when he is dis- tant from it a space of ten braccia, and then let each go up to the copy in order to measure it against the length which he has judged it to be, and he whose measure comes nearest to the length of the copy has done best and is the winner and he should receive from all the prize which was previously agreed upon by you. Furthermore you should take measurements foreshortened; that is, you should take a spear or some other stick and look before you to a certain point of distance and let each set himself to reckon how many times this measure is contained in the said distance. Another thing is to see who can draw the best line one braccia in length, and this may be tested by tightly drawn thread. Diversions such as these enable the eye to acquire accuracy of judgment, and this is the primary essential of painting. Leonardo da Vinci, DIRECTION 1 LINE STORIES Starting with the first childish instinct to draw a line and to call it something, we give the children a thought which may be illustrated in that way. Appearances are entirely beyond their power at first, as their observation is not close enough nor their hand skilful enough to record what little they know. A line representing an action is at the same time a simple thought and a simple mechanical performance, and when a thought and a line are consciously co-ordinated we get the first step in expression. The fact that the mind is on the story prevents the children from feeling self-conscious as they draw the line. The hand must be instinctively obedi- ent, so that it automatically answers the thought. The point of great importance is that the thought should be clear, however crude the expression may be. The lines in the first example chosen involve the least muscular ef- fort, as the weight of the arm and hand helps in steadying a downward stroke, like strokes in tennis. As muscular control is gained, diagonal lines in various directions follow, emphasizing the thought of direction. Passing from single lines, groups of lines are taken up, starting from one point and drawing to various other points. This exercise requires quickness of thought, for it is a re- peated motion with variation of direction. Closed figures follow, bringing in the simple plane geometrical forms. Up.to this point the object of the teaching is to establish 57 58 THE ART OF SEEING the thought of direction. The next step will be measure, which is a comparison. With direction and measure, the work with line used to symbolize action is finished, and we pass to its use as a means of representing objects as they appear. The line is still abstract and does not aim at imitation, since we see all objects in light and shade as well as in color. Line, however, will express the more general aspect of objects, and these generalities are what the children will be able to see first. Example 1 LINE DRAWN FROM UPPER TO LOWER POINT LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BLACK- BOARD, ONE HIGHER THAN THE OTHER, ABOUT A FOOT APART, AND WITHIN EASY REACH. "THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE. "THE LOWER SHOULD AT FIRST BE DIRECTLY BELOW THE UPPER POINT. Vary the example later by placing the lower point to the right or to the left. The chalk should be placed on the upper point and a line drawn quickly and firmly to touch the lower point. Speed is most important. The starting point must be accurate and definite and the intention must be to make the ending point equally so. A point means location. The point should be sufficiently clear as a starting or end- ing place, and the size should be chosen with that in view. No tentative lines have any value, as such lines indicate an uncertain purpose. The children’s minds should first hold the thought of the passage between one point and another, then the action should ensue practically without thought. 60 THE ART OF SEEING Let the children think before they act. The points represent the beginning and ending of the story. The line represents the action of the story. The example should never be unconnected with the story, and the point must have a strictly personal meaning with the children. The line is a single stroke and must not be corrected. This exercise should be repeated with fresh points indef- initely until the children are able to start from one point and strike the other point swiftly and surely. The same story can be used as long as it retains its interest. Failure to hit the lower point means untrained muscles and undirected mind. If the starting and ending points are insisted upon, both muscles and mind will be trained to accuracy. As soon as the children understand that the points are symbols, they will enter into whatever examples they are given with the same zest that they bring to their favorite games. In drawing a quick line it is natural to start firmly at the first point and end the line vaguely, even when the second point has been hit. This is the type of line that on no ac- count must be permitted. The line should start with a firm pressure of the chalk on the initial point, and terminate with an equal pressure at the end. Make the children realize that in drawing their lines they are doing something to make their story clearer to other people. For the first week the work should be done on the black- board, and continued there subsequently as the size of the class permits. DIRECTION 61 The line drawn on a board naturally involves a motion of the whole arm, which is easier and freer than an elbow or wrist motion. No work at the desk should be done with a finger motion. Use large sheets of paper and keep the whole arm motion as nearly as possible. Suggestions to Teachers for Stories The child’s first impulse is reaching. Let the child say “I am here”’ at the Upper Point, and ‘‘I reach for that ball, orange, or toy’’ as represented by the Lower Point. The line to him will represent desire, direction or inten- tion, and speed; being a graphic representation of his mental state, his muscular reaction will follow in response to the thought. The line could also represent walking or running from one point to another, or throwing a ball, and may be iden- tified with all children’s games. The line could also represent things that pass from one point to another, such as homing birds, a train going from one station to another, etc. In the children’s minds the points should not be dry or abstract, but within the limits of the story. The children should occasionally repeat the story after the lines are made in order to insure accuracy of intention. Encourage the children to tell their stories, but see that they fit the example. If the teacher comments on the stories, pointing out why some are better told in words and some in lines, he will establish from the earliest years a choice of medium for expression and avoid one element that enters into the confusion of the arts. THE STORIES MUST ALWAYS ARISE FROM THE CHILDREN’S 62 THE ART OF SEEING IMMEDIATE INTERESTS. The teacher suggests these daily interests; he does not tell the story. When possible the story should come from the children’s school work and play, according to occupation and season. Type Lesson—Kindergarten The teacher’s office is to lead, therefore to SUGGEST and CONTROL—not to impose a method on the children. It fol- lows that unless she can bring the class to such a point of interest that it will take its own initiative she has failed. We are now watching a class of four-year-old children having their first lesson in Line Stories with a highly trained kindergarten teacher. The children are gathered in a group near the board, and the teacher has suggested that something new and interesting is about to happen. She speaks to Tom: ‘‘Stand on this chair with your ball. Now hold the ball high up. What will you do with it ?’’ The prompt answer is ‘‘ Drop it.” The teacher now chooses Fred. ‘‘Stand on the floor near Tom and hold out your hands. What will you do?” “‘Catch the ball,” says Fred. Tom drops the ball twice, but Fred misses it. ‘‘Now once more,” says the teacher, and Fred catches it. ‘‘Can you tell that story on the board, Tom ?”’ asks the teacher. “Yes.” And without hesitation Tom goes to the board, draws a round for the ball as high up as he can reach, another round for Fred’s hand, and makes the quick line between the two. He misses the lower point the first time, which is appreciated by the other children, but succeeds at last. Then Fred and all the other children tell the story on the board. Later they go to their desks and tell the story with crayon and paper. The next day one of the kindergarten games, in which the DIRECTION 63 mouse tries to get the cheese and runs to his hole when dis- covered, is played, after which the teacher speaks: ‘‘Let us tell that story as Tom told his yesterday. Who can tell it ?”’ Mary can, and she goes to the board. ‘‘We will make a round point for the hole and another for the cheese,” sug- gests the teacher; ‘‘then we will see how fast and straight the mouse ran to his hole.” After this the stories come thick and fast. Many teachers have not enough control of themselves and the children to let the story develop in this way, especially with older children. In such cases, while making every effort to attain the standard of SUGGESTION and CONTROL, that is, “‘MIND ON AND HANDS OFF,” the teacher may say to the children: ‘‘We are going to tell stories in a new way, with points and lines, instead of with words. I will tell a story first that a boy told me, then you may tell your stories. Tom was standing under an apple-tree here, when a big red apple fell right into his hands here. When I say ‘here’ make your two points, one for the apple and one for Tom’s hands. _ Now show how fast and straight the apple fell from the tree into Tom’s hands.”’ The teacher turns failure to account by saying to the children who have missed the second point: ‘“‘See, Tom missed the apple; try again and he will catch it.” Sometimes it takes many trials before the story is com- pleted, but failure can be made as valuable as success if the loss of the objective is emphasized. At first the children’s stories will resemble the type story, but they will soon tell their own. When the story is long and rambling the teacher should say to the children: ‘‘Such a story would be better told in words. We need short stories in which something happens to tell with lines and points.” We repeat that the line must be clear and bold, never pale or tentative. The children must be thoroughly alive to 64 THE ART OF SEEING doing something definite, not vague or impulsive. They must have both physical and mental sensation of motion— the sense of going, which, because rooted in personal action, brings the matter home to them. We are training the sub- conscious mind, that we may afford to be impulsive later. Type story by a boy: A fireman was sleeping when he heard. the alarm. He jumped up and slid down the pole. Show where he slid from the top of the pole here to the floor here. Type story by a girl: Mary was standing on a beam in the barn here. She jumped down to the hay here. Show Mary jumping from the beam to the hay. As many children think of going down a hill or staircase as a vertical, stories for Example 1 may be used vertically or diagonally, as the teacher finds it best suited to the class. Example 2 LINES DRAWN FROM LEFT TO RIGHT LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD AT AN EQUAL HEIGHT FROM ITS BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE DRAWN FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. The motion from left to right is easy because we have the free sweep of the whole arm. In drawing from right to left, the arm crosses the body and cramps the shoulder. Do not let the children stand too near the board. DIRECTION 65 The placing of these points should be changed as the skill of the child increases and the length of the line varies, for it is more difficult to join distant points than close ones. To vary this example change the right hand point above and below the horizontal, making the exercise one of diagonal lines. All running stories can be used for Examples 2 and 3, also stories of travel and of ball games. A type story by a boy: Here is a man aiming a gun. Here is the target. . Show where the bullet goes from the gun to the target. A type story by a girl: Here I am in the garden. Here is my mother at the door of the house with a piece of gingerbread. See how quickly I run from the garden to the door. These stories can be used for Examples 2 and 3 by changing the direction. Example 3 LINES DRAWN FROM RIGHT TO LEFT LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD AT AN EQUAL HEIGHT FROM ITS BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE DRAWN FROM RIGHT TO LEFT. Vary the location of these objective points as indicated in Example 2. For technical instruction, refer to the preceding chapters. 66 THE ART OF SEEING Example 4 LINES DRAWN FROM LOWER TO UPPER POINT LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD ONE ABOVE THE OTHER, THEN DRAW A LINE QUICKLY AND FIRMLY FROM THE LOWER TO THE UPPER POINT. To vary this example, place the upper point first to the right and then to the left of the vertical. This is the most difficult single line to draw, as it involves a complex motion of the arm. The natural upward sweep of the arm would be a curve with the shoulder as a pivot, and this mechanical action must be balanced by the attention of the mind on the upper point. Insist upon the upper point in this example and the muscles will carry out the intention. A type story by a boy: Here is the top of a rope ladder in the gymnasium. Here is Tom at the foot. Show how quickly Tom climbed from the bottom of the ladder to the top. A type story by a girl: Jack lived in a little house. One morning he saw a beanstalk reaching to the sky. Show Jack climbing from the ground here, up the bean- stalk to the sky here. Example 5 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN FROM THE UPPER POINT DRAW A LINE TO EACH OF THE OTHER POINTS QUICKLY AND FIRMLY. DIRECTION 67 Example 6 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN START FROM THE LEFT-HAND POINT AND DRAW A LINE TO EACH OF THE OTHERS. To do this correctly, the child must have the mental con- ception of the complex action, before any line can be made. Two or more motions are intended instead of one. The lines must be drawn with the same rapidity as in the other ex- amples and with no pause for consideration of single lines. These examples are for training in quickness of thought, as the returns to the initial point require speed in the mind as well as in the hand. The teacher should remember this fact and maintain a nice balance between accuracy and speed. The teacher must see that the children make a new start each time from the initial point when they draw their lines. A type story by a girl: Father goes to work in the morning here. Mary goes to primary school here. John goes to high school here. Mother stays at home in the house on the hill here. Show father and the children going to their work. A type story by a boy: Here are three boys. Here are three electric lights. The teacher asks to have them lighted. Show where the three boys run to reach the lights. Example 7 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN START FROM THE RIGHT-HAND POINT AND DRAW LINES TO EACH OF THE OTHER POINTS. 68 THE ART OF SEEING Example 8 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN START FROM THE LOWEST POINT AND DRAW LINES TO EACH OF THE OTHER POINTS. Example 9 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT RANDOM ON THE BOARD, THEN DRAW A LINE FROM EACH TO THE LOWEST POINT, SO REVERSING EXAMPLE 5. Example ro LET THE CHILDREN TAKE, IN TURN, POINTS ON THE EX- TREME LEFT AND RIGHT, AND, FINALLY, THE UPPER POINT, AS THE OBJECTIVES, WHICH BRING THE REVERSAL OF EX- AMPLES 6, 7, AND 8. In the first examples, the initial point was the same, while the objective points varied. In Examples 9 and 1o. the initial points vary, while the objective is constant. Two type stories by boys: Here are four boys picking berries. Here is a tall tree. One boy sees a bull. They all run to climb the tall tree. Show where each boy ran to climb the tree. Here is a raft. Here are four people swimming. Some one signals a shark. Show the four swimmers making for the eth DIRECTION 69 A type story by a girl: Here is a hen that has round a worm. Here are five chickens scattered around the yard. Show where the chickens ran to get the worm. The practice of Line Stories is further developed in the chapter on Design, in Part VI. In this chapter, simple geometrical figures head the lessons in Design. These figures are used for a continuation of the training in Line Stories before they are applied in Design. On no account should this preliminary training in line be omitted when teaching the principles of Design. DIRECTION 2 MEASURE Small children are individualists, because they have no standards until they can make comparisons. As they gain in responsibility, they begin to measure and compare, and their conclusions are a direct result of the standards they are forming. If a teacher condemns these results rather than the imper- fect comparisons which are responsible for the errors they contain, he imposes an artificial standard which gives the children no means of arriving at their own conclusions. When we measure, we compare. Any attempt to measure involves using a standard or unit, and the result is expressed in multiples of this unit. A unit, to be intelligible, must lie within personal expe- rience; therefore measure must be adapted for the children to their mental place. 70 THE ART OF SEEING Their first thought of measure will be of bigger and smaller and not of equality. As we are training the mind to measure visual spaces, we use no mechanical means; they would only defeat our pur- pose. Example 1 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE POINTS ON THE BOARD AT EQUAL DISTANCES FROM EACH OTHER AND THE SAME HEIGHT FROM THE BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE. Call on the children to judge as to which is the larger division. Example 2 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE ‘FOUR POINTS ON THE BOARD AT EQUAL DISTANCES FROM EACH OTHER AND THE SAME HEIGHT FROM THE BASE, THEN CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE. Call on the children to judge as to which is the largest division. | Suggestions for Stories Type stories by a boy: John went to the school sports and won the potato race. He picked up two, four or six potatoes the same dis- tance apart in a straight line and put them in his basket while he was running. He beat Jim, who dropped his potatoes. Show where John picked up the potatoes. Four ducks were flying at equal distances from each other. Show where each duck was on the line of its flight. DIRECTION 71 Type stories by a girl: Mother asked Mary to take four (or a larger number) towels from the line. They were exactly the same distance from each other on the line. Show where Mary unpinned the towels from the line. Hop o’ My Thumb and his little sister went into a thick wood; on their way from home they dropped four pebbles all the same distance apart. Show where each pebble dropped. Example 3 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE THREE OR MORE POINTS AT REGULAR DISTANCES ON THE BOARD, BUT NOT ON A LINE, THEN CONNECT THEM AS BEFORE. Points at regular distances on a straight line, as in Ex- ample 1, are the easiest to estimate. Regular spaces on an irregular line, as in Example 3, are more difficult to esti- mate. ) A type story by a boy: Jim played hopscotch so well that he hopped into the middle of all the squares with exactly the same distance between the hops until he reached the end of the game. Show where Jim touched as he hopped down the walk. A type story by a girl: The robins have taken the four baby robins out of the nest for the first time. 72 THE ART OF SEEING They are sitting on a crooked branch at equal dis- tances from each other, but some are higher and some are lower. But they are all sitting on the same branch. Show how the branch went from one point to another and where the birds sat. Example 4 LET THE CHILDREN DRAW A PARALLELOGRAM, A SQUARE, AND A REGULAR TRIANGLE WITH REFERENCE TO MEASURE. A parallelogram is a four-sided figure whose sides are equal in pairs. A square is a parallelogram all of whose sides are equal, and with right-angle corners. A regular triangle is a three-sided figure all of whose sides are equal. These figures represent regular dimensions and can be used to great advantage to establish the value and thought of measure. Other regular figures may be used if desirable. In drawing geometrical figures, the teacher should not allow the name of the figure to become important, but should dwell on the story, and use the geometrical name as a way of classifying regularly enclosed figures. Let the story come first and the name of the figure afterward. Two type stories by a boy: Jim and Henry made a snow fort with four sides each the same length. They got into the fort. Then they jumped out and ran around the square. Make a line to show the four corners of the fort and how Jim and Henry turned the corners as they ran. DIRECTION 13 The carpenter stood in the workshop making a — little stool for his child. First he took a nice smooth piece of wood and sawed off the ends until it was square. Then he put a leg on each corner. Show the top of the stool and where he placed the legs. Four type stories by a girl: Mary’s house is on the corner of a block. Each of the four sides of the block is of the same length. Sometimes the children have races round the block back to Mary’s house to see who can run the fastest. Alice always wins because she has such long legs. Make a line to show the four corners of the block and how Alice turned the corners as she ran. Our playhouse had but one window. The top of the window and the bottom of the window ' and the two sides of the window were all the same length. The top of the window was just as long as the dis- tance from this point to this point. Show how the four sides of the window looked. The door of the playhouse had four sides. The four sides were not equal. The door had two long sides and two short sides. The top of the door and the bottom of the door were the short sides. These sides were equal. The two long sides were equal. Show how the four sides of the door looked. 74 THE ART OF SEEING We had planted a bed of bright flowers near the door of the playhouse. The bed had three sides. The three sides were equal. Each side was as long as one long step. Here is one side of the flower bed. Show how the other sides looked Example 5 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD, CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE, AND CONTINUE THE LINE TO AN EQUAL DISTANCE BEYOND THE LAST POINT. Example 6 LET THE CHILDREN PLACE TWO POINTS ON THE BOARD, CONNECT THEM WITH A LINE, AND CONTINUE THE LINE TO HALF THE DISTANCE BEYOND THE LAST POINT. Do not measure except to verify. The third point should be estimated but not placed. The value of this exercise is to train the sense of measure- ment with the aid of points. A type story by a boy: A cat climbed a tree after a squirrel and reached the first branches. The squirrel went half way as far again as pussy had climbed. Show how far the squirrel ran from the ground. A type story by a girl: Mother went to see grandma a mile away and took John, DIRECTION 75 Aunt Lizzie lived half a mile beyond grandma’s house and kept a pair of goats. Mother said that John could run over and see the goats while she paid grandma a visit. Show where John went and where the goats lived. The teacher should measure to verify when the children have finished the example, but the children should not use a ruler in their exercises. In Examples 1 and 2 the children are expected to judge the unequal length of the line. This is easy when differ- ences are considerable, but increasingly difficult when differ- ences are small. Measure—Type Lesson The teacher calls two children to the board—the rest of the class watching. John and Mary are at two boards fac- ing the class. The teacher says: “John and Mary are going to tell this story for me on the board: A carpenter was mak- ing a fence. Of course, he wanted the posts to be the same distance apart. Now, make three points for three posts and draw a line from the first to the last post. We will look at John’s fence first. All those who think his first space is larger than the second hold up their hands. Now, those who think the second space is larger. What do you think yourself, John’? Let us find out about Mary’s fence.’ (If there is great difference of opinion, the teacher should measure with a ruler to verify the conclusion.) The next children to go to the board may use the same story to illustrate Example 2. After the teacher has told one story, he should help the children, by dramatic sug- gestion, to contribute their own stories. To vary the examples, if circumstances permit, some 76 THE ART OF SEEING measuring games may be played—hopping or jumping equal distances marked with chalk on the floor; cutting paper into equal parts by visual measure; walking blindfolded to the board and telling any story involving equal placing, and in | connection with the different examples. When older children know the divisions of the foot rule, their observation may be trained in the following way: Ask the children: “‘How many inches long are your pen- cils’?’’ After the estimate is made, each child should go to the board and tell the story of the length of his special pen- cil, finally verifying his line with the foot rule. Ask the children: ‘‘How high is my table’?”’ ‘‘How long is your book ?”’ Let the children guess at the measurements of the chairs, blackboards, pictures, etc., in the room; let them guess at how tall each one is. When they have estimated the meas- urements they should verify with the foot rule when possible. Make it a game to see how near they can come to the ex- act measurement. The foot rule is not to be used except to verify. Plans of towns, gardens, etc., comparing and measuring relative space and distance, can be made with blocks or any material with which the children are working. DIREGTION: 3 VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL The Vertical became a factor in human existence when the first man stood erect on his feet, for, obeying the force of gravity, it is the body direction of greatest stability. It is also the direction that all mass takes when free to move— the path of a falling body—and we call it normal, plumb, upright, or vertical, each term having its special suggestion. 5. Flags Illustrating Results of Exercise in Line Stories. By children of 3 and 4. 77 78 THE ART OF SEEING The Horizontal is also associated with muscular sensa- tion. We move with the most perfect balance on the hori- zontal. One of the elements—water—in its obedience to the force of gravity, supplies us with a standard that is common experience. Direction is a relation between two points, one of which is location, and must be held in the mind. Every thought we may have of direction must have the earth as a location, for there can be no direction between two points in space unless one of the points is defined. Two such points would have one direction from the earth, another from the sun, and other directions from whatever points are taken as location, but space itself is the antith- esis of the finite and has neither limit nor direction. Direction is like a mental jump; there must be a defined point of departure just as in a physical jump we must start from the earth and cannot start from a point in the air. From the earth, all points in space have direction rel- ative to the earth itself. Surface directions on the earth are established in reference to the North, which is an ar- bitrary fixed point and gives us, wherever we may be, a loca- tion in relation to it in space of two dimensions. Anything in the plane of the earth’s surface may be lo- cated by reference to the North, but as soon as the third dimension is recognized we must add another standard of direction. We could point to the sun and say it was in the Southwest, but that would define only part of its direction from us, for we need the angle it makes with the earth’s surface to establish its position in our universe of three di- mensions. The geometrical standard by which to measure this angle would be a plane tangent to the earth’s surface at the point of location. This is one of our common stand- ards—the horizontal. But the standard that has the most DIRECTION 79 - intimate human association is the vertical, the direction at right angles to the horizontal. Direction is represented by a straight line connecting two points, but no straight line has direction in itself and must be referred to some established condition. A straight line drawn at random on a sheet of paper has direction in re- lation to the bottom of the paper, and perhaps another in relation to the table edge, or still a third as related to the person who draws it. A picture on the wall may have a sloping horizon line, which may be the fault of the picture wire and not of the painter. In drawing, the vertical is not established unless the horizontal is either drawn or implied. It must be vertical to something. When we speak in gen- eral terms of the vertical, we have reference to a line having that direction in relation to the earth. Most people have a sense or feeling of the vertical, for many of us can judge if a building stands true; and if it does not there is a look of instability that we usually recog- nize. This sense can be trained to accuracy, as with car- penters and others whose occupations cause them to look for Verticals. The Vertical is a matter of importance in drawing, since it is our standard of direction. It should therefore be made a matter of importance in the training. This discussion is solely to clear the teacher’s conception of the subject before he begins to interest the children. Through the use of two simple means of verification it is possible to give children, even in the kindergarten, a final way of proving their own work, and to establish the stand- ards of the vertical and the horizontal in their minds in connection with practical matters. The first standard of direction is the Vertical. It is the name for the direction in which any heavy object would 80 THE ART OF SEEING fall, and for that reason it is used as a standard with which all other directions are compared. A string holding a weight suspended in the air makes a true vertical line, and is called a plumb line. Plumb lines can be used by the children themselves to test their drawings. The teacher should have at hand several plumb lines weighted with whatever small objects the children are likely to find at home. After the first lesson the children should make and bring their own plumb lines and be held responsible for them. The second standard of direction is the Horizontal, and it is at right angles to the Vertical. As a standard must be an unvarying thing, we derive it from something that always happens. This can be done only from some basic law of nature. The action of gravity on still water causes the surface to be always horizontal, whether in the ocean or in a pan. This still surface we take as our standard for the Horizontal. In a flat bottle half full of water, no matter how it is turned, the line of the water will be horizontal. The children can prove the horizontal lines in their drawings by holding up such a bottle to verify the lines. The teacher should use the bottle as a level and demon- strate the standard to the children, until they are old enough to handle the bottle themselves. The children should be encouraged to test vertical and horizontal lines at home until they become instinctive standards of direction. Type lesson in the use of the Plumb Line and the Bottle Level in relation to the children’s drawings : One of the first objects that a small child attempts to draw is a house, because he himself lives in one and it rep- DIRECTION 81 resents his immediate surroundings. But the house rarely has a true vertical or horizontal line, the windows are crooked, and the chimney is falling over. If the teacher says, ‘“That line is wrong; your house is falling over,’’ the child feels vaguely worried, for the house is still a symbol to him and he has as yet few visual.or mental standards. If we lead him, instead, to question his own and his neigh- bor’s house, providing him with a true measure that he can apply directly, he has the means of independent criticism in his own hands. His line fails, not for want of manual dexterity, but for lack of thought. This fact is proved in the following type lessons in starting a class when teaching the standards of the Vertical and the Horizontal. The teacher sends as many children as possible to the board, and gives the others large sheets of paper. He tells them to draw a house that they would like to live in, giving five minutes for the drawing. Then the drawings on paper are fastened to a wall or door with thumb tacks and the lesson begins. The teacher says: ‘“‘I am going to tell you one of the most interesting things I know, and which is al- ways so. It will show you how to make your houses stand up as real houses do.” The conception of the vertical and the horizontal must come to the children through the familiar things before their eyes. They are already familiar with direction, but they are without a fixed standard. Explain to them the necessity of having a standard from which to measure. Give the children the name ‘“‘vertical,’’ and say that it is the name for the direction in which a stone or any heavy object would drop from their hands wherever they might be. Tell the children about the law of gravity. Dramatize with stories. Tie a stone or any suitable weight to a string. Hold it steadily and tell the children that the stone is pulling the 82 THE ART OF SEEING string in exactly the direction that the stone would fall if it were not tied and so held from the ground. Say to them: ‘‘This is something to measure by that is always so.”’ Point out the verticals—chimneys, flagpoles, etc.—in the neighborhood, and identify them with the line which a stone would make if dropped from the top of the object chosen to the ground. The teacher then chooses a drawing with poor lines and says to its author: ‘‘Now you can tell with the plumb line whether the walls of your house are vertical.’’ He then shows the child how to hold the end of the string on one of the upper corners of his house and to make a mark on the board where the string touches the lower corner. ‘The children see exactly how far their lines are from the ver- ica, To them it is in the nature of a personal discovery, each child being anxious to test his line; which he should do without help from the teacher. As many of the class as possible should be allowed to make their tests, the teacher choosing alternately good and poor lines. Failure is as valuable as success for demonstration, for the evident difference between a line far from vertical and one which the plumb line shows to be true soon establishes a standard and is the best of object-lessons. Suggestions for general practice with the plumb line follow. Examples 1. TELL THE CHILDREN TO FIND VERTICAL LINES IN OB- JECTS ABOUT THE ROOM WITH THE PLUMB LINE. 2. ‘TELL THE CHILDREN TO FIND VERTICAL LINES WITH- OUT THE PLUMB LINE AND THEN CONFIRM THE LINE. 3. TELL THE CHILDREN TO DRAW VERTICAL LINES ON DIRECTION 83 THE BOARD, CONNECTING THESE LINES WITH THE STORY OF A DROPPING STOVE, FRUIT FALLING FROM A TREE, ETC. PuT THE EMPHASIS ON THE DROPPING OF A HEAVY OBJECT. VERIFY WITH THE PLUMB LINE. 4. CALL THE CHILDREN’S ATTENTION TO FLAGPOLES, TREE-TRUNKS, GOAL-POSTS, ETC. The teaching of vertical lines should be followed until the children have a clear conception of the standard. Apply the thought in as many ways as possible in connec- tion with what has gone before in Direction. When the children draw houses the lines should be vertical and no longer fall over. The doors and windows should be true. Take up all the preceding examples that show vertical lines, so presenting familiar things and adding a new stand- ard. The children are unconsciously using a great law of nature as a measure for their own small affairs. Except under special conditions and with older children the lesson on the use of the bottle level to verify horizontal lines should be given on another day and not immediately following the plumb-line practice. The general procedure is the same as with vertical lines. It is more difficult to verify a horizontal line because the line must be observed through the glass of the bottle, but in any case the point of the lesson is made, a standard pre- sented, and a law established in the minds of the children. The same drawings of houses used for the vertical may be used with profit for the horizontal. Suggestions for Stories Do you remember how the playhouse looked ? How many walls had it? How many windows? 84 THE ART OF SEEING One day a hard wind blew down the playhouse. We set to work to build it up again. We built a much better playhouse than we had in the first place. : We were careful to build the sides very straight. Show how the -new playhouse looked. The window of the new playhouse was larger than the old one. It was not the same shape as the old window. How did the first window look? How many sides had it? Were the sides equal ? The sides of the new window were not all the same length. This window had two long sides and two short sides. The top of the window and the bottom of the window were the short sides. The two long sides were vertical. Show how the new window looked. After we had finished building the new playhouse we built a new gate for the yard. The gate hung between two posts. These posts were set vertically. Show how the two posts looked. The gate was made of four bars laid horizontally. These four bars were held together by two bars placed vertically. } There was a vertical bar at each end of the gate Show the four bars laid horizontally. Show how you think the gate looked before it was hung between the two vertical posts. DIRECTION 85 Can you show how the gate looked after it was hung between the vertical posts ? We stand vertically. Our bodies form a vertical line from the floor. The floor is horizontal. We will hold this pencil vertically. We will hold it horizontally. Draw a vertical line. Show how a horizontal line looks on paper. Can you think of anything in your house that has hori- zontal lines ? Name it. Can you think of anything that has vertical lines ? What is it? Name something that has both vertical and horizontal lines. Show how it looks on the board. The use of the plumb line and the bottle level should be continued until the children themselves are quick to discern variations from the standards. The teacher should return to this practice through the kindergarten and primary classes, and even in the intermediate classes, whenever the children’s buildings show lack of care and thought. sateen REPRESENTATION Make your work to be in keeping with your purpose and design— that is, when you make your figure you should consider who it is and what you wish it to be doing. If you have to represent a man either as moving, or lifting, or pulling or carrying a weight equal to his own weight, how ought you to fit the legs under his body? Feo Vie REPRESENTATION 1 AcTION FIGURES In the Line Stories, the lines are symbols of action and express the children’s own personal thoughts. The action figure, or so-called ‘‘skeleton figure,” is accepted by the children, both as a symbol of motion and as an introduction to the representing of things as they actually look. Any- thing may stand for your own action to yourself, but when symbols are to be identified by other people they must be concrete and take understandable forms. To be understood by others, the line would have to repre- sent generally accepted appearance and not alone our per- sonal sensation. ° A few heaped up blocks might seem to a child a boat, a locomotive, a town or a castle, but to mean the same to others they must have some salient characteristic which would identify them and give the imagination an oppor- tunity to supply the deficiency. The representation of an object is not based on imitation, but on the impression which that object has made on the mind. This mental impression naturally depends on the development of the person. We would expect to find it of a simple and fundamental order in the life of a child. The baby’s first impulse is to recognize direction. He adds his ‘recognition of motion as the most interesting thing in his life. As the boy watches a man running, he thinks of the fact of running, rather than of the appearance of the man. When his experience enlarges, he associates the general appearance of the man as he runs with the motion, 89 ar te irk . iagram for Action F Japanese D 7: igures, 91 92 THE ART OF SEEING At first a straight mark might symbolize to a boy a man running; later, he would draw the legs in action, and so ex- press a general fact of motion, and through this become com- prehensible to his fellows. A straight line for the body of a man might express him to children in a highly satisfactory manner, though it would be meaningless to others. When a man runs, the line is inclined forward, and the poise of the body is expressed, rather than the body itself. Poise is a more important fact, in the expression of motion, than bulk. The child in his choice of salient characteristics is instinctively right. He is unhampered by knowledge of details, and sees the larger things which obey the general laws. The teacher must be exceedingly careful never to extin- guish this impulse for the sake of minor facts. The child should build on his own foundation, which is a true one as far as it goes. Children watch each other and grown-up people. Their definite interests, outside of their own affairs, will be in people, their actions and doings. This natural interest in people and in motion leads them to attempt to draw people doing things in their earliest pictures, but their unskilful fingers make an unintelligible mass of lines when they attempt a clothed figure, and the action they want to ex- press is lost in the confusion. Therefore, they are driven to emphasize the features, which is their only way to express the dramatic instinct when motion becomes un- attainable. A static figure with a large head, eyes, nose, and mouth, no body, and rigid fingers on outstretched arms, will not continue to satisfy an intelligent child. He repeats this drawing for years because he is helpless, and it has become a symbol to him. There is no reason why a more useful REPRESENTATION 93 symbol should not be suggested at an early age, which will embody both his interest in motion and in people, and on which an accurate observation of proportion and action can be built. The action figure, which, no matter how crudely done, represents action because it eliminates everything except the essential parts of the body, supplies us with a fruitful symbol for the children’s use. These action figures are composed of poise and proportion. Poise, used in the general sense, is the relation of the different major parts of the body to each other. This mean- ing of the word includes stable and unstable poses of the body. | | In scientific terms, poise is the place of the centre of gravity in relation to the point of support. As we stand, the mass of the body is in a vertical line above the feet. In running, the body is inclined forward beyond the point of support, and as the action varies, the centre of gravity changes its place in relation to the permanent or momentary points of support. The centre of gravity, which is the point of average weight, always lies within the trunk of the body, so that, as far as representation is concerned, poise is the inclination of the trunk in relation to the head and limbs. Poise may be taught by calling the attention of the children to how they themselves feel as they perform the actions they try to express. Encourage them to identify themselves with the figure they are representing. This preliminary work in representation is confined to objects in one plane, and does not take into consideration, yet, bulk or separation. It is important to remember this, because the children’s drawings should not be expected to include matters that belong to bulk and separation. At this time, if the children were asked to draw a house, they ma "b Jo skoq om} Ag ‘satI03¢ sonst uonoy “9 ~~. mores ACCENT ; 9. Action Figures Stories. By two boys of 4. 95 96 THE ART OF SEEING would be likely to draw it as if they could see both ends and the front at once, their thought being, however, in one plane. | | Here the children are mixed in their orders. Their repre- sentation is in one plane, but their thought by experience is in the order of the solid world. They will show this also in their idea of relative size, for their men and their houses are represented in one plane and of the same size. They have no idea of the effect that separation has on appearance. None of their toys represent relative size, and they feel no discrep- ancies when Noah, the elephant, and the rabbit are mixed in scale. Let the teacher ask them questions: How does your body feel when you are running? Is it straight or leaning forward? How does your head go? Do you hold your head back to breathe better, or do you put it forward? How do you hold your arms? When you are running fast, are your legs a long way apart or are they close together ° After fixing the children’s attention on how they them- selves feel, let one child run, walk, stand, sit, with the others watching to verify their sensations. Say to them: “‘The _ boy you are drawing will do just as you do, and if you feel as he does, your hand will draw him better.” This will lead the children, through their own personal experiences, to see what actually happens and to transfer their sensations to others. At this point begins the training of the eye in connection with personal experience. In the two diagrams immediately preceding the chapter on action figures, the same building up of the action figure is illustrated. REPRESENTATION 97 The first diagram was drawn to illustrate the Woodbury Course in Observation. The second diagram was found in a Japanese book of many years ago, but only discovered by the authors shortly before the manuscript of the course was completed. It is included because of its confirmation of the teaching. Example 1 ACTION LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION FIGURES IN MOTION. The first action figures should consist of a small mass for a head, a line for the body, and jointed lines for the legs and arms. The shoulder and hip joints are unimportant, as they are fully seen only in one pose of the body. The teacher should not forget that, at this point, the children are beginning to consider, for the first time, the appearance of objects outside of themselves with a view to representing them. ‘They first identify the figures with themselves, and later take them objectively. For this reason, it 1s necessary to give some time to establish the naw idea. The most effective teaching comes nearest to the child’s thought. All the comments on the action figures should begin by two questions which we ask in order that he shall begin to question himself and his own work in the same way. The first question is ‘‘Does your drawing tell the story ?”’ The second question is ‘‘Does your drawing tell the story well ?’’ For the first example, we only ask the first question. The teacher might say: ‘‘I am not sure what Tom’s man is doing. Joe, can you see what this man is doing? Tom, no 98 THE ART OF SEEING one can guess what your man is about. Tell us. We want so much to know, but next time draw him so that we can tell the first time we look. If the man is supposed to be throwing a ball, he must have his arm up and his head back, so Joe will come out and let Tom look while he makes believe to throw a ball, and we will all see how a boy looks when he is doing that.”’ It is an excellent thing for the children to dramatize their stories before and after they are drawn, but they are not to copy each other, only to look at the action or “‘the way it goes’’ and remember for the next try. PROPORTION The second element in the action figure is proportion, which involves the principles of comparison, and calls for direct observation. Although the child’s first attempt at action figures will express motion, the proportion of the body will always be incorrect. This is because each part is taken for itself, and there is no conscious comparison of one part with another. As the children have no sense of the relation of the parts, the result in the drawing is likely to be grotesque, though still representing action. The reason for their failure is that they have no conception of appearances. As far as their sensation is concerned, they feel their arms reach, their legs move or their body fall. But there is nothing in arms, legs or body in themselves to make them aware of their bulk or relative size. No one feels the proportions of his body except in relation to some outside comparison. Bodily proportion is an external fact, outside of siete personal sensation, and has to be presented to the mind in external form. REPRESENTATION 99 We think of ourselves as being, other people as existing. This thought may be presented to the children with refer- ence to themselves, through considering the proportions of others and their own. For instance, a drawing with too long arms should be questioned with reference to the children’s own arms and their power to reach. In teaching the child to observe correct proportion, ask him if the head of his figure should be so much larger than the body, or the arms so much longer than the legs. Use one member of the body as a measure for the others. Example 2 PROPORTION LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION FIGURES HAVING SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE MORE IM- PORTANT PROPORTIONS. For Example 2, the first question, ‘‘Does your drawing tell the story ?’’ should always be followed by ‘‘Why doesn’t it?’’ when the drawing does not tell the story so that at least a fair guess can be made at what the child had in his mind. Children are much more logical than we suppose them to be. If a child has drawn two action figures with long bodies, short legs, and one having no arms, he does not express what his figures are meant to be doing. He must tell us in words, for he has failed to do so in graphic language. ‘‘These boys are playing ball,” he explains. The teacher answers: ‘‘How could that poor boy throw the ball with no arms? And the other one could not run to catch the ball if he had no knees to bend and his body was twice as long as his legs. Now, Jack, come out here where we can see you, and we will tie your legs together at the knees so that you 100 THE ART OF SEEING will have a long body and short, stiff legs like the boy in your picture. How would you walk or run?” Jack answers the question himself and for the whole class, and they all begin to consider cause and effect and to ques- tion their own work. If a child has told his story clearly because of dramatic action, yet without a single good proportion and with the figures too small or in one corner of the paper, the second question, ‘‘Have you told your story well?”’ is asked, with these comments: ‘‘We cannot all see the figures, because they are so small. Paper is never wasted when we want more paper to try again, but when we have left half our paper empty and failed to fill the space well.’’ In the older class this is the place for suggestions of all kinds that will excite the children’s desire not only to express fully what they have in their minds, but to consider whether their thought is clear and whether they have told their story adequately, for their own satisfaction as well as to be intel- ligible to others. Example 3 RELATIVE SIZE LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION FIGURES IN PAIRS AND GROUPS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THE FIGURES. The figures should be drawn with reference to relative size, that is, tall and short people, and in reference to relative action between the figures. The story of the association of the people must be shown in their relative poses. The impulses of the children will be to go wrong in the matter of relative sizes, because they have always been accustomed to consider each object by itself. So far they have been individualists. Now they are passing from each {. Oven. omasl Nest \efore Phone Ecockus 1. 10 10. Illustrations with Single-Line Action Figures. By a boy of 14. 101 102 THE ART OF SEEING considering himself the one person in the world, to being one of the many. Here begins their conscious judgment. As soon as they compare they begin to weigh and judge. The development now is from the relative proportion of the different parts of the figure to the relative importance of the figures to each other; that is, from the relative parts of a unit to the relation of different units. In this way the association of the mental and the graphic world is completed. Example 4 COMPARISON LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY AND ADD BULK TO THE ACTION FIGURES BY DOUBLING THE LINES. Insist on having comparison as the fundamental thought, and so point it with the story and every other means as to make it habitual. Comparison must be considered one of the basic mental habits which underlie clear judgment in every field. Direct the children to look at the general proportions and bulk of their companions. This will help them to clothe the figures from direct observation. The attention of the children has been called to relative length. Now we call their attention to relative bulk by drawing fat and thin people as well as tall and short ones. Wash or colored chalk may be used to fill in the figures. When an action figure has good proportion as well as action, the child should be allowed to draw it with doubled lines as a recognition that he has approximately achieved the true proportions of a person in his drawing. He should be told that to add bulk and later clothes to a badly made skeleton can lead nowhere, as it only covers up defects and builds from poor observation. 11. Showing Transition from Single to Double Line in Action Figures. By children of 13 and 14. 103 104 THE ART OF SEEING A supervisor will sometimes be told that the children do not like action figures. When this is the case it is always because the teacher has been unable to present them to the children in dramatic form and so gain their interest suffi- ciently to win their unconscious co-operation in breaking bad habits which even the youngest children will have formed. There are two ways of using action figures in class. Teachers either accept the logical way of training the children to use action figures as a basis for all the figures in their imaginative drawings, thickening and clothing them at once, when good proportions have become instinc- tive, and finally leaving the figure and drawing ‘‘action lines”’ such as any painter or illustrator would use when he draws. In the second way they do not require the action figures in imaginative drawings, only using them as a training for improvement in action and proportion. In the latter case, while there should be continuous improvement in the draw- ings, the improvement will be slow, with more danger of careless habits creeping in and far less chance of the children acquiring action lines as a result of a natural development of the training. Even when action figures are used in imaginative drawing, the teacher should see them, from time to time before the children clothe them, or some such result will follow as in the case of the little girl who confided to a supervisor that it didn’t much matter whether the proportions were good, as the clothes covered them up, anyway. When the children start to clothe the figures, they will begin to wonder how special clothes look and hang and some of them will feel lost as they must forego their arbitrary habits. The only solution is observation. Get them to look at each other and older people, and see how blouses, dresses, sweaters take the shape of the figure underneath. REPRESENTATION 105 During the interval, some of the children will not like the looks of their drawings and will miss their own more fin- 12. Showing Transition from Double-Line Action Figures to Clothed Action Figures. By children of 13 and 14. ished-looking pictures and their bad habits, but if the teacher perseveres, the effort will be worth while and will bring great future profit. 106 THE ART OF SEEING Example 5 LET THE CHILDREN ILLUSTRATE A STORY WITH ACTION FIGURES IN BULK AND DRESSED, COMBINING PEOPLE AND HOUSES, PEOPLE AND TREES, WITH SPECIAL ATTENTION TO RELATIVE SIZE. At this point the teacher is to take up all such things as may be expressed in one plane; that is to say, objects which are not separated by depth. These things are like shadow pictures on the wall, but not necessarily like silhouettes, because facts may be shown which the outline alone would not include. All of the objects are at an equal distance from the ob- server, and this fact should indicate the class of stories and events which may be employed in illustration. These limits must be carefully preserved by the teacher, for full representation includes other principles which are to be developed later. The child may draw his house of any size on the paper, for that is representation, but, having established a scale, his man must be able to enter the door of the house. The child has established an order that entails relations for which he is responsible. All this discussion as to relative physical size has a later parallel development in mental and moral proportion. These proportions are the symbols of the mental and moral life. The method used in discussing drawings which are the result of Example 5 should be used in all imaginative draw- ings: ‘‘Have you told your story? Is it a good story to tell in line or would it be better to tell it in words? Have you told your story well? Could the man get into the door of REPRESENTATION 107 his house? Would you call that a tree or a bush if it is only as tall as the man? Could the boy picking apples step from one rung to the other of his ladder? Why, no; the rungs are four feet apart if he is four feet tall.”’ Children never take this sort of comment as criticism and are invariably interested, for they make the discovery them- selves of the discrepancies in their drawings and are led to them by the teacher’s questions. The way an automobile or a wagon is made, how the wagon is hitched to a horse— even if no one knows (not even the teacher) these matters should be inquired into, and a picture should be consulted when the objects themselves cannot be observed. Ask the children to draw the same picture at different seasons of the year, on a windy day and a still day, or to express conditions of climate and circumstance, so that the teacher and class will be able to tell the conditions from the picture. The following examples of this practice are very successful for work during vacation or days out of school because of illness. Example 1.—The children are asked to keep a land log every day for as many days as the period lasts. On each day a record is to be kept of temperature, weather condi- tions, direction of the wind, etc., and a drawing is to be made of the most significant happening during that day, all on one large sheet of paper. Example 2.—The children are to consider themselves as shipwrecked sailors or starving explorers approaching a tribe with whom they cannot communicate by words. They are to make a series of drawings which are to be used to procure the necessary food, shelter, clothes, and general succor, which they cannot otherwise obtain. If the class and the teacher cannot read these graphic messages clearly and do not know what is needed, it is obvious that the pe- 108 THE ART OF SEEING titioners might starve or freeze to death before they suc- ceeded in explaining their needs. Example 3.—Illustrations of fairy and folk stories, Mother Goose and Atsop’s Fables, especially those containing giants, pigmies, and animals. The teacher must be warned, against urging the children to observe anything of minor importance in the figures, such as features, hands, and feet. These details will be observed later when they can be assigned more surely to their relative places in the order which the children are building. After the children have achieved fairly good proportions in their action figures, and have been allowed to add bulk by doubling the line, the fundamental interest, which is motion, will occasionally be lost or impaired in the transi- tion. In one case, when the teacher was suggesting to a small boy that motion was the fact he had lost, the child said: ‘‘Yes, I see. Johnny is jumping and what I want to do is to keep the jump in Johnny.” He saw the point and was able to dramatize it. If motion is lost in the transition from action figures in single lines to action figures in bulk, or in the further developments when clothing the figures and making the change to action lines, the same proce- dure should be followed. A return must be made to the former practice until the motion can be carried over without loss. The transition from drawing action figures in doubled lines and clothing them from observation to the dropping of the action figure completely is the final one, and needs some definite preparation. The action figure has served its purpose as a symbol of the human figure in motion, on which has been built up, through observation of nature, the power to see and to draw figures REPRESENTATION 109 in fair proportion while preserving action and the interest in action at every stage. This figure may be dropped when the pupil has acquired, through observation and practice, a subconscious standard for proportion and motion that will enable him to supply in a few lines all that he has learned, as he observed and expressed motion and proportion. Such lines are known as action lines. That nothing may be lost in this transition from action figures to action lines there must be some practice of action lines in connection with memory drawing. This practice may be found under Memory Drawing for Intermediate Grades, and must come during the short period given for direct training in the Observation Course, as it cannot be carried out in co-ordination with other subjects, and yet is needed for that co-ordination. The children’s power to draw people with skill and facility in all their future work depends upon this training. REPRESENTATION 2 EvERY-DaAy PERSPECTIVE There are several elements that contribute to form our visual impression of external objects. They are mass, color, and the variations of light, with all of the complicated re- lations due to the interaction of these changing quantities. We are unconscious of these complications and simply know that we see, gaining knowledge of sight by practical experi- ence, and in the end accumulating enough information to serve the ordinary purposes of life. We become able, in a general way, to trace cause from effect; a power, however, which is largely subconscious. It would be difficult for the ordinary person to draw a man 110 THE ART OF SEEING who should seem to be a quarter of a mile away, though there would be no hesitation in assigning him that distance if actually in sight. Something in the appearance of that man tells of his distance, and if that something is given in the drawing the story of distance is clearly told. Appearances follow law, but it is useless to lay down these laws as abstractions and expect them to have meanings to any one but a specialist. Theoretical Perspective will make it possible to construct a drawing that will give the impression of distance and solid form, but it is so outside of ordinary experience that it fails to make the necessary connection and becomes mechanical. We can reach the facts more directly through the analysis of our own actual experience and later, if it is necessary, use the theoretical as a means of verification. We co-ordinate the facts we have and arrive at our laws through their results. Perspective is the general name for the laws that govern the apparent size and shape of objects at varying distances from the eye. A small object will fill the entire field of vision if held near the eyes, but it will fast lose its impor- tance if carried further away and cease to exist altogether, lost in a world it formerly covered. We come to the point where we know that the apparent size of an object depends on its distance from us, and later by the diminished size we judge distance. The man we see a quarter of a mile away is so small for a man that he must be far from us. To measure by dimin- ished size is so instinctive that we are no more conscious of it than of breathing, and never give it a thought. We say the man must be far off because he looks far off, but it would require some thought to say what that particular look might be. Our study of Perspective has, as its special object, the putting in order of our common visual experi- Q ax RANTS 13. Illustrating Problems in Every-Day Perspective I. By two boys of 13. 111 112 THE ART OF SEEING ences, and finding through them a simple means of express- ing them graphically. We begin with what every one knows. Every object in the world is either higher than we are, lower than we are, or at our level, and with one exception its apparent shape depends on where it is. The exception is the sphere, which has the same form viewed from all points. When we speak of our level, it should be taken to mean the level of our eyes. Draw a horizontal line on the paper to represent the level of the observer’s eyes. Anything that is higher than he is will be drawn above that line and whatever is lower will come below it. This line is known as the horizon line and is found in Nature where a horizontal plane meets the sky, but it is rarely possible to see the true horizon on account of the many things which obstruct, and it is simpler to take it as the line of division between what is above us and what is below without referring it to Nature at all and call it the Eye-level Line. . The significance of such a line is easily explained, for even the six-year-old child knows there are things higher and lower than he is and can use the line to divide them. The height of the observer and the line that corresponds to it are the beginning of every story. The observer’s look is supposed to be a level gaze; not up or down. In the first problems it is well to use action figures, as they give motion and relative proportion with little trouble. Tell the children in a few words the whole purpose of the teaching somewhat after this manner: ‘“‘We are going to find out how to draw people and things when they look smaller because they are far away from us, or bigger be- cause they are near us. Then our pictures will look as much REPRESENTATION 113 like what we see as grown-up people’s pictures look like the world before our eyes.” The drawing is to represent something seen by the per- son making it, and he does not appear in it any more than he does in what he is looking at. He says in effect, ‘‘From the place where I am I see these things happening,”’ and he draws them instead of putting the story into words. Place comes first. If we are high up much of the world is below us, and we look down on many things, but if we are at a low level our outlook is restricted. This point should be carefully talked over with the children so that their impulse in planning a drawing should be to say, ‘‘Where am I as I see the story happening ?”’ and the line separating what is above from what is below naturally follows. This line can never be omitted in any drawing where perspective is used. It isa statement of the conditions under which the objects are seen, and the shape of all of the ob- jects depends on it. Like time and place in a narrative, these are the conditions under which all of the events de- scribed are happening. Figures unrelated to a common horizon would be as incongruous as a story of fact that should mix to-day and to-morrow. As the Eye-level Line depends on one’s own position, it is a very personal matter, a combination of one’s height and the elevation of the place where one is standing. When the line is drawn. the statement is made, ‘‘I am at this place,’’ and the question follows: ‘‘How is the rest of the world situated in regard to me?”’ If the child is standing on the ground, his actual height is the measure, and he directly compares it with the peo- ple and objects he draws. The man he puts into the pic- ture is a head taller than he is, and so the man’s head comes 114 THE ART OF SEEING always above the Eye-level Line. If it is a child of his own height, they share the Eye-level Line, and the head comes on the line. Smaller figures than the observer come below the Eye-level Line. The standard is made by the person who sees. For the smaller children the thought may be put in this way: “‘Your eyes come just to the top button of father’s waistcoat when you are standing side by side. That button is the exact height of your eyes, and the rest of father is above you. When you draw him, that button has to be on the horizon line, because it is just the height of your eyes.” The location of a point of common height in the objects represented is important. Figures below the eye would not have this advantage, though they could be judged indirectly by what they lacked in height compared to the observer. To ask what proportion of the figure is above or below you compared to the observer’s height, will always be a help to clear thought. Begin the Example by estimating the height of the ob- server in feet in order to know what elevation the Eye-level Line represents and to decide what should come above or below the line in whole or in part. The drawing in every case is to represent some incident in a story. First Example LET THE OBSERVER DRAW A PERSON OF HIS OWN HEIGHT AT A SHORT DISTANCE FROM HIM. PLACE A MAN AND A SMALL CHILD BY THE SIDE OF THE FIRST FIGURE. DRAW THE EYE- LEVEL LINE FIRST. The head of the first figure will come on the Eye-level Line, the head of the man above the line, and the child who is smaller than the observer will be entirely below the line. REPRESENTATION 115 Begin each Example by making the Eye-level Line state- ment to the children: “Everything in the world that you can see is either higher than you are, lower than you are, or just as high as your eyes. Draw a line across the paper to divide the things that are higher from the things that are lower in the picture and to show where your eyes are. We call this line the Eye-level Line.”’ Suggested Story. Tommy’s father is taking Tommy and his baby sister to the circus. It is the first time that Susan, the baby, has been to a circus. They.are in a hurry to get there. Draw Tommy first. He is your age and your height, we will say four feet high. Where would his head come if he was just as tall as you? To find out ask this question: ‘‘Is the person or thing I am going to draw higher than my eyes, lower than my eyes, or just as high’?”’ Then you will know whether to draw what you see above the Eye-level Line, below the line, or on the line. Now draw Tommy’s father. He is a tall man, six feet tall. Ask the question again to know where his head would come. Now draw the baby sister. She is three feet high. Where would her head come? Ask the question: “‘Where would all their feet come if they were standing side by side ?”’ Second Example PLACE A PERSON THE SAME HEIGHT AS THE OBSERVER AT DIFFERENT DISTANCES IN THE PICTURE. DRAW THE EYE- LEVEL LINE FIRST. The head of the figure, being of the same height as the observer, will always be on the line of equal heights, no matter how far away, but as a figure appears to shorten 116 THE ART OF SEEING with distance, the feet will come nearer and nearer to the Eye-level Line as the distance increases, until the figure shortens to nothing as the limit of vision is reached. If a pencil point is put anywhere below the line of equal heights it will represent some point on the ground in sight of the observer, and it can be the place of the feet of a person. In the case of this problem where the heights of the observer and the people in sight are the same, any vertical drawn from the Eye-level Line to a point below the line represents the apparent height of a figure at that place. | There is much to be learned from this example, for it shows clearly that the farther away the point is on the ground, the nearer it is to the Eye-level Line, and gives some idea of the rate at which a vertical diminishes as it is removed from the observer. Drawings of this example must be right, provided every head is cut by the Eye-level Line. Considerable time should be taken with this example, as the drawings will have a look of distance, which will be established as a standard in the minds of the children, and they will be more critical of mistakes when the conditions are complicated. Begin each example by making the Eye-level Line state- ment to the children. Do not attempt the Second Example until the First Example has been practised with varied and repeated stories and the Eye-level Line question is established so firmly in the children’s minds that they ask it of themselves. Then say to them: ‘‘We all know that everything we can see looks smaller as it gets farther away from us, and we all know that the Eye-level Line divides what is above us from what is below us. Now you will hear something that you don’t REPRESENTATION LIT know and that you must remember, as you remember to ask the question about. the Eye-level Line. Everything that we can see as 1t gets farther from us and smaller in the distance gets nearer to the Eye-level Line until 1t vanishes from our sight on that line.” Take the story used in the First Example of a family composed of a child the height of the observer, a parent, and a smaller child, and continue the suggested story or another similar story in this way: ‘‘We are going to draw Tommy again with his father and baby sister going to the circus. They are near the door of the circus and quite in time, so that we will draw them at the left side of the picture. On the right side we are going to draw another family of the same kind and size, far off in the distance, running because they are late for the circus. They are so far away that they look very small. 7 ‘“How shall we draw a boy as tall as Tommy and you as he gets farther away and smaller and smaller the farther he goes? Everything that we can see as it gets farther from us and smaller in the distance gets nearer to the Eye-level Line. Now Tommy’s head is on that Line, and so it can get no nearer to it. What part of Tommy can get nearer the Line? His feet of course. “Let us draw for practice, on another sheet of paper, a boy as tall as you and Tommy, showing how he would get smaller as he went farther away. We will draw six Tommies with their heads on the line and their feet coming nearer the line until Tommy becomes nothing but a dot on the line. ‘“‘It may take us several lessons to find out how to draw a whole family so that they will look as if they were run- ning in the distance. When we can draw them we will put them on the right-hand side of our first paper and finish our story.” 118 THE ART OF SEEING Third Example PLACE A FIGURE ONE-THIRD TALLER THAN THE OBSERVER AT DIFFERENT DISTANCES IN THE PICTURE. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. One-third of the figure will always come above it, and two-thirds below, whatever the actual length of the line may be. As the vertical grows shorter with distance the head will come down to meet the line and the feet will rise; the point on the figure, however, that has a height equal to that of the observer, two-thirds in this case, will remain always on the Eye-level Line. The vertical diminishes at both ends at an unequal rate in the case of a two-thirds division, since both ends merge at the Eye-level Line. If the division were half, the rate of diminishing would be equal. This problem also must be repeated until it is thoroughly understood. When a figure is cut at any point by the Eye-level Line, it is cut at that same point wherever it may be, and this makes it possible to give always its true height for its situa- tion. If the top button of a man’s waistcoat is at the level of the eye, it will stay at that level wherever the man may be, and it divides him proportionally. With one fixed point it is always possible to take advantage of the proportional divisions. With younger children, when the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Examples are given in separate lessons, repeat the two Eye-level Line statements as indicated in the Second Example. Continue the story in connection with that of the Second and Third Examples as follows: ‘‘We are going to draw a man as tall as Tommy’s father and show how as he gets farther away he grows smaller and smaller. If Tommy grew REPRESENTATION 119 smaller and farther away as his feet came nearer the line, how would Tommy’s father have to be drawn to look farther away ? What parts of him would come nearer the line? His head and his feet of course. Let us draw Tommy’s father six times, with his head and his feet coming nearer the line every time until he becomes a dot on the Eye-level Line.”’ Fourth Example PLACE A FIGURE SHORTER THAN THE OBSERVER AT DIF- FERENT DISTANCES IN THE PICTURE. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. The whole of the figure will come below the line. The feet, being on the ground, will rise as the figure recedes, as in the previous problems. The head, being below the eye, will be below the Eye-level Line, but will rise toward it until in the extreme distance it will merge in the line. There can be no confusion so long as it is remembered that what is below the eye can never come above the Eye- level Line, and can only touch it in the extreme distance. It will be serviceable to think of things below the observer in feet, as an easy means of comparison. If the observer is five feet high and the figure in the picture four feet, all of the vertical distance below the line represents five feet, and space shown between the head and the line is one foot. This foot looks largest at the nearest point and diminishes to nothing in the distance. A more general way of thinking would be: This figure is a little shorter than the observer; therefore, the head would come a little below the line, but getting nearer to it as the distance increases. Figures wholly above the eye can only happen when they are on some elevation and do not answer the conditions of the 120 THE ART OF SEEING preceding Examples, which apply only to what is seen as the observer stands with a horizontal plane before him. Continue the story in connection with that of the Sec- ond and Third Examples after repeating the two Eye-level Line statements as follows: “‘We are going to draw a girl the size of Tommy’s baby sister, Susan, and show as she gets farther away she gets smaller and smaller. How would we draw this baby girl so that she would come nearer and nearer the Eye-level Line? All of her would have to come nearer the line as she went farther away. Let us draw Baby Susan six times, growing smaller and smaller ~ until she looks like a dot on the line. Fifth Example DRAW GROUPS OF FIGURES, BOTH TALLER AND SHORTER THAN THE OBSERVER, AT VARIOUS DISTANCES IN THE PIC- TURE. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. This Example combines the preceding Examples with no new features. The stories that illustrate it should be of a definite order and avoid haphazard arrangements. Specify the size of the principal figures with the part they act in the story. Begin each Example by making the two Eye-level Line statements, or asking one of the children to make the statements in his own words. The type story for the Fifth Example was told after the Second Example. Tell the story again and remind the children that they now have the knowledge to complete that story in line. Refer them to the practice in Examples Two, Three, and Four and to the Eye-level Line statements. Let them make their own mistakes, and bring out in the discussion of their pic- tures where their thought has failed in telling the story. ‘QI pue II Jo UaIpyIYyo Aime] aAtqoods19 J Aeq-AIoAq Ul sulspqosg Surjessnq]] VI coher oat he by 2 fate aho-hoe ee ai 121 122 THE ART OF SEEING Sixth Example DRAW FIGURES AND GROUPS WITH THE STATION-POINT OF THE OBSERVER RAISED. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. In this Example we add to the height of the observer the height at which he stands above the level ground. If a child five feet high stands on a box three feet high his Eye-level Line is eight feet, and all things less than eight feet come below it. It is as though he were a person eight feet high. The Example is similar to Example Four, except that in the present case the vertical height below the Eye- level Line represents a greater number of feet. An Eye-level Line on the paper tells nothing until the height 1s stated. A single figure drawn in reference to it will state the height as definitely as words. For this reason the teacher should be able to read the terms of the problem from the drawing, testing it in that way. All of the preceding Examples have been of figures and groups on a level plane in front of the observer, and their relation to the Eye-level Line has been a consistént one, since they were all under one condition. If, however, a small hill was in sight, which being higher than the observer would come above the Eye-level Line, a man standing on the top would be all above the line, while if he were at the same distance in the picture and standing at the base of the hill he would be partly below the line. His actual length would be the same whether he stood on top of the hill or at its foot, for the apparent height of a line depends on its distance from the eye and not on its place. This is a guide as to his size, and his height above the Eye-level Line is accounted for by the height of the hill. He is in effect a portion of a vertical, standing on a plane made up of his height and that of the hill. REPRESENTATION 123 Imagine a pole the height of the hill and our man stand- ing on its tip, and we have the same condition. If the pole is moved away, or the hill, it shortens like any other ver- tical until base and top merge at the Eye-level Line. Be- hind every hill or other object that is higher than the ob- server is the Eye-level Line, which marks the extent to which we could see if there were no obstructions. Above that line is sky and below, the ground; the line itself is the edge of the world. Trees, buildings, and other irregular objects give no special trouble if the Eye-level Line is remembered. The conception of the size of a tree is helped if its relation to a possible figure standing by its side is considered... The tree is a vertical, diminishing with distance in the same manner as the figures we have been considering, and obeys the same laws. All verticals of moderate height will disappear at a point on the horizon. This means that all verticals below the eye will disappear anyway and most of those above it. A range of mountains may be seen above the apparent horizon, but if the power of vision could be increased enough the mountains would merge in the horizon line before they were lost to sight. The curvature of the earth in such a case would become an element to be considered. The Sixth Example introduces a new idea to the children by which, as they are still identifying themselves with the observer, they look at the world from a higher or lower place, plus their own height, instead of from their own height on a level plane. It is necessary to have a full dis- cussion of this subject with the children before telling the story, in order that the Eye-level Line should again be es- tablished as representing the level of the observer’s eyes, wherever he may be. 124 THE ART OF SEEING Tell the children to repeat the two Eye-level Line state- ments in their own words. Ask the children these questions: ‘If you climb a tree or are standing on a hill can you see more or less of the world?”’ “‘If you are sitting or lying down can you see more or less than if you were standing up?” “If you can see more of the world from a high place than from a low one, where would you put your Eye-level Line in order to get all the things you see into the picture higher or lower on the paper?” “‘If you were sitting on the beach and could see much less of the world than if you were standing up, where would you put your Eye-level Line on the paper ?”’ For the.first story it is best to repeat a familiar one; for instance, a child four feet high is standing on his piazza, which is five feet above the ground, making his Eye-level Line nine feet high. He is watching the two families in the story for Example Two going to the circus. Add to the story two trees twenty feet high near his house. If the children need variety, suggest other similar stories. After the first lesson on this example a great variety of stories may be told, many of which the children should tell them- selves. Seventh Example DRAW FIGURES AND GROUPS FROM A LOWERED STATION- POINT. LET THE OBSERVER BE SITTING ON THE GROUND. PEOPLE OF ORDINARY HEIGHT WILL COME ABOVE THE EYE- LEVEL LINE, WHICH WILL CUT THEM ABOUT AT THE KNEES. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. Repeat some of the discussion about the observer on dif- ferent heights as suggested for Example Six, and repeat the same story told for that Example with the person looking on sitting down. Always refer to the Eye-level Line state- REPRESENTATION 125 ments in any difficulty. The teacher will find that he needs these statements as much as his pupils need them. Eighth Example DRAW FIGURES AND GROUPS ON VARIOUS ELEVATIONS ABOVE THE LEVEL AT WHICH THE OBSERVER STANDS. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. The stories for Example Eight may be of children picking fruit at different levels in a tree, the observer being on the ground; or coasters on a hill, the observer having just fin- ished his slide. After the first lesson on any problem a great variety of stories should be told, generally by the children. After this example the teacher should suggest that the children draw a story, each choosing his own place for the observer. If the children think of what they are doing, teachers should be able to tell when they look at their pic- tures where the observer 1s supposed to be in every case. The teacher should always test the drawings in this way. Ninth Example DRAW A STRAIGHT RAILROAD TRACK WITH TELEGRAPH POLES ON EITHER SIDE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A PER- SON STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE TRACK AND LOOKING IN THE DIRECTION OF THE RAILS. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. Draw the Eye-level Line, which is always at right an- gles to the direction in which we are looking. The rails are actually parallel, but as all dimensions grow smaller as they recede, the distance between the rails appears to lessen un- til it disappears altogether, and the rails meet at a point on the Eye-level Line. The ties themselves, though always 126 THE ART OF SEEING parallel to the Eye-level Line, not only shorten but seem to grow nearer together as they recede. The poles will diminish in the way of all verticals, and finally disappear at the same point as the rails. All of these changes of direction (as in the case of the rails) and dimensions (as with the poles and ties) are due to the one fact that all things seem to grow smaller as they are removed from the observer. To look at this in another way, the width of the paper at the bottom of the picture represents all that we see im- mediately in front of us; that is, as the observer looks to- ward the horizon without turning his head to right or left the width of the space seen, beginning about ten feet from the observer where he first sees the ground, might measure actually fifty feet and is represented by the width of the picture at the bottom. In the picture the Eye-level Line has this same measurement, but it may represent a number of miles instead of feet. A length of fifty feet on the Eye- level Line would be simply a point; therefore, if we draw lines from the ends of this foreground width of fifty feet at the bottom of the picture to the centre of the Eye-level Line, any horizontal between these converging lines will represent fifty feet at that place. To put this in terms of experience, let us think of stand- ing by the side of a boat at a wharf, so near that neither bow nor stern is in sight without turning the head, and con- sider if this same boat were miles away on the horizon how small it would be and how many hundred such boats it would take to measure the length of the Eye-level Line before us, or how long a time it would take such a boat to travel the length of that line. The width at the bottom of the picture is practically represented by a point on the horizon which is called the Centre of Vision. REPRESENTATION 127 Tenth Example DRAW A RAILROAD TRACK UNDER THE SAME CONDITIONS AS BEFORE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A PERSON STAND- ING ON ONE OF THE RAILS. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. As the observer is looking directly along the track the rail he is standing on is at right angles to the Eye-level Line. The other rail, being parallel, seems to converge and disappear at the same point on the Eye-level Line. The telegraph poles would very nearly coincide with one rail, but not with the other. It must be remembered that a vertical is always vertical, no matter where it is—the length is all that seems to change. Eleventh Example DRAW THE RAILROAD TRACK FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF AN OBSERVER STANDING TWICE ITS WIDTH TO THE RIGHT OF IT. DRAW THE EYE-LEVEL LINE FIRST. Both rails would slant from left to right and disappear at the same place on the Eye-level Line. The point to be made in these railroad examples is that horizontal parallel lines converge as they recede and meet at a point on the eye-level line, slanting up to it if below the eye and down to it if above. This is true of a road or a path that crosses the picture at any angle with the Eye- level Line, for it will grow narrower as it recedes and will come to a point on that line either within or outside of the picture limits. These examples are stories in themselves, and when the children understand them such conditions when they ap- 128 — THE ART OF SEEING pear in their imaginative sketches will be drawn correctly and without difficulty. Although it has been found that children of six and seven can be given the first problems in Every-Day Perspective, it is not to be expected that they can grasp complicated ex- amples at that age, or.that they should be hurried in any way. The teaching of Every-Day Perspective should be com- pleted, in any case, in the secondary grades, though it may be begun in the primary classes and even used at the end of a kindergarten training. Twelfth Example DRAW A TWO-STORY HOUSE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF AN OBSERVER STANDING ON THE GROUND. DRAW THE EYE- LEVEL LINE FIRST. The perspective of buildings is more difficult than the problems we have already considered. The verticals in buildings are simple, for they behave like any other verti- cals we see and follow the laws we have already taken up in drawing the figures. The horizontals, however, have a way of their own, which is harder to follow and much less obvious. A horizontal line parallel to the Eye-level Line, that is to say, at right angles to the direction in which we are look- ing, is always horizontal and parallel, wherever it may be. Like all other lines, it shortens with distance. A horizontal line which is not at right angles to the di- rection in which we look slants toward the Eye-level Line —downward if it is above the eye, and upward if it is below the eye. These are the main facts of parallel perspective. They are, however, of little value to us unless we can use them REPRESENTATION 129 to explain some familiar appearance which we have taken for granted until the time has come to draw it. To draw houses correctly at this point is not to be ex- pected. It is possible, however, from the knowledge already gained and with an appeal to general knowledge to give them an appearance of rightness. Proportions can be ex- pected if they are compared with figures, as these should correspond in scale to the people in the picture. The most natural measure would be the door, which must be of a size to be used by the people. The lines of sill, eaves, and ridge-pole converge and would meet at a point on the Eye-level Line if extended enough, the slant of the lines de- pending on their relation to the Eye-level Line—that is to say, the height of the observer. Houses diminish in size with distance, like all other things, and the part of them that is below the Eye-level Line is always below it, no matter what the place. If for simplicity the house is the shape of a cube and the corners are drawn as verticals, it will be seen at once that the two nearer sides are longer than the farther ones, just as a man diminishes as he walks away. If the four tops of these corners are connected by lines, and the bottoms connected in the same way, a solid figure will result—transparent in this case, since the six faces of the cube are shown—the front of the house and the back of it at the same time, as well as the sides, bottom and top. The slanting of the horizontal lines follows, because the verticals of equal height which they must connect diminish in length as they recede, and since these verticals disappear in a point on the Eye-level Line, they must disappear at the same point, being attached to the top and bottom of the verticals. | Any parallel lines except those parallel to the Eye-level 130 THE ART OF SEEING Line appear to converge because the distance between them seems to grow shorter as they recede. They will meet at a point on the Eye-level Line, though it may be outside of the picture. To sum up the facts that are necessary to give a regular mass the appearance of a solid, and place it at different distances from the eye, the verticals diminish in the way already studied. All horizontal lines except those parallel to the Eye-level Line will touch and stop at that line at some point, though it may be outside of the picture limits. If they are above the eye, they will slope down, and if below the eye, they will slope upward. Parallel lines except those parallel to the Eye-level Line converge and meet at a point on the Eye-level Line. All measurements, no matter what their direction, appear to diminish with distance. The Eye-level Line is always at right angles to the direction in which the observer is looking. The teachers should remember that these examples and the whole training in Every-Day Perspective are to be used to increase the children’s interest in their imaginative draw- ings, and so encourage them to continue to draw as a means of expression. A true graphic language in constant use, encouraging observation and accurate thought, is the goal to which our means are guiding the children, as an excellent foundation for their school work and the beginnings of a right understanding of the visual arts. Among the subjects that are sure to interest the children will be the interior of some room and the various pieces of furniture, as well as the people who live in it. The problem is no different from those already studied, but the nearness of all of the objects makes it more difficult to see the diminish- ing of the verticals. The Eye-level Line must always be the» guide, and every object, near or far, must be drawn with reference to it. 15. Memory Drawings Made Before and After Training. By children of 3 and 4. 131 132 THE ART OF SEEING The corners of the room are verticals diminishing in evena short distance, as poles would if set up out-of-doors. The difficulty in seeing this comes from the fact that the observer is generally within the room, and the four corners cannot be seen at one time. To avoid that difficulty, imagine the walls to have vertical posts every few feet touching the floor and ceiling, and the rate of diminishing will give the floor and cornice lines. A table top below the Eye-level Line would show the same convergence of line as though it were laid out on the ground, and the legs would diminish in height after the manner of other verticals. . A perspective diagram would show these matters clearly, but much may be done by the simple laws that observation will give us. REPRESENTATION 3 MEMORY DRAWING AND INFORMATION DRAWING i When primitive man drew his mastodon, he no doubt did it from memory. He drew from his mind. His effort was subjective. He made up his mastodon, and if the result was not satisfactory to him it was because there was not enough in his mind. It is our instinct to expect memory to supply the facts. A child does not make the first attempt to draw his toy motor from the object itself, but naturally depends on his memory of it. The early painters followed the same method, and it is only in later days that Art has become frankly objective, with the accompanying danger of confusing the means with the end. : The untrained impulse to represent the thought rather REPRESENTATION 133 than imitate the object is sound, for, whatever nature may be, it is the thought of nature that is the subject of our pic- ture. Here individuality steps in, for our thought is a per- sonal interpretation of the common facts, important or otherwise as time will determine. A good drawing is not a close imitation of the subject but a selection of its salient points, arranged with reference to their relative importance. That is to say, any good drawing is a selection from the facts to express a special thought, and not a careful reproduction of everything seen. This selection is automatic if it is allowed so to be; in looking we see the point that we are interested in, and are oblivious of the facts that have no connection with it. To preserve this balance in a drawing is a matter not only of skill and judgment but also of definite intention. It is very easy to fall into the way of copying bit by bit and produce in the end an assortment of badly related facts that have no special significance.’ The skilled person always takes this tendency into account and in the end ‘‘pulls his drawing to- gether,’’ which means he assures himself that the result is a single impression. If it were possible to look once and draw what was seen in that one look, everything would be properly balanced. But to do that requires great knowledge and long training, and the practice of our day is not in the direction of such attainment. It is, however, a fact that we conceive our subjects in that way and struggle to retain the original im- pression through all of the work necessary for expression. It is too much to expect that the student should be able to discriminate between the important and the unimportant when both are plainly before him, unless we can find some natural guide that will help him in his choice and fix his standards from the beginning. 134 THE ART OF SEEING Memory drawing seems to offer a natural way of accom- plishing this result, but it is necessary to use it with a clear understanding of its limitations as well as its advantages. When memory drawing is properly used it keeps to its sub- ject. We remember the point and vaguely recall other things associated with it, and if we were able to put down the objects in such an order we would have a drawing properly balanced as to fact and with the emphasis on the central thought. Memory drawing is a direct effort to express a single im- pression. If an object is drawn from memory its general characteristics are those which come to mind. We are not likely to remember small and unimportant details but rather the whole aspect of the object. This is in itself what we require of a good drawing. It is a quality which may be lost sight of in the progress of the work. We look for facts to elaborate a general impression and not for themselves alone, as would be the case if we were drawing without a conception of the whole. We start with unity because of our ignorance, small knowledge blots it out, and in attainment unity is recovered. The difference between a good and a bad drawing is not alone one of skill, but also of point of view. If a drawing were made part by part with absolute accuracy it would still fail in emphasis, which is the means used to express the thought, even though the facts were stated. With this in mind it is plain that direct drawing, important as a means of acquiring accuracy and hand training, is better balanced with Memory Drawing, which will establish from the start the final standards and so save time and useless effort. The practical application of Memory Drawing in teaching would come in its use as a balance to the direct drawing that must be done for the sake of gaining positive information as REPRESENTATION 135 well as skill of hand. The limits of each must be carefully preserved in order to get full value. Memory gives us a general but elusive visual image. Direct observation gives a separate image with each look, which may have much or little to do with the subject as a whole. Technically, a memory drawing at its best would be general in character, based on previous knowledge of the type of the object in question, and with emphasis on the characteristics that had arrested the attention. It would be a well-balanced single impression, the details of no moment having escaped the mind altogether. The memory picture is not like a photographic print that may be examined piece by piece for detail of which one knows nothing, for, though the eyes may take in all that lies in front of them, it is necessary that the mind should receive the message. Attention seems to be the determining factor in what is clearly remembered, though an allowance must be made for subconscious records that blend with our conscious memories. Our memory picture is in its way timeless; it includes with the present fact a composite of all other similar facts within our experience. If a person unwise in machinery looks at an engine he sees a confused mass of parts, a few familiar forms in the way of wheels and rods, but on the whole so much mass occupying space. A vivid visual memory would enable him to see again only the most obvious and familiar parts, those which lay within his own experience; he would remember much more if he knew more about engines. A man learned in machinery, on the other hand, remember- ing the same engine, would have a vision based on the knowl- edge of the working laws, and his picture would be far more complete. In neither case would the image be like a photo- graphic print; it would be a series of facts selected for minor 136 THE ART OF SEEING reasons by the ignorant man or for relative importance by the man of knowledge. Our general visual memories are vague images made up from experience and composite in their nature. When we remember any special thing clearly we find that for some reason we have given it our full attention and recall it as a variation from its type. We recall a face perhaps by the special shape or size of the nose, or an old pine tree by the twist that the wind has given it, always having as the basis of memory our general knowledge of the subject. This general knowledge is so much a mental factor as to interfere with actual sight. We are forced to acknowledge this fact when we are calied on to describe with accuracy any special place or object. The point demonstrates itself further when we attempt to make our first memory drawing. There is but a vague and changing image in the mind, far too indefinite to record in anything so.specific as line and color. We would say off- hand that we were perfectly familiar with the object in question, but soon we would find our general visual memory of little service. It is possible, however, instead of expecting a clear image that might be copied, deliberately to sharpen it by using our previous knowledge, bringing to the mental picture all of the information we may have on the subject. We then measure what we might expect to see with what we had seen before, and if there is a blank spot, fill it from our general knowledge. This effort to recall specifically with the aid of previous information will bring back the half- remembered and, where the new memory fails altogether, supply the missing part. The attempt to remember definitely brings the advantage of failure, for our obvious lack of knowledge shows us where it is necessary to observe. It is here that direct drawing REPRESENTATION 137 takes its place, not as an end in itself, but as a means for acquiring information to be used for a specific object. The memories hold the point of special interest and the general impression. They are what we would seek to tell, if we were putting the matter into words as.a subject of interest to others; they are selected points to emphasize our own interest rather than topographical information. The difference between a direct drawing and one made from memory is more a matter of degree than of kind. All drawings are made from memory. When they are direct, the memory is a short one and generally of a small portion of the object. The difference is largely in mental effort and con- centration. If the information may be acquired at will in such quantities that little effort is necessary to remember, there being the confortable assurance that if anything goes wrong another look will set it right, the mind is not relay to assume full responsibility. The memory should be charged with what it can carry and its power increased with use. Memory drawing imposes the responsibility of looking with undivided attention, for all of the facts possible must be observed to retain the visual image. This habit of concentration is equally useful in the direct drawing, where the responsibility is not so great but the keenness of sight is as important. In a general way a good drawing might be taken as a fully- expressed memory, but it should be the memory of a master. If this seems an impossible standard to offer the student, it is to be said that the larger laws which the master follows are simple and not beyond the understanding of the common mind. He becomes the master by following the law. Memory, then, is used in the training as a framework on which to build. It forces observation and clearly points to the knowl- edge that must be acquired for the sake of expression. In 138 THE ART OF SEEING addition, it forms a habit of orderly thought that is important in all other activities. The practical point to be brought out in looking at an object with the purpose of remembering it is not so much the attempt to retain an actual picture of it in the mind as to take careful note of its characteristics, depending on this information to reconstruct the image when the drawing is made. This will include all of the previous knowledge of it with that gained in the fresh examination, and there will bea true mental picture. A conscious memory image depends on several things. The basis of conscious sight is emotion—the recognition of some fact outside of the ego. An image has been passed from the eyes to the brain, which has recorded it. In Memory Drawing the image is the same as far as the brain is con- cerned, but stimulated by the will and not by the eyes. The mind, however, ascribes the emotion to the original source and a visual image results. This image is clear in proportion to the definiteness of the original impression, but in that impression allowance must be made for information supplied by the mind and not by the eyes. We look at an object and recognize it as a chair. We know a good deal about chairs in a general way, and our eyes have only given us a subject for thought. If we are especially keen, our eyes tell us how this chair is different from all other chairs we have ever seen; that is, we not only classify it, but we get in spite of our experience a fresh impression. The world at large never gets a fresh impression after its young curiosity is satisfied. An educated eye should always be young and curious. The process of remembering an object is as follows: The thought brings a general visual image, based on the class to which the object belongs and on the special object in ques- By a boy of 6. Memory Sequence I. 16. 139 140 THE ART OF SEEING tion. If the mind turns to a consideration of the thing in detail, it is not likely that information will be gained, for the image eludes examination while retaining its general presence. The fact is, there has been no detailed thought record, and unless the subconscious mind can supply added information there is nothing further for the conscious mind to say. Experience, however, may be drawn on, and the visual image sharpened by making it conform to known laws. First, as existent, it is under conditions of light and shade. General knowledge would bring the image of a light side and a shadow side; special knowledge a thought of the minor variations in accord with the form. Visualizing the type,the memory is searched for anything unexpected that may have been noted which would characterize it as an individual of its sort. The effort to recall the appearance of an object should be a deliberate building up of all the known facts, since they were component parts of the original mental impression, plus the measure of the unexpected variations. From knowledge we say: ‘‘What must we have seen to have felt that way ?”’ In Memory Drawing it will be found that the first at- tempts show a vague mental image, largely because the attention has not been directed to important things. A directed attention carries a clear image. But directing the attention implies a specific mental effort prompted by a desire; therefore, interest is the basis of a clear image. II To be able to measure a child’s mental growth in some visible way is the reason for all tests and examinations. Through all the Means of the Course in Observation we have REPRESENTATION 141 that measure, but most of all in Memory Drawing, where closeness of observation measures itself. The improvement in these drawings, when the proper balance of memory and information drawing has been kept, should be easily appar- ent. When the second Memory Drawing is less successful than the first it is because too many details have been seen and the main facts obscured. In practice, memory drawing must be carefully distin- guished from imaginative drawing. The latter, of course, is from memory also, but of such general and inaccurate character as to be useless in any training for accurate think- ing and seeing. Imaginative drawings, however, may be made the basis for a choice of things to be used in Memory Drawing. Children begin in the kindergarten to try to draw from their imagination animals of all kinds, trees, flowers, motors, trains. From these things should be chosen the material for their memory training. There is no reason why children should not be able to draw a horse in the kindergarten that would be considered creditable in the primary grades, if memory training is closely followed, and their attention is directed to real horses whenever possible after the toy horse has been drawn. A toy chicken or other animal, real flowers, fruits and vegetables in their season—anything directly connected with their interests that can be brought into the class room should be used. Photographic charts from nature especially adapted to this course may also be used. In illustration 15 is shown a graph of the passage between the symbolic stage and the realistic stage of small children’s drawings. Here the children, of three and four, are looking at form with directed thought for the first time. They see little, but the teachers are able to follow the passage from 142 THE ART OF SEEING one stage to the next with as great visual certainty as if watching the longer or shorter process of different small crabs divesting themselves of their shells. The following sequence is always followed in the kinder- garten and primary as being the best balance between in- formation drawing and memory drawing for a ree in accuracy of observation: 1. The object is shown to the children, and the teacher suggests various dramatic connections with it and their immediate interests. 2. If time allows, all the children are permitted to handle the object. 3. The object is hidden, and the children draw their memory of it quickly. 4. The object is returned, and the children compare their drawings with it. 5. The children draw a quick sketch directly of the object, the teacher remarking on its special character; ““Tyoesn’t the camel look proud? Then think about how proud he is as you draw him.” 6. The children look at the object again, 7. It is removed for the second time, and they make their final memory sketch. The three sketches can be read clearly in sequence for the improvement in observation. With small children the second Memory Drawing almost invariably is the best, and both Memory Drawings are better than the informa- tion drawing, because in the information drawing too many details have been seen and the larger proportions lost. The purpose of the first sketch is to discover what each child really sees and can remember. The second direct sketch is not done in order to copy the object, but that the first impression and memories may be compared directly. REPRESENTATION 143 with the facts as well as to gain information. The third sketch from memory gathers up all that has gone before of observation and memory, leaving an impression that en- dures, and usually shows a great step forward. Type Lesson—Memory Drawing KINDERGARTEN The teacher has prepared three large sheets of paper for the use of each child. The child’s name or initials are in one corner. On the first sheet of each set ‘‘M-1”’ (for First Memory) has been written near the child’s name; on the second sheet ‘‘I’’ (for Information); and on the third sheet ‘‘M-2” (for Second Memory). With older children the three sheets can be placed on the desks or drawing-boards in advance, or with very young children, to prevent the chil- dren from scribbling on the whole set, they may be given out as needed. Only dark crayons should be used. Symmetrical objects should be avoided, as these have the least dramatic interest and require the greatest technical skill. The object must be large enough to be seen clearly, and free from confusing detail. It must have some direct connection with what the children have known and seen. It is spring and there are tulip bulbs in the classroom. The teacher has a large fine single tulip with two leaves springing from the stem. She brings it in, wrapped in tissue paper, the red of the flower showing through the paper. ‘“What have I here?” “A flower.’’ ‘‘Guess what kind. Now I will show it to you and we will see how much we can remember of the way this flower grows.”’ Then the teacher tells in a few words how the petals and the leaves unfold, and in a small class passes the tulip that 144 THE ART OF SEEING each child may look at it closely. The flower is then con- cealed and the children draw their memories. Later the flower is returned and one or two of these mem- ory drawings are shown to the class. ‘‘See how much Mary remembered. Let us look at the tulip here and draw it again, putting in the things we had forgotten.” Again one or two drawings are chosen and shown. *‘Tom saw the stem, the leaves, and the flower so well the other tulips would know their cousin if they saw Tom’s picture. He made a good picture. ‘‘Now the tulip is going away again and we will draw the best one of all because we know so much about this spring flower and its half-open cup.” In the remaining time the teacher shows a few of the final drawings, always laying the emphasis on observation. ‘“‘How much more Mary saw that second time! How well John remembered just how that special tulip looked!”’ With older children, and sometimes at the end of the kindergarten period, every: child looks at his whole record in the order in which the drawings were made. In any case, the teacher must examine each set as a graph of each child’s mind. Many things will be seen, and it will be possible to tell at a glance exactly where the children are in the passage from the symbolic to the realistic stage; also to a great extent how each child’s mind works. It often happens that a child who saw an oblong as a round will make the jump to a correctly seen form during the half hour given to this sequence of drawings, and the progress shown between the first and second Memory Drawings, as brought out by the accompanying illustra- tions, is often astonishing. The dramatizing of the object to be drawn is important. It is as well to count five before removing the object in Ritson net tec Nee Re iene 17. Memory Sequence II. By a girl of 8, 145 146 THE ART OF SEEING order to concentrate the interest. In drawing fruits or vege- tables choose one of special characteristics, and urge the children to remember how that particular object looked rather than to draw it from their thought of its general class. Type Lesson—Memory Drawing PRIMARY—RECONSTRUCTED IMAGES A lesson of the kind here described should be given, if possible, once a month. The change from the regular prac- tice of Memory Drawing will add to the interest and strengthen the children’s observation. Some object is chosen that will be familiar to a large proportion of the class—if possible, something the children have not only seen but handled. In the following lesson the teacher has a lobster shell and claws, and some pictures of lobsters which are not shown at first. The teacher begins the lesson by asking the class if they know how a lobster looks. The general answer will be ‘‘yes.”” The teacher then says: “‘We all think that we know how a lobster looks, but the only way to be sure that we are not fooling ourselves is to see whether we can draw one so that he could recognize himself.”’ In a class of older children the teacher will let them put down on paper what they remember at once without further talk or sharing of knowledge, as it makes a permanent im- pression when they discover for themselves how much less they remember than they think. With younger children the teacher asks questions and allows the class to profit from the knowledge of every one, always reminding the children that when visual memory stops they must fall back on general memory; that is, a lobster must have a body, a tail, a head, eyes, and claws, even if they can not REPRESENTATION 147 remember how some of these features are shaped or how many claws there are. The teacher asks: ‘‘ How long is a lobster’s body compared to his front claw? How big are his eyes? How are they placed in his head? How many claws has he?” There will be many differences of opinion, and after a few minutes, no matter how little the class can remember clearly, they have recalled the chief characteristics of the lobster, and they must try to put them on paper. When the children have made a record of their memories, the object itself (or a picture of it) is shown and the chil- dren allowed, if possible, to handle it. There will always be great excitement and interest as the children are compelled to realize through their own experience how weak were their powers of observation. The teacher then asks whether the lobster would recog- nize himself in any of the drawings. Or whether one of the class travelling in a foreign country and wanting lobster for dinner would be likely to get it if he showed his drawing to the waiter. The amusement and surprise caused by dis- covering their inaccurate memories will make all criticisms quite impersonal. The boys especially will want to know more and to draw a lobster that can be recognized. The lobster or other object should then be removed. The second drawing should give the major proportions and chief characteristics, even if the relation is far from correct. When time allows, the procedure should be as follows: 1. Choose object and discuss before drawing, or draw directly from memory. 2. Put on paper whatever characteristics are remem- bered. 3. Observe object or picture of object for the first time. 4. Withdraw object. 148 THE ART OF SEEING First memory drawing after object has been seen. Bring back object and compare with drawings. Leave object and draw direct (quick sketch). Remove object and make final drawing from memory after weak points have been discussed. When the children use special animals repeatedly in their imaginative drawings—rabbits, chickens, horses, reindeer, etc.—the teacher should use these subjects with this con- structive memory method for developing their observation, rather than give them an animal to copy. The impression through the memory drawing will be permanent, the im- provement will be constant. By the copy method the process must be repeated again and again, and the result will be small because the attention is not being actually aroused, and the observation is necessarily superficial. If a teacher thinks that half an hour is too much time to give to mem- ory drawing, he should consider the permanent results ob- tained and the time saved. It is impossible for children to remain inert in ordinary conditions when this method is used. Many wasted hours, in which children repeat their errors of thought and observation for months or even years, are avoided and both teacher and pupil are spared exhaustion and discouragement. Natural objects must never be put before the children to draw unless they can be made intrinsically interesting to them by a story or some demonstration of their origin. om ON Ul REPRESENTATION 4 MODELLING When considering the different means of communication and self-expression at man’s disposal, it would seem that modelling must have had an early place. REPRESENTATION 149 In our first experiences the recognition of mass follows that of light, and form is the characteristic of mass. Children naturally use mass to externalize an idea, as we have already said. A block to them is a man, an engine, a boat, or whatever else fits the story they have in mind, and the actual form has little to do with the case. Mass without resemblance, however, does not long satisfy, and the im- pulse comes to shape it and give it special characteristics. This happened when the first sculptor made a man of his lump of-clay and found that other people could see a man in it too. It is the chief occupation of human beings to change mass to suit fancy or convenience and to move it from place to place. Modelling is an essentially direct form of expression. It has its natural limitations, because color, distance, and all of the subtle suggestions of place and atmospheric condi- tions are outside of its province. It is the medium for the tangible with whatever may be suggested through such a medium. In drawing, mass must be suggested, but in clay work, dealing with the tangible, the mass itself is used. The painter suggests modelling and feels the actual contour in the surfaces he represents. For the children’s work the training in modelling would be practically the same as in drawing, and the two, modelling and drawing, should be used together. The vagueness of the children’s ideas in regard to form is immediately ap- parent as soon as they shape a mass. The mass has to be seen from all sides, and they are forced to observe in order to add to their information. There is no unseen other side. It is not so much a question of ‘‘what does it seem to be?”’ as ‘‘what isit’?’’ Asin drawing, the objects modelled should be familiar ones and such as are available for study. 150 THE ART OF SEEING The most available objects to begin with would be fruit, an egg, or some other simple form, but only a short time should be spent on such things, as they have too few defi- nite characteristics. The figures modelled will naturally be crude, but they will be as expressive as the action figures in the drawing, and will teach the same valuable lesson. Proportion gives the physical fact; action tells the story; and observation sup- plies the knowledge. The subject of modelling for children has been so well de- veloped by Walter Sargent in a pamphlet entitled Modeling in the Public Schools that it seemed unnecessary to cover the subject again. The present chapter is included merely because of the connection with drawing. Type Lesson for the Teaching of Modelling PRIMARY GRADES “Here is a bronze elephant modelled by a great sculptor and therefore it seems alive. We will put him on the table where you may all come to touch him and examine him. (Several children may be touching him at once.) “Shut your eyes when you put your hand on him. “Can you guess what part of him you are touching? “Are his legs long compared with his bulk? “Do you think his trunk is longer than his legs ? “Shall we use a large or a small lump of clay for his head ° “What is the shape of his ears? Of what do they remind you ? “Ts he about to run, or has he been eating peanuts and feels lazy ?”’ REPRESENTATION 151 After the children have been given time to feel the ele- phant and answer a few questions, the animal is put out of sight and the children model from memory. The sub- ject’s chief characteristics should be remembered, although the proportions may not be good. When the children say that they cannot remember a salient characteristic, the teacher should tell them to use their knowledge of what an elephant must have in order to be distinguished from every other four-footed animal. The sketch produced can only give the rough proportions of the model. When the time allowed is up, the elephant should be brought back:and the following type of questions asked: “‘Is the body of your elephant large enough to carry a platform with people on it on his back ?”’ “Could your elephant run with such thin legs and carry such a heavy body, not to speak of logs or baggage ?”’ The elephant should again be removed, and the children - should correct from memory the action and proportion of their sketches in clay. The sketches which show the best action and proportion should be set aside, that the children may go farther in de- tail directly from the model. After the elephant has been modelled in this sequence he should also be drawn from memory. It will be found that this exercise in modelling reinforces memory drawing. Children who have the benefit of model- ling in connection with drawing improve more rapidly in observation and technic than do others. 18. Drawing in Light and Shade. 152 By a girl of 14, REPRESENTATION 153 REPRESENTATION 5 LIGHT AND SHADE Sight is dependent on a certain class of waves in the ether which we know as light. At any point between the limits of the light waves the normal person gets the sensa- tion of light, but the sensation varies with the place between the limits, and light at any special point we know as color. The simultaneous sensation of all the light waves is white. Beyond the limits of light in either direction we call black, which is a negation as far as light is concerned, but may have other physical relations to us. When there is no light we are as blind as the sightless person, for neither in his case nor in ours has a light record been made on the brain. As light is a sensation, there must be variation in the in- dividual perception of it. We are not endowed alike with the means of receiving it. Sight is inexact for mental rea- sons, but there are physical reasons also why it would be difficult to find agreement on any special object seen. We meet bulk with our own bulk; it would be impossible for us to pass through an opposing solid, no matter if it were outside of our perception altogether; it would still be there to us and to all others, if only as an obstruction. But light is not of ourselves. It comes to us through the inter-atomic spaces. It is unprovable except by its results, and could be denied altogether by one unconsciously insensitive. If we deny bulk we deny our own existence. Sight, how- ever, is a personal sensation, and in comparing results an allowance always must be made for the individual. In the course of our general experience we associate de- gree of light with the shape of objects. We know a thing to 154 THE ART OF SEEING be solid because it is unevenly lighted, and our visual knowl- edge of mass is in a general way based on this single fact. Where we see no shadow we naturally assume a flat surface, and the eyes give us no means of proving it otherwise. Much of our knowledge of the ways of light is subcon- scious, and it is on this account that, when we begin to draw in light and shade, there are so many difficulties. We are accustomed to think of light and dark as a general condition and do not realize that each solid form shows all of the vari- ations of light and dark as its surfaces incline more or less to the source of illumination. We say a thing looks solid, but we might not be able to give at once a reason for the opinion. The fact is too common ever to have been worth a thought. There are many other facts within general ex- perience never thought of, but which are of continual service to us in drawing. As light fades less form can be seen, so that in the shadow we are unable to distinguish as much detail as in the light. The better the light the more we can see, as all will admit. Color, also being light, would follow in the same way. Any color in the shadow would be less positive than it would be in the light. These two facts must come within the experi- ence of every one and make part of the visual impression of shadow. To formulate it we would say: ‘‘Shadow is lack of light with the consequent loss of color and form.” To us shadow is partial blindness, for it is diminished sen- sation. We do not consciously consider the effect of shadow; we take the matter for granted. It is true nevertheless that we associate the results with the cause, and when they are presented in a picture we know that shadow is expressed. It is even possible to describe shadow without dark by the ob- literation of detail and color, for the lack of detail and color is immediately ascribed to darkness itself, and we see REPRESENTATION 155 shadow that is only implied. The value of the knowledge of general sight habits lies in the fact that through them we may express our thought in terms of actual experience. The property of light that makes it possible for us to judge the form of objects is its inability to travel in any but a straight line. Given a single source, the light falls on any surface in proportion to the angle it makes with the di- rection of the light. If light waves could travel in varying curves we would live among uncertain forms and many catastrophes. A world of bent light would be visual chaos, each object following its erratic way isolated and unre- lated to all others. A drawing made without following the laws of light tells nothing of solid form or bulk. It is natural in the first drawings that are made to rep- resent the object in outline. This is because we have the mass itself in mind as a unit, and the thought has no refer- ence to the way it may appear as seen in light or its relation to its surroundings. We draw a boundary line to separate the object from all others, giving one fact only of the sev- eral necessary to complete description. The passage from outline to light and shade involves an enlarged outlook. An object is no longer sufficient in itself, but its relation to others must be considered, and it is to be described in terms of the light it interrupts. Vague mental images no longer serve, and close observation is required to follow the simple laws of light through the complicated re- sults. What we see never appears in outline except in the case of some object silhouetted against the light. Contours merge in shadow, or some light place is so like what is be- hind it that the point of separation is scarcely visible. We never see all that we know must be there. Our knowledge of fact might well cause us to lose the path of the law. For this reason some direct drawing in light and shade is 156 THE ART OF SEEING necessary before the memory can be trusted to carry the most important facts. The difference between our general memory of an object and the visual memory of it is a definite one. The general memory carries with it knowledge we have gained through all our senses at various times, and is not confined to the experience of the eyes alone on one special occasion. A visual memory has to be separated from all of these influences, as it is not so much a question of the objects themselves as of what is seen of them. The painters call this an ‘‘effect,”’ and by the word pay tribute to the cause. It will be found that whenever a cause is understood the eye is better able to judge the effect. If we think of light itself as it is modified by the shape and position of the ob- jects on which it falls, we see those objects related to each other consistently with the time and the place. Without some such guiding thought absolute accuracy in imitation would be necessary to reach any degree of accuracy in the result, and the difficulties would multiply with the number of objects concerned. In the study of light and shade our subject should be light expressed by the way objects appear under its influence. We put ourselves in the place of light as we look. We speak loosely of seeing an object, but in reality our sensation is due to the light that object is able to reflect; its actual exist- ence would be proved only by touch. Even the sensation of light does not always have an objective cause; it may come from some mental reaction. We all know that a blow on the eyes will give us a flash of light unconnected with an external source. In teaching light and shade with reference to cause it is necessary to remember one fact only: that light must travel in a straight line. However light or dark a surface may ap- REPRESENTATION 157 pear depends on its inclination to the light. This is true of a colored surface as well as of a white one, for color means that only part of the original white light is reflected at any time, and even that fraction varies with the inclination of the surface. The usual term for the varying degrees of illumination is ‘‘value.’’ It defines the quantity of white light compared to the source. We say commonly that a surface is dark or light. The word “‘value’’ is more accurate. It implies a balance and is also a standard to which color may be reduced for the purpose of comparison. As our world is a colored one, some common term for the various colors must be found, and we speak of a dark red as having a low value, meaning to say that its equivalent in white light would be low in the scale of light and would be a dark neutral gray. Like all technical terms, the word ‘“‘value’’ is only a convenient classification. When we real- ize that a wrong value misrepresents the surface it is intended to describe by giving it light to which it could not be en- titled and as a result distorts the object, it is easy to see the importance of any general thought that will aid our judg- ment. The ordinary technical methods in drawing reverse the thought of light, for we work with black on white, and it is natural to think of shadow without reference to its cause. There must be error even in skilled hands, but the errors are more likely to balance each other if the tones in our drawings are compared with a common measure. The thought of light as the source gives this measure, and some degree of unity of illumination can be given, even in the work of beginners. The action of light should be carefully explained to the pupils and should be insisted upon until it becomes instinc- 158 THE ART OF SEEING tive for them to think first of light as the cause when they look at their objects in light and shade. They are acquir- ing a point of view rather than a method, and it is one they can share with the masters of technic. PARTEIV You should often amuse yourself, when you take a walk for recre- ation, in watching and taking notes of the attitudes and actions of men as they talk and dispute, or laugh or come to blows one with another. Both their actions and those of the bystanders who either intervene or stand looking on at these things; noting these down with rapid strokes... in a little pocket-book, which you ought always to carry with you. And let this be of tinted paper, so that it may not be rubbed out: but you should change the old for a new one, for these are not things to be rubbed out but preserved with the utmost diligence. .. . Leonardo da Vinci. SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHERS INTERMEDIATE GRADES In the Kindergarten and Primary Grades the children still keep their natural instinct for graphic expression. If the flow is not checked prematurely they will always con- tribute to any objective experience, a wealth of material from their own thought. That is one of the reasons why adults find the drawings of small children amusing and in- teresting, no matter how defective the presentation may be. In fact, we are apt to mistake the latter for the spirit and place the quality we enjoy in the work of children and primi- tive peoples in their faulty means of expression, rather than in the fresh, underived thought and vision where in both cases the real values lie. We see that the children lose much of this freshness of thought as they leave the primary grades, and their graphic expression becomes more true to objective fact. The care- less and natural conclusion is that a better acquaintance with the objective world is drying up the springs of original thought and fancy. Therefore teachers, moving in a little- known field, dread to find better seeing in the children’s work, except in a mechanical sense. They allow the chil- dren to repeat, year after year, bad habits formed in early nursery days, until the children’s own logical discontent with what they produce causes them to drop the further attempt to use a graphic language in a world where the use of words, written and spoken, becomes insistently neces- sary, both at home and in school. When the teacher has a better understanding of the sub- 161 162 THE ART OF SEEING ject it will be possible to preserve the freshness of the chil- dren’s thought. He will allow it to come from their own lives and interests, and cease to impose adult requirements and standards. Every fresh mental and visual adventure expressed through drawing will then enrich their whole experience. To teach a child to see better and give him the means for checking up the integrity of what he sees is not to kill im- pulse or imagination. If we furnish him with a conven- tional or mechanical way of making his work look better, then indeed do we close his mind and block his impulse to further experiment. Our educational theories are at last on a psychological basis, and it can be proved in any psychological laboratory —what the teacher of genius has known in every age—that the teacher should lead the pupil to self education through suggestions rather than strive for results by imposing meth- ods. That theory is sound, but in our practice as yet we too often mistake impulse for interest, and follow the chil- dren’s impulses instead of leading their interest through in- telligent suggestions. The difficulty seems to lie in defini- tions. An impulse may be good or bad. It feeds a steady interest only when it is trained and controlled. To follow children’s impulses in the fear of losing a basic motive power is, in the end, to lose the children’s genuine interest and personal respect. It is the same in mature life. The serious worker in any art or profession rejects impulse and follows his chosen interest, day by day, through any drudg- ery. Only the amateur waits for inspiration. The teacher who gives the Course in Observation to pupils of any age must keep to the keynote of the matter. He is teaching people how to see and how to think about what they see directly and clearly. The results must always 19. Figures in Few Lines, Passing from Action Figures to Action Lines. By children of 14. 163 164 THE ART OF SEEING be measured by the mental cause, and each pupil led to measure himself by a recognition of his own difficulties in the light of his improvement. For this reason single good drawings should rarely be exhibited; rather, a sequence of drawings which show the greatest advance made by one pupil, or a series demonstrating the advance in quality of thought and performance of the class. The tendency in the past has been to pick out the chil- dren of greatest graphic facility and glorify that facility until the distance between their performance and that of the other children became so evident as to completely dis- courage the others. It is often at this place that the sense of separation begins between the public and the artist, for it is quite logical to draw the conclusion that you can never learn a language if it is necessary to be born with a specially made tongue to speak it, or with eyes of a particular kind to read its text. Children who have been trained through a Course in Observation in the lower grades, the drawing duly co- ordinated with their other school work, should enter the in- termediate grades with their graphic powers developed to the same point as their ability to use the written word. Their results in graphic expression should be looked at by the teachers as revealing the history of their mental growth. When the drawings are used in connection with tests usually given in the schools it should be possible to study a series of drawings as if reading psychological charts, and to decide what needs to be supplied in each child’s develop- ment. If intermediate grade children have not had a Course in Observation the Course should be introduced according to the ‘‘abnormal schedule”’ on page 200. If the teach- er’s presentation is dramatic and interesting, the children INTERMEDIATE GRADES 165 will find the Course no less attractive than any other form of drawing they might do in the same time, and will improve rapidly when the new point of view has been established. There will be a period for each child equivalent to that gone through by an adult taking the Course, when, all mechanical and exterior ways of teaching and drawing being removed, he must get back to his own standing in the power to observe and record his observation. The first work done after this transition, as with adults under similar conditions, will be highly unsatisfactory to the child’s pride. It will not look as ordered as his former draw- ings, and the instinct will be strong to repeat the earlier con- ventions instead of looking for himself. The teacher’s pride will suffer also, for all superficially tidy work must be aban- doned that a more fundamental order be established. If the teacher has a standard for the new order and is willing to go through the minor inconveniences of keeping and filing all the drawings and rejecting the use of flat copies, erasures, and much old material he will find gain for every study in the grade. The children’s power for independent thought and choice may then grow from roots which the changes and chances of adolescence will feed, for the Means in the Course are so planned that comparative failure—a necessary part of independent experiment—may be as fruit- ful as success. Drawing teachers occasionally choose one Means from those in the Course as it may fit their own needs. While the Means may be used with the greatest elasticity when once the principles are understood, all of them together are necessary for the successful application of the principles. Any practice isolated from the rest of the Course would bring unbalanced and unsatisfactory results. When, for lack of time, some of the means must be tem- 166 THE ART OF SEEING porarily dropped those retained should best fit the chil- dren’s needs at the time and preserve continuity for the Course. Unless the principles are continually kept in mind by the teacher no conscientious or arbitrary carrying out of the Means will be sufficient to confirm habits of clear thinking and seeing in the children. In most cases all work in drawing and painting should be carried out in direct connection with school work and play. The means should never be emphasized as ends. The Line Stories must not be insisted upon when their purpose has been fulfilled; Action Figures from the start are used in il- lustration and for motion, never for themselves; the objects used for Memory Drawing must be interesting to the chil- dren and have connection with their other work. It is continually stated by teachers that children draw from “‘memory,” the word being applied to all drawing done away from the object and generally used to indicate the vaguely associated and inaccurate memories of any draw- ing from imagination. It must therefore be repeated and emphasized that in training for accuracy of memory and observation it should be possible to verify the memory drawing directly and immediately. If no comparison is made the effort is not productive. When the Course in Observation is introduced into the secondary grades the supervisors will sometimes be met with the information that the class ‘‘does not like” Line stories, Action Figures, or even Memory Drawing. The reasons why a teacher expresses himself in this way are be- cause he has not overcome his preconceived ideas or con- trolled his mental habits enough to gain the new point of view; therefore, he has not given it to the children. He has not remembered that the children also have the same difficulties in getting away from old habits, and therefore INTERMEDIATE GRADES 167 cannot be hurried or forced. They can only be led through human interest to the substitution of a new idea for an old one. As the new idea gains their attention and they find that it works in the living problems with which their minds ’ are filled, it will be used. The teaching of light and shade, from the point of view of cause, should never be neglected in the intermediate grades. The gain in the children’s outlook from this teach- ing is too valuable an ingredient in their training to be missed. APPLICATION OF MEANS To INTERMEDIATE GRADES The figure of a spiral may serve to indicate how the various means used in mental training through drawing and painting for strengthening memory and judgment should be applied through the school grades and to adults of any age. As the Means have a human basis, they are not limited by age or special circumstance, and the problem for the teacher is one of balance and adjustment to the conditions involved. If the children have had a mental training through drawing and painting in the kindergarten and primary grades, the Means in the intermediate grades should have so close a connection with all visual and mental subjects in school and at home that they are resorted to as separate training only for special difficulties that may arise for the individual or the class. The children’s actual work, there- fore, would be in all graphic expression connected with and illustrating history, English, geography, nature study, school games and plays, school magazines, posters, and note-books, school and home work for holidays, records of travel, or visits to museums, to zoos, theatres, and moving pictures, the 20. Memory Drawing of Live Animals. By a girl of 14. 168 21. Altered Poses, Drawn from Memory. By a girl of 16. 169 170 THE ART OF SEEING circus, industrial plants, etc., and in such imaginative associations as are fed from all these sources. The difficulty of finding time for mental training of this order in a crowded curriculum may be overcome if the teacher responsible for a Course in Observation plans the children’s work in the closest co-ordination with all these other studies and timely interests. A definite plan should be worked out, the various teachers involved being consulted as to how the use of their material in the Course in Observa- tion would increase the pupils’ grasp of that particular sub- ject, with the proviso that there be always a place for the unexpected happening which might fill the public mind and interest the children. | | To use this wealth of material successfully there must be co-operation between the teachers and a time set for criticis- ing the drawings not only from the point of view of good presentation of subject, but from the point of view of gain in observation as shown through the drawings. _ In schools where drawing is used merely to check up peda- gogic detail in any subject without the knowledge of its larger possibilities, much waste of time could be avoided. It is evident that if a child draws constantly in history and English, and the teacher’s only requirement is to confirm a memory of the matter in hand, the time spent during the week in careless drawing will be greater than that allowed for a class in observation drawing. In these conditions it is obviously impossible for a pupil to make art advance in mental training, or for a teaching in cause and effect to have any result. The waste effort is great on the part of all the teachers and the pupils. Until the teacher of any subject begins to look at drawings in the light of a mental test, the only way for the supervisor of the Course in Observation to avoid a conflict of motives INTERMEDIATE GRADES 171 is to see all drawings done in the school once a week or as often as possible, and to advise the various teachers as to the pupils’ fundamental needs in observation and how these needs may be met. It is generally considered that Music and Drawing or Painting are cultural subjects in themselves, and they are regarded as external symbols. The conditions of actual men- tal training are forgotten. Careless expression in any of the arts without attention or standards fixes bad mental habits through mere external repetition. When the aim in the teaching is that the pupils may have an objective standard for the measure of their own thought, then only do the arts take their place in the foundation of education rather than in an external finish. In the intermediate grades as the pupils’ emotional and intellectual needs become greater, nothing destroys mental initiative and independence, and emotional balance, more completely than superficial standards of training in the arts. Despite the proved psychological knowledge of these facts, we neglect the arts as a source of mental training in the higher grades even when we have made an effort to carry out such training in the primary. When the Course in Observation is adequately carried out in the intermediate grades, the results in development of imagination and mem- ory should be even richer than in the primary because of the greater abundance of material and the pupils’ increased strength of attention. If drawing has been treated as a natural graphic language and not as an art, the pupils will not be self-conscious in its use. But it is of the greatest importance that the material used for illustration and for memory training be in direct line with the every-day occupations and interests of the pupils. When the project method is employed, drawing, 172 THE ART OF SEEING painting, and modelling should form a major part of the training and no mechanical means should be resorted to, unless mechanical accuracy is needed to carry out a definite plan. For the intermediate grades, in ordinary conditions, each one of the Means should be emphasized according to the experience of the supervisor or the grade teacher, the object being to keep continuity in mind and to apply the principles where they will give the most training and fill the greatest need. : Line Stories. —When the line is weak and tentative, or where there is the use of many small strokes in drawing, the teacher must introduce this exercise in the intermediate grades as a surprise, with a story that has dramatic interest and will suggest other stories of local happenings to the pupils. Measure should be used almost as a game in eye and mind accuracy, and should be introduced unexpectedly in connec- tion with some work where such accuracy is specially needed. Exercise in Vertical and Horizontal.—If the pupils are care- less in drawing Vertical and Horizontal lines the proving with the plumb line and bottle level should be resorted to at once. Action Figures.—If the practice in the use of these figures has been understood by the teacher, most of the pupils, under normal conditions, in the intermediate grades will be able to draw a figure in good proportion with doubled lines and with no loss in action. Therefore, they will be observing how to clothe their figures in the study of the costumes of the different periods in connection with their work in English and history. Those of the class who keep the action while studying how the clothes hang under different conditions will soon be able to begin to draw figures INTERMEDIATE GRADES 173 ’ with “‘action lines,’’ and without drawing the action figure first. For this transition there must be memory and informa- tion drawing, the pupils posing for each other; also, short repeated actions, such as drawing down a shade, opening a door, picking up something from the floor, dusting a shelf, used according to the following practice. Expressing Action 1n a Few Lines.—This practice should be treated much as a game, the effort being to see how directly the story of the particular action can be told in as few lines as possible. After five minutes the drawings that tell the action in five lines, seven lines, etc., should be put on the screen, and the teacher should point out how a single line suggesting the poise of the head or body does more to tell the story of action than would any number of details without that indication of the poise. If the grade teacher has not been trained in the Course in Observation, this lesson can still be given with help from the supervisor. The children should be asked to try this exercise at home with their pets as models—cats, dogs, birds—and to bring pictures of figures and animals in action to school from which to draw the action lines from memory. These exercises will enable the children through the action lines and increased observation to draw figures in action as would any illustrator, but if the figures are stiff and the pupils show in their drawings that they no longer have in their minds the thought of the action in the figure under- neath the clothes, a return must be made at once to the clothed action figure, at least for a short time. Every-Day Perspective.—Under normal conditions, when Every-Day Perspective has been taught in the primary classes, it should be necessary to return to special problems in perspective only in cases where a class fails to have the position of the observer in mind when drawing and produces 174 THE ART OF SEEING drawings without order. Then single-line action figures should be used, to save time, and a strict accounting ac- cording to conditions required of the pupil. Composition (Design).—The various ways by which the story (whether as an illustration or a surface to be covered) can be told through psychological values should be kept in mind and pointed out by the teacher whenever possible, and in connection with every piece of graphic work done by the pupils in the intermediate grades. As by this time the basic principles should be well known to both pupils and teacher, this can be done when planning work in all the Means, as well as in design as such (posters, note-books, handicrafts, etc.). When possible, all work in design should be in direct connection with school and home needs—costumes, scenes, utensils, school plays and pageants, school use and decora- tion, the pupils’ own seasonable clothes, presents for holi- days, planning for gardens, summer work. The teaching should come through the co-ordination of all these timely and human needs and events, rather than through any ar- bitrary programme of increasingly elaborate formal de- sign. The pupils will find it necessary to observe and dis- cover much for themselves in connection with such needs, and the teacher’s part will be to suggest and plan visits to museums of natural history or art, or to places where houses, trees, or other conditions may be found, as required for the special problem in hand. It must be emphasized again that the only way in modern education by which time can be saved is by a direct return to the observation and practice of a few basic principles in connection with personal needs and interests. If teachers should ask where they are to find time for such practice, we answer that such co-ordination as is here suggested INTERMEDIATE GRADES 175 covers the necessary mental training and the material of all school subjects. Waste is avoided and more certain results obtained than if each teacher were competing for time with the teachers of all other subjects, as is still too often the case. A Course in Observation can be so directly co-ordinated with English, history, natural history, and geography that the gain in each of these subjects will be equally great dur- ing the same period, and a foundation will have been estab- lished for vigor and independence of thought. Color.—Mental training through the study of color rela- tions is as important in observation through painting as is a training in the perception and memory of form in draw- ing. But form must come first, as it does in common ex- perience. Life would be possible in a colorless world and equally so to one who had lost his sense of taste. In both cases the flavor, however, would be absent. In actual work with drawing and painting, drawing must be the first choice if there is to be a choice, but color should be used whenever circumstances permit in the intermediate grades. Normally the few facts that should be known about color will have been part of the training in design in the kinder- garten and the primary classes; therefore pupils in the in- termediate grades will be familiar with these basic facts and with the thought of color relations. Much can be done with crayons and water-color to emphasize color relations. When the school has no studio, the use of oil as a medium in the intermediate grades becomes impossible, and a direct training in painting through the color-relation panel must be postponed to the high school; but opportunity for the use of color in illustration, memory drawing, posters, scenery, costumes, etc., will offer itself in the school activities on 176 THE ART OF SEEING every hand. The supervisor’s programme should be so ar- ranged that every child uses color in some activity during the school year. The opportunity to add color to their drawings may come as a natural reward to those pupils whose thought about form has been of so good a quality that there is gain in time. The answer to the question, ‘“May I color my drawings ?”’ may be, ‘‘Your story is consistent; we will see how you can tell it better by adding color.” Color may be used by drawing directly with crayon and brush, the thought of color relations and the effect of one color on another being constantly emphasized. The teacher should not impose on the pupils any theory or taste of his own as to color harmonies. Pupils must make their own choices and discoveries in a world where personal selection finally rules. Memory Drawing.—The balance of Memory and Informa- tion Drawing is so direct a means by which the teacher can measure the mental progress of the pupils that it should not be crowded out of the curriculum. The co-ordination al- ready indicated of memory drawing with other stories should be according to pedagogic necessity, and in order to secure accurate and vivid images. For example in English, animals and all objects con- nected with stories to be illustrated; in history, armor, fur- niture, costume; in nature study, objects of all kinds from nature or natural history museums, when drawn by the memory sequence, will be remembered. A teacher anxious that her pupils should recall the flags of different countries tries the methods of tracing and copying without success. When the flags are drawn in the memory sequence they will not be forgotten. The practice of the three quick drawings must be con- INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 Wire tinued through the intermediate grades and the sequences studied. There will be varieties of results and special needs. In large classes it is not possible to give time and close at- tention to each pupil, but in smaller classes when both memory drawings are better than the information draw- ings, several information drawings should be made to every memory drawing. When the information drawing is always better than the memory, the proportion of the memory drawings should be increased. At least twice in the school term the whole period should be given to a more detailed information drawing that the pupils’ needs may be also checked in this way. Modelling.—To use the same objects that are drawn ac- cording to the memory and information sequence as sub- jects for modelling is a most valuable practice. They should be co-ordinated with the practice in design when the objects chosen lend themselves to decoration. _ Light and Shade.—The difficulties of ‘‘shading”’ a drawing have been supposed to be so great that any drawing rend- ered in light and shade was considered too difficult for pupils in the intermediate grades. As a precedent we have the fact that small children and primitive peoples have no light and shade in their drawings, and probably accept the thought of light as the reason by which they see, rather than as something seen. A training in Observation through drawing and painting to be basic must admit the factor of light at the earliest possible moment, and through the thought of light as a cause held in the mind develop sound observation as to its effect on the visible world. It will be seen after studying the chapter on light and shade and reading the type lesson that even a few lessons adequately given will affect the pupils’ point of view to the 178 THE ART OF SEEING advantage of a more unified and thoughtful observation of any object that attracts their sight when the thought of light as the source is clearly held. The fact that the pupils can render an incident in the history of light each in his own fashion makes them familiar with a larger way of seeing and removes all fear that shading has any difficulties be- yond the major ones of seeing and thinking accurately. If the lesson is well given the results, no matter how ten- tative, will be a surprise and pleasure to the pupils. In any case the form of the object drawn will appear in a new light, and exploration along a new path will be encouraged by even a small measure of success in the experiment. MEMORY DRAWING IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES When the sequence of Memory and Information Draw- ing has been practised once a week, or at least twice a month, in the kindergarten and primary classes, the children enter- ing the intermediate grades will have many accurate mem- ory images for use in their illustrations. They should be ready to draw from more complicated objects and from moving objects, both when the motion can be repeated for verification and when it cannot. Goldfish, a tortoise, a bird in a cage, white mice, a kitten, or a puppy may under many conditions be brought to class when the classes are not too large, or when two of an object can be obtained. Or one child may be drawn by lot to go through the motions of sweeping the floor, reaching up to a shelf, watering the flowers, drawing at the blackboard, or feeding an animal. During the half-hour when this more advanced memory drawing is undertaken the procedure should be as follows: 1. The moving object should be observed. The children should get what they can in the way of information as to ‘VI JO ua. j Ipyryo Ag *sal410}S IO} suOoryeIysN]]] “eZ NW OSs Ear SAO PNG Diva - \\' WwW i paX, Sy eae \y | Way, Me " ia , hws r 1) iN / So Sit hh OO A nya eI BS [oe m J TAL : it f ph cit 179 180 | THE ART OF SEEING any special motion, and record it as an Action Line during ten minutes. 2. The object is then removed, or, if the children are using drawing boards, they turn their backs and draw the subject from memory, using their Action Lines as notes. 3. The children then verify their memory drawing and draw Action Lines again from observation. 4. The object is withdrawn a second time and the chil- dren again draw from memory. s. All the drawings in the sequence are put on a screen or on the floor (in a small class) that the children may read in their own drawings their progress and their needs. In a large class the teacher puts two series on the screen, while each child compares his own drawings as the teacher sums up the whole experience. When this procedure is followed it will not be necessary that the teacher be trained in so-called art, or even in drawing, to tell if the object has been well observed and a living motion has been retained in the mind and secured in the drawing. As there can be no doubt of the children’s interest when actively playing a game of this description with nature it- self, their attention will be intently focussed on the subject. There will always be interesting results even if they con- sist of only a few lines at first. When a child acts a motion to be drawn from memory, the same practice is used: 1. The child goes through the motion of sweeping for a minute, waits for a minute, repeats the motion. The mem- bers of the class meanwhile get what lines of action they can. 2. The children then draw the figure in action from memory. INTERMEDIATE GRADES 181 3. The motions are gone through again for information and to confirm the action lines. 4. The second memory drawing is made. Few or many sequences of drawings are compared and discussed, as time and the size of the class allow. Another variation in the practice of Memory Drawing in the Intermediate Grades is as follows: After an animal or an object has been drawn in the Memory Sequence until the subject has become familiar to the pupils in one position, they should be asked to draw the same subject from imagination in different poses. If an animal or bird is in question, it should be drawn drinking, running, flying, from a front or a back view, etc. If the pupils are drawing from an object, any other position should be imagined and drawn except the one already used. Memory Drawing of Light and Shade As the direct training of the memory is of the greatest importance in a Course in Observation, the teachers in the intermediate grades should find opportunity for such train- ing, if possible once a week, in any case twice a month, dur- ing the school year. If the conscious and subconscious mem- ories are strengthened and increased the power of association will be proportionately enriched, and the pupils’ gain in mental resources from the beginning will show itself in every subject studied. In the seventh and eighth grades at least, if conditions do not permit the practice earlier, the study of light and shade should be substituted for the usual sequences of memory and direct drawings once a month. The results will be of great interest and profit for teacher and pupils, even if only a small degree of skill be acquired in the short time allowed. For the practice see Type Lessons, Memory Drawing, 182 THE ART OF SEEING Part III. If conditions make it necessary, the practice may be altered and the sequence reduced to two drawings, the information drawing being first in that case, followed by one memory drawing. It is of such importance to give the children the thought of light as the source of all objective values, that even this brief confirmation of the idea will be of service to them. MENTAL TRAINING THROUGH DRAWING FOR ADULTS A few persons only, of the millions on earth in any age, find adequate expression for their mental and emotional powers. The small number who after long training sing in opera, play the violin, write a lasting book or paint and draw to good purpose, are secretly envied by the others. A career in the arts is impossible for all; but every one can, by intelligent looking and the proving of what is seen, acquire a personal expression through a graphic language from which to build the universal language of objective expression. By observation and graphic proof of observation, every adult can be taught to look at the world with some of the sensations with which the painter looks, and to draw what he sees to the measure of his personal capacities. Special talent is not necessary. There should be no mystery about the technique of draw- ing and painting when used for communication. The mystery must be put back where it belongs in the personality of the artist. If fear and false standards are disposed of, any one can learn to draw and paint through observation. All children like to draw; they only stop drawing when artificial standards of performance are imposed on their minds and no effort is made to show them how to see better. The demand is that they produce an artistic result, which, in the confused adult mind, means a correct ‘‘finished”’ drawing far beyond any child’s technical capacity. The adult makes no attempt to draw, for the same reason that children cease to draw—a fear that ‘‘Art’’ will not be 183 184 THE ART OF SEEING the result of the effort. It is the same as if the thought of Shakespeare prevented us from corresponding with our friends. | In a more simple age direct contact with objects was an in- evitable part of every one’s life; people expressed themselves directly through materials. In a machine civilization most of us have no physical or mental contact with objects; we do not directly touch anything either with our hands or with our minds, and the sole medium for expression is by words, which are symbols. Therefore an unbalanced imitative life is the rule rather than the exception. Few of us have ever looked intelligently at the substantial world or have been able to clear our thought by proving that world objectively. The first drawings of an adult who stopped drawing in childhood are exactly like a child’s drawings. If a person has no understanding of why this should be and has no humility he will go no further; he will boast of his inca- pacity by saying when next the subject comes up: ‘‘I cannot even draw a pig with my eyes shut.’’ He has not produced an artistic result at once; his performance is far below his capacities in other lines. Why should he waste valuable time? Every one knows that it takes years of mechanical work to train the hand to draw and that children who are supposed to have talent for art, must leave school early and _ stop their education to practise drawing for many hours a day. The history of the teaching of drawing and painting con- firms this point of view. The ordinary man or woman does not know what it is all about. The teaching from the start is separated from vital human interests. The language of the artist has no personal meaning to the man on the street. A talented child is instantly removed to an environment out- side the experiences of the ordinary person. peeres 7 a, ef AO pint, canis. iu, x puae dr FNC A CAAT Ais Meee asa: ew ety Bonner ae) . - batten een ee e ats EA ene Lett SONNY ASEM pee .e-y sere! -—-_—- one. ce . Memory Sequence. By an adult of over 70. 185 186 THE ART OF SEEING When it is sufficiently repeated and remembered that the artistic sense is not an isolated thing but the superior develop- ment of a common quality and that proved observation is the basis for every achievement, it will be possible to believe, in spite of tradition, that the hand follows a directing mind rather than the mind a mechanically trained hand. It has been found that at any age a person can begin a course in better observation through drawing and painting and gain a new point of view with pleasure and profit if he is willing to take the initial steps, which are: 1. A READINESS TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIS LACK OF OBSERVA- TION AND TO BEGIN WHEREVER HE MAY BE. 2. A DUE SENSE OF THE INEVITABLE WANT OF SKILL AND A BELIEF IN HIS ABILITY TO GET A MEASURE OF SKILL THROUGH OBSERVATION. The adult who is improving his power of seeing and thinking through the use of a graphic language, must begin where the children begin and must use the means of the Course as the children use them. The effort must be to re- gain the single eye of childhood; to examine what we actually see without fear or prejudice. The first step in this direction for the adult is to find out where he is and what things he has seen by custom and habit only. William James’s three laws of habit may be applied with profit at this stage: I. Start strongly. 2. Make no exceptions at first. 3. Seize every opportunity for practice. Most people vaguely enjoy nature and the fine weather. They look at objects generally in order to distinguish them for use, and light is a convenience rather than a subject for thought. They think the painter is trying to copy nature and persons, and to match colors, and they cannot see why FOR ADULTS 187 he so often fails in his attempt. They judge him for what he is not even trying to do. When a new point of view is gained through observation, even if the achievement is small, the painter will have one more recruit for his audience, and the owner of the fresh vision will find his power and appreciation increased to sucha degree that he lives in a new world. A few reasons follow as to why it is profitable for adults to take a course in observation: 1. To correct vague and over-literary habits of mind. 2. To discover what they see, why they see it, and what is worth seeing.’ 3. To be able to use drawing and painting as a form of communication, at home and in connection with many professions. 4. Because it is the best form of Art Appreciation by which to understand the language of the masters and learn their point of view. A few comments follow on the use of the means of the Observation Course for adults who are able to take only a half-hour a day for this exercise. A line drill should be taken as a daily dozen, that the mind and hand may be freed from old habits and inhibitions, such as: A tendency to think of the line instead of the purpose. A tendency to fix on some small detail and lose the unity of thought. A tendency to make niggling, small corrections. Five minutes of line stories must always come before other drawing. Adults will find it much more difficult to interest them- selves in action figures than do the children. Motion is not 188 THE ART OF SEEING necessarily the most interesting thing in the world to them as it is to a child, but if they persevere and conquer a first reluctance, they will soon find a new interest in observing people about them, and discover that trying to draw a live thing in motion, even with small success at first, is one of the most interesting games they can play. Life is the great out- standing fact. The adults will be quicker to see proportion than the children and should soon pass through the stages of action figures. Memory drawing will be baffling at first, for the grown person will find that the memory of even the most familiar object eludes him completely. IO minutes 30 minutes 20 minutes 198 THE ART OF SEEING NORMAL SCHEDULE TYPE WEEK—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 (TIME, 90 MINUTES WEEKLY) Line Stories.—Only for new pupils, or those re- lapsing into a weak, hesitating line. Action Lines.—To be used in drawing figures instead of the Action Figures for all imagina- tive drawing illustrating other school work. Every-Day Perspective.—Give occasional em- phasis to this means in the illustrative draw- ings. » 30 minutes Memory Drawing.—Sequence of Memory and Information Drawing. Alternate drawing from figures in action with drawing from art or nature subjects. 30 minutes Light and Shade.—Exercise in this Means to be substituted once a month for Memory Draw- ing. Design and Color.—Conventionalization of na- , ture examples as drawn in the Memory ¢ 30 minutes Drawing period. Composition. NORMAL SCHEDULE REVIEW PRACTICE FOR THE END OF THE YEAR (TIME, 3 WHOLE PERIODS DURING ONE WEEK IN MAY) PERIOD ONE—30 MINUTES Imaginative Drawing, illustrating a subject connected with the school work. This drawing is to be considered for the following points: SCHEDULE FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 199 Intention and quality of line. Action and proportion of figures. Perspective. Cause and effect in all its bearing, involving placing. The following questions should be asked: (a) Is the story told? (b) Is the story a good one to tell in line, or would it be told better in words? (c) Is the story well told? PERIOD TWO—30 MINUTES A Design with Color, to be used for actual work during the summer vacation. ov to No iS PERIOD THREE—30 MINUTES Memory Sequence Drawing.—This drawing is to be compared with the first Memory Sequence Drawing of the year. ABNORMAL SCHEDULE TYPE YEAR—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 5 AND 6 The normal Primary subject and time schedule should be followed in both grades, except in Design, where the normal Intermediate schedule should be used. In grades where Action Figures have been taught before, the normal Intermediate schedule should be used also. September 4 All designs must be drawn or adapted from memory unless the material is taken directly from nature; they should not be copied from other designs. The pupils must state in ad- vance the object chosen for decoration and the material to be used. When possible the material from the Memory Drawing period should be used. 200 October November and December ( January February THE ART OF SEEING The normal Primary subject and time schedule should be followed in both grades, with the same exceptions as in September. The material used for subject or story should be co-ordinated as closely as possible with all other grade work. The normal Primary subject and time schedule should be followed in both grades, with the same exceptions as in September. — Special attention should be given to adaptations for Christmas and other seasonal designs. This should be done in all work before holi- days and vacations, always according to the principles of this Course. The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- mediate Grades 5 & 6 should be followed, with these exceptions: The Action Figures are not to be clothed, and a return to drawing them with single lines is to be made whenever action is lost or the proportion is not good. Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done before the second year of the Course. The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- mediate Grades 5 & 6 should be followed, with the same exceptions as in January. SCHEDULE FOR INTERMEDIATE GRADES 201 The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- mediate Grades 5 & 6 should be wholly fol- March, lowed, unless, in the Action Figures, the April, motion, proportion, and expression of feeling and do not warrant clothing the figures. May Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done before the second year of the Course. ABNORMAL SCHEDULE TYPE YEAR—INTERMEDIATE GRADES 7, 8, AND 9 The normal Primary subject and time schedule should be.followed in all the grades, except in Design, where the normal Intermediate schedule should be used. In grades where Action Figures have been taught before, the normal Intermediate schedule should be used also. peuuceber All designs must be drawn or adapted from memory unless the material is taken directly from nature; they should not be copied from other designs. The pupils must state in ad- vance the object chosen for decoration and the material to be used. When possible the material from the Memory Drawing period should be used. The normal Primary subject and time schedule should be followed in all the grades, with the same exceptions as in September. October The material used for subject or story should be co-ordinated as closely as possible with all other grade work. THE ART OF SEEING should be followed in all the grades, with the same exceptions as in September. November | and Special attention should be given to adaptations December for Christmas and other seasonal designs. This should be done in all work before holi- days and vacations, always according to the principles of this Course. The normal subject and tame schedule for Inter- mediate Grades 5’ and 6 should be followed, with these exceptions: The Action Figures should not be clothed, and — January a return to drawing them with single lines is to be made whenever action 1s lost or the pro- ee The normal Primary subject and time schedule portion is not good. Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done | before the second year of the Course. The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- February mediate Grades 5 and 6 should be followed, with the same exceptions as in January. The normal subject and time schedule for Inter- mediate Grades 7, 8, and g should be followed, March, except in Action Figures. aap For Action Figures follow the normal schedule a for I diate Grad d 6. May | or Intermediate Grades 5 an Drawing in Light and Shade should not be done before the second year of the Course. The Review Practice for all grades is the same as in the normal schedule. RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE IN OBSERVATION AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE KINDERGARTEN Line Stories.—All the children should show relative prog- ress in the strength of their line and in their ability to hit the points. If a child has made no progress the teacher should be able to discover the cause from the child’s work. Enough exercises should have been given to furnish va- riety; but there should be no attempt to cover all the prob- lems. The stories to be told in line should come as naturally from the children as stories in words, but more should not be expected of them. These comments apply to all three divisions of ‘‘ Direc- tion’’: Line Stories, Measure, Vertical and Horizontal. Measure.—Only a few of the simplest and most dramatic exercises in Measure should be given during the first year. Vertical and Horizontal.—If the teacher finds after the initial lesson with the plumb line that the children are too young to use it for verifying the lines of their houses, the practice should be discontinued during the first year. Verification by the bottle level should not be attempted. Action Figures.—All the children should have sub- stituted the motion symbol of the Action Figure for the static symbol to which they have been accustomed. They should use the Action Figures freely and with pleasure. No matter how crude the expression or how poor the pro- portions of the figures, the stories should be intelligible ac- 203 204 THE ART OF SEEING cording to the place occupied by each child in the transition between the ‘‘symbolic”’ and ‘‘realistic”’ stages. Memory Drawing.—Most of the children should have made the change from subjective drawing without refer- ence to the objective world to the seeing and drawing of ob- jects directly. No time can be set for this transition, as the children will differ widely in this respect. The teacher must not make any effort to hurry it. If emphasis is put on communication as the aim, a child in the symbolic stage will soon begin to realize that his expression is not under- stood, and the change will come in a short time. If the drawings in the Memory Sequence, either those from memory or, direct, have any resemblance to the ob- _ ject, the teacher has succeeded in what she has undertaken for the first year. Design.—The first three principles of Design should enter into most of the hand work with kindergarten materials. No effort should be made at a formal teaching. If the practice is co-ordinated with all the work of the children, the results should be found in their ability to pick out the ‘“Do-it-again”’ story and others, and in a better ordering of all their work. Color.—If color has been used freely and the usual kinder- garten practice for teaching primary colors followed, a start should have been made in the study of color relations. This study should be begun by comparing rather than by matching colors. Dramatization of all the Means employed is essential. The lessons in the Course in Observation should come in close connection with, and when possible, directly after the kindergarten work or games with which they are to be co- ordinated. RESULTS IN THE KINDERGARTEN 205 The ideals of Froebel are to be kept in mind. In order that the kindergarten teacher be equipped to teach a Course in Observation in co-ordination with the usual kindergarten work, it is first of all necessary that she make the direct connection in her mind between the theories of Froebel, in which she is already trained, and the new Course. Both spring from the same principles and should be applied identically in spirit and practice. Much time will be saved if this fact is realized. No new thing is being added to pre-school and kinder- garten training, but better use and co-ordination of the old material are afforded. The Course gives to both teacher and pupils the objective means by which to test standards and progress. For the practical carrying on of the Means of the Course in Observation it is necessary that the kindergarten teacher be trained in the usual pedagogic studies. This can be done intensively and in less time where teachers have had train- ing in the ideas and ideals of Froebel than is necessary for those unfamiliar with Froebelian theories. The Course in Observation should enable the kinder- garten teacher to obtain: first, a definite graph of each child’s mental state and progress through his drawings; second, a new standard that will eliminate the merely ‘“‘busy’’ work and allow the better co-ordination of all the practices which serve to establish order in the children’s minds. The necessity of examining the basis of her original premises, and the use of an objective test to prove her premises and practice, give to the teacher a fresh point of view which is obviously of the greatest service. If the Course in Observation is thought of as merely a new method by which the children will learn to draw and 206 THE ART OF SEEING taken as an addition to their work, there will be nothing but disappointment and failure. In all the grades, but, above all, in the kindergarten, the children’s drawings must be read from the pedagogical side and primarily for their psychological value. During the first year in the kindergarten no great im- provement, judged by the superficial standards of accuracy and neatness, will be apparent in the children’s work. The results must be relative, and no rapid outward signs of gain can be expected for the first year. The teacher must measure all improvement from the place of the individual child in the mental scale and accord- ing to its needs. She should realize that Line Stories, Meas- ure, Standards of Vertical and Horizontal, Action Figures, and Memory Drawing if taught according to Cause and Effect are, all of them, ways of strengthening her hands in everything she is endeavoring to do with the children. She must have the vision to recognize in the incomplete results of the children’s efforts the establishment of better standards of order. The gradual connection is being formed between the child’s isolated world of personal symbols and that of shar- ing interests and communicating with others. The passage between these two stages cannot be hurried or bridged ex- cept by consistent teaching. The transition from drawing his mental images to drawing what he actually sees—from the subjective to the objective—may be long delayed. RESULTS IN THE KINDERGARTEN 207 RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE IN OBSERVATION AT THE END OF THE KIN- DERGARTEN PERIOD DIRECTION Line Stories.—The children should be able to tell their stories in a good clear line and to hit the points if they are not too far apart. In all the examples given, after Example 4, not more than four points should be placed, as kindergarten children should not be required to keep so many objectives in mind. Children who show marked inability to hit the points, or whose line fails to improve, should be carefully watched, as great lack of power to co-ordinate may have a physical or mental cause that should be discovered and cured. Measure.—In the easier examples in Measure they should begin to be able to see finer distinctions. The Vertical and Horizontal.—From the lessons in the Vertical and Horizontal and Measure the children should have gained the idea of the meaning of a standard. Action Figures.—Toward the end of the kindergarten period the proportions of the action figures should show a general average improvement. The children should have become aware that arms are not longer than legs, that heads are smaller than bodies, etc. Cause and Effect teaching should begin to influence the children to look for themselves and make comparisons in proportions. During the first years it is seldom possible to let a child double the lines of his action figures, as the correctness of the proportion in the figures will not justify the step. It is best not to let the children attempt to clothe the 208 THE ART OF SEEING figures, but let the story of action be told as directly as possible. Memory Drawing.—In Memory Drawing, we repeat that the gain must be measured by the length of the step between that isolated state, in which the child draws something from his own mind and literally does not see the object before him, and the point where he begins to observe the object, re- member a few of the larger proportions and more salient characteristics. When drawing an animal, small children often omit the neck. To correct this habit and start the observation, some characteristic feature, such as swans’ necks or giraffes’ necks, should be observed, remembered, and drawn. It is not possible for small children to render objects accurately, whether drawn from memory or directly. The teacher can expect only approximate results. Design.—As the object of any teaching of design in the kindergarten is to instil conscious and subconscious stand- ards of order as a measure for personal choice, not only should the children at the end of the kindergarten period have learned to use their hands in so-called “‘busy”’ work, but all the work done should have served to emphasize, and make them familiar with, the first three principles of design. The children’s spontaneous arrangement of any material must show the results of this training by the time they leave the kindergarten, or much of the work will have served only to keep them occupied and pass the time. Color.—As color will have been used whenever possible in all the exercises, the children will be familiar with the pri- mary colors and combinations, through the teaching in connection with design as well as cata their own experi- ments. Line stories can be told with colored crayons, but pale RESULTS IN THE KINDERGARTEN 209 colors should not be used. Much of the imaginative drawing should be done directly with water-color and the brush. It has been observed that kindergarten children choose less vivid colors than before they first begin to see and render form. This is because their attention has been strongly at- tracted in a new direction, and the change will be temporary. At the end of the kindergarten period there may still be a few children who remain in the symbolic stage and like their unintelligible drawings. We repeat that the child who has as yet no wish to com- -municate should be made to understand that the drawings mean nothing to others, but should not be criticised for his attitude. He will watch the class tell their stories and will want to tell his, too, when the time comes. As this transition is basic and signifies a completely altered mental life, it can- not be hastened. There should have been so much dramatization in the kindergarten that the child’s natural impulse to act out his thoughts will have been led into useful channels. It must be remembered that many bad habits acquired in the pre-school years have to be overcome in the kindergarten. Direct results cannot be expected too soon. If bad habits have been counteracted and the soil prepared in which the great principles of order and clear thinking are to be rooted, the teacher has accomplished much. RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE IN OBSERVATION AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE PRIMARY GRADES Line Stories.—If the training in Line Stories has been consistently carried out in the kindergarten, it will not be necessary to give much time to Line Stories in the primary, except for children who have not had the training and those who relapse into a pale, tentative line through want of thought and attention. The Line Stories should be used as a “‘daily dozen.”’ The children’s lines will hold or relapse, according to each child’s character, until the teaching has been consistent long enough so that drawing a good strong line has become a sub- conscious habit. In every class some children will need the Line Stories every day, and all the children should tell them from time to time. We repeat that the aim throughout the Course is to have the work of those trained in it recognizable by the strength and purpose of its line and the increased power of observa- tion shown. Aside from these qualities the drawings will vary, as do the pupils themselves, and there should be no common resemblance, such as would be brought about by an external method of teaching. Measure.—In the training for Measure, Line Stories should be co-ordinated whenever possible with the other work. The children should begin to be able to approximate correctly by the eye alone the distance between points. They should never depend on a ruler for accuracy in their work; the ruler should not be used except to verify or in exceptional cases where its use is required for manual work. 210 RESULTS IN PRIMARY GRADES 211 Vertical and Horizontal.—The exercises with the plumb line and the water level should have been given sufficiently often to have laid the foundation for these standards. When- ever the lines of houses or other objects cease to be vertical or horizontal the practice should be resumed weekly. In any case, for the primary children drawings should be verified monthly with the plumb line and water level. Action Figures.—By the end of the first primary year the teacher should have succeeded in establishing the action figure, both as an acceptable symbol of motion and as a means by which to observe proportion. All the children should use the action figures freely and with pleasure. When this result is not attained it is usually due to the teacher’s lack of dramatic suggestion in presenting the subject. The transition from the static and primitive figure to the action figure having been made, and the action figure estab- lished in the kindergarten, there should be rapid gain in the proportion of the figures in the first year primary classes. It should be possible to allow many of the children to double the lines as a reward for good proportion. If action is lessened when the lines are first doubled a return must be made to the single line figure. As action figures will be used throughout the primary for Every-Day Perspective, and also for illustrating much of the school work, the definite time needed for direct training in these figures will not be great if the kindergarten teaching has been consistent. Cause and Effect teaching by this time should have ban- ished figures with legs growing from the head, or figures with heads of enormous size. Children get into these habits and retain them only from defective seeing. The cure is to teach them how to look more closely and to think to better purpose. 212 THE ART OF SEEING Memory Drawing.—If Memory Drawing has been con- | sistently taught in the kindergarten, there should be visible improvement at the end of the first primary year. The children will be as unequal in their powers of memory and of graphic expression as in other subjects, but every child, according to its ability, should be able to draw with reasonable proportions at the end of the first primary year. To gain this result there must have been continuity in the teaching; and much of the daily work in drawing should have been done from memory. The exercise in Memory and Information Drawing from a living animal or other object must have been given at least once a week. Imaginative drawings, in which the memories cannot be verified, do not serve in this training for memory, which is for the purpose of definite observation, and for which verifi- cation is absolutely necessary. As one of the purposes of the Course is so to clear the mind that the imagination may have good material with which to work, it should be evident to the teacher that material which cannot be checked up, while full of interest, is not profitable for this training. Imaginative drawings, however, at home and in connection with school work, are to be encouraged in every way. Through them we read the results of the training with the different Means used in the Course; but they are not to take the place of the Means until the training has accomplished its purpose. In schools where encouragement is given to imaginative drawing unconnected with memory drawing or other ways of training in better seeing, there is only chance improvement, and by children with special talent, the others repeating their bad habits year after year. RESULTS IN PRIMARY GRADES 213 Design.—The children should know the five basic prin- ciples of design. They should be able to draw, freehand, the vertical and horizontal, the oblique, the square, the oblong, the triangle, the circle, and half-circle. They should also be able to make simple designs illus- trating the principles of design and combining the geometric figures for given purposes. Color.—The children should know the six primary colors. They should also know the sequence of warm and cold colors. They should be able to distinguish related colors and be able to name the complementary of any color, realizing that when mixed together they become gray or neutral. RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE IN OBSERVATION AT THE END OF THE PRIMARY PERIOD Line Stories.—The children trained in the Course through both kindergarten and primary grades should have acquired a good line in their drawing as subconscious habit. But Line Stories should be used consistently for all children who have had no previous training; also when, for any reason, members of the class relapse into a tentative line. To avoid a relapse, some exercise in Line Stories may be given at the beginning of the school year and after the vaca- tion periods. Measure.—The exercise in Measure should be practised preliminarily to any work in which exactness in measure- ment is required. Such games as Leonardo da Vinci sug- gested to his pupils may be played. Vertical and Horizontal.—At the end of the primary period the standards of the Vertical and the Horizontal should begin to be subconscious with the children. When there are 214 THE ART OF SEEING lapses, and careless thinking through hurry or inattention appears, the plumb line and the bottle level should be used to re-establish the standard. Action Figures.—By the end of the primary period the children’s action figures should have gained sufficiently in proportion to allow the doubling of the lines. Most of the class should be clothing the figures, with no loss of action. Cause and Effect teaching, with direct observation, enters here; the teacher and pupils must consider how a boy’s coat or a girl’s dress hangs or pulls, according to the action or the condition. The children who lose action or proportion when doubling the lines or clothing the figures must return for a time to the stage they have left and learn to look to better purpose. Every-Day Perspective.—As every drawing made by the children, after the first eight problems in Every-Day Per- spective have been mastered, should be considered as an exercise in Perspective, it will not be necessary to set aside special time for practice in Perspective. Every sketch should become a problem in Perspective. The questions to be asked are: What is the place of the observer’? And: Has that place been held in the pupil’s mind ? Memory Drawing.—Memory Drawing should enable the children, on leaving the primary grades, to draw from memory simple objects, as well as people or animals in action. Memory Drawing, with frequent exercise in con- structive memory (see Type Lesson, Part III), should be given in connection with any material needed in class projects and school and home work. There is no better way to give the teacher objective proof as to whether or not a child has a clear idea and a keen interest in the work in hand. RESULTS IN PRIMARY GRADES 215 Design.—The children should be able to conventionalize in a simple manner from leaves and flowers, for holiday gifts, etc. | Color.—The children should be able to combine and use color more and more freely, emphasizing and enriching with black. If the training has been consistent, the children, on leav- ing the primary grades should make through their drawings an unusual record of their mental development. Their sketches should show a clear, firm line, a good memory for essentials, and the power to retain and express significant detail. . In every school there will be children who enter the classes from year to year without having had kindergarten training or training in the Course in Observation. These children will have bad habits of thinking and seeing, and as those habits will be more deeply rooted than with younger children, it will be more difficult to place them in a class already trained in Observation. They can be given some intensive practice with the dif- ferent Means, the Means being applicable to all ages and under many conditions. The stories and problems need only to be altered to suit the children’s interests. The children with less training should attend all class lessons. The new pupils will improve as they watch the class and take part in the drawing. It is often useful to ask some child to act as pupil-teacher for a special lesson. To sum up, children who have had the Course since their early kindergarten days should, at the end of the primary period, draw freely and with pleasure at home and in school. There should be consistency in their imaginative sketches, and a true perspective, up to the point covered by the Eighth Lesson in Every-Day Perspective. 216 THE ART OF SEEING They should begin to dress their action figures with con- sideration for the way clothes would hang on these figures when in motion or at rest. Their trees and houses should show thought and obser- vation and must show that they held in mind the special kind of a tree or house suited to the story. The teacher’s special interest should be in those children who do not see well with their minds. For them the Means will have to be repeated, following as closely as possible their own interests. RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE IN OBSERVATION AFTER ONE YEAR IN THE INTERMEDIATE GRADES Line Stories.—Enough training should have been given in the lower grades to establish the habit of a good line in every case. If a pupil’s lines are habitually poor, that pupil must have such time for special training in Line Stories as would be given to a fundamental weakness discovered in any subject. Otherwise the Line Stories need not be used after the first-year intermediate grades, except when the whole Course is new to a class. Measure.—Exercises and games in Measure are valuable even after the class has achieved a fair average standard. During the first-year intermediate grade a good standard may be sustained if the exercises are co-ordinated with all other work in which a nice sense of measure is required. Stories may be suggested in which the place of the furni- ture of the room is altered and the exact width of a space must be taken account of. Vertical and Horizontal.—The training by this time should have given the pupils a subconscious feeling for these stand- ards. If the vertical and horizontal lines in their drawings become careless, the exercise of proving the drawings should be resorted to at once. Action Figures.—At the end of the first-year intermediate grade the figures drawn by the children should have action and fair proportion. If the figures are stiff or the proportion poor the teaching 217 ‘PI joyus e Ag ‘saury uonoy jo asQ YUM UONeNSNT] “bz . "OIE asian os bens “- Saar Peoria Eo vn weeer” ata “Se dia ite Setters. oe Y Sy —_ a. . ” se att aS) 5s - wme esos eine on" Parca. S as ee a 5 e a Ss Nk baat Cr aed ast weoeitter "2 Si lve ag Geen eT) ee ipo Beto Tce et a 5 eae aie a ST 2 < * SO Setar ae NS ns Te, a ee yore —s~ ~ ePIC so a ee ea 218 ‘bi jo Aoq e Ag ‘saul’ UOTJOY Jo asf) YHA UOT}LIXSN]]] Smeeso it we hg pam Sain rar pA A “4 : . fT 72 = is od bd. “Sz 220 THE ART OF SEEING has failed. There has been lack of dramatizing on the part of the pupil. The only way to correct these defects is to return to the exercises of the Course. The fact must be emphasized continually that action is attained to the extent that each pupil has felt and seen, before and while drawing the figure. Every-Day Perspective.—Examples 9, 10, 11, and 12 will have been given during the year. Outside of this training, problems in Perspective should be found in every drawing, for illustration or from nature. The pupils should be able, without hesitation, to give the position of the observer in their sketches. Memory Drawing.—The results in Memory Drawing will begin to show whether a pupil needs a greater proportion of information drawing or of memory drawing. . Sometimes pupils will draw well from memory and fail to see proportion when drawing directly from the object; and, in the reverse, some may show poor proportion in the memory drawings. In that case the class may be divided into two sections, one drawing in large measure from memory, and the other largely direct, until the weak places have been strengthened. : The first and last sets of Memory Sequences in the year’s work should be specially considered as tests. In the first the teacher will be able to read each pupil’s needs, shown by weakness in observation and carelessness of thought. The last, when compared with the first, will register the year’s progress. Indeed, this test should be kept in mind through- out the year; from time to time the Memory Sequences should be tested by comparison with the first set. In this way the teacher can measure the gain in observation in every case. Design.—The children should be familiar with the prac- RESULTS IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES 22] tice of conventionalizing from nature or memory drawings for the purposes of decorative design. Color.—In schools that have a studio, at least a few color- relation panels should be made in oil during the first-year intermediate grade. This practice is to confirm the thought of color relations. The teacher’s chief aim, in the first-year intermediate grade, should be to see that the graphic language of the pupils, for purposes of proving their observation, is flexible at every point; that no pupil may feel completely at a loss when a new subject is presented for illustration or a new object for representation. When the Course is introduced in an upper grade where no previous training in observation through drawing has been given, the first results will be primitive. All untrained observers have common characteristics in expression, no matter what their ages may be. If the Course in Observation has been given in the lower grades, the first year of its use in the intermediate grades will be a special test of the earlier teaching. The rudiments will presumably have been learned, and the pupils’ use of the graphic language should be spontaneous. RESULTS TO BE EXPECTED FROM THE COURSE IN OBSERVATION AT THE END OF THE INTERMEDIATE PERIOD Line Stories.—The line should be strong, showing thought and purpose, and Line Stories should not be necessary except in unusual cases. Measure.—The exercises and games for training the mind to measure can be used with profit at any age. At the end 222 THE ART OF SEEING of the Intermediate Grades too many subjects must be considered to allow time for this training. Vertical and Horizontal.—The pupils should show a strong sense of-these directions in their drawings. The use of the plumb line and the bottle level should not be needed except in special cases. Action Figures.—The human figure should have been sufficiently observed with regard to motion so that, whether drawing from life or from imagination, the pupils preserve the action and proportion of their figures through the use of action lines alone, and without the necessity of using action figures. Animals and people should be drawn in motion, th action to be expressed in as few lines as possible at first. Every-Day Pers pective.—The perspective in the drawings of the pupils should be good, the place of the observer always having been held in mind. Their knowledge of perspective will be limited to those things which can be correctly drawn from observation and by the standard of the eye-level line, without reference to a teaching in scientific perspective. The pupils should have solved all the problems in Every-Day Per- spective, including the application of the eye-level line to interiors. Memory Drawing.—At the end of the Intermediate Grades the cumulative exercises in Memory Drawing should have made it possible for the pupils to make an accurate graphic record of whatever they wish to remember and be able to check up their mental processes by these records. The degree to which the results in Memory Drawing differ in various pupils should indicate their differences in mental accomplishment, also their needs in the balancing of mental and manual work. Their imaginative drawings should show the results of a definite intention and of thoughtful observation. RESULTS IN INTERMEDIATE GRADES 223 Light and Shade.—Drawings in Light and Shade should have some degree of technical unity, proving that the thought of cause, when observing effects, has become a mental habit. The physical Means employed in the study of Light and Shade are no different from those already in use; but the mental attack brings a definite technical result. Design.—The pupils should be able to invent a design from any material given. The design should hold together in both its pattern and in its color. Color.—The pupils should possess a sound basis for color appreciation, which can only be obtained from a conscious or _ subconscious recognition of color relations in nature and in art. If they have been given the thought of color relations from their earliest years, and enough time has been found for the practical expression of this idea in their work, they should be prepared for the more definite training in oil through color- relation panels. "QI jo [118 e Ag f ‘AIOW IA, SNOTNSUODGNS Burjessn]]] ‘9c 2 / 224 ‘'g jo ju8e Ag ‘voto, Ul sjewiuY jo s8uImeig aouenbas Aiowyy = *Lz hrowayy et I hremeny #04 tT a : “oe ‘ a Bi By a boy of 16. Memory Sequence Drawing of Animals in Motion. 2S! 226 pees KAT ae oat tA 29. Memory Sequence of Animals in Motion. By a girl of 17. 227 ey Puan ¢ j ye s : Osi he ‘ & yee \ - ja ay . -. a . ve y ie i Bis oy ? + ay Aa é 4 ; ‘ r - PART VI ye so soon as ever it is opened Beholdstall the stars of our | Leonardo da Vinci. a n } t t ] EL eo! " ly th . ‘ L - i i Pas < ‘ . ‘ ‘ 1< | A. 7 A j : ~ 4 . ) aa | > 1 » ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION When we write, speak, or draw there are two elements involved—the idea we have in mind, and the means we take to express it. The idea is our personal property, good or bad, but the means of expression must have some reference to the general understanding of other people, or communication fails and we remain our sole audience. It may be that we do not wish to communicate, in which case any sort of sound or symbol satisfactory’ to ourselves is adequate to the occasion; but generally we want to be understood, and so we are forced to the use of a common language. The arrangement of form, line, and color in such a manner as to express a thought or an emotion is known technically in the Fine Arts as Composition. Composition is based on mental and visual habits, and all rules that may be formu- lated for it have these as an origin. If we study our ways of looking, and the effect on us of what we see, it is likely that there will be little need of formal methods and technical rules. Composition is the art of telling a story, and a story may be told by any means that will convey the thought from one mind to an- other. Man is a talking animal. Whatever other ways he may have for making himself understood, words must always be the first. Words, however, are arbitrary symbols. They have meaning only .by common agreement. There is no special reason why in the English language a cow should be called ‘‘cow,’’ rather than ‘‘horse,’’ or some other agreeable assemblage of letters. It is so much a matter of usage that the peoples of the world classify themselves on a basis of 231 232 THE ART OF SEEING these arbitrary sounds. Even these sounds themselves de- _ pend in a measure on sight. We have no words for what lies beyond our experience. In a blind world there would be no clouds, no color, and our vocabulary would be one of touch, sound, and smell. The language of sight is of an entirely different nature. It is an affair of light, of the senses and the mind: it needs no agreement to make it understood. .Any divergence of opinion as to whether the subject under discussion was a cow or a horse would be quickly settled by an inspection of the animal or even by a crude drawing. The picture language is as old as man, but its use has been in the hands of the few. This is more a matter of indifference than inability. We take sight for granted, and forget what a large part of life itis tous. If we were to find ourselves able to read, but never having made an attempt to write, the case would have its parallel. At the present moment we are coming to the point of discovering our eyes, for the moving picture has, in effect, made all of the world visible to us, and in its way obliterated time and distance. Stories and distant places, described in form and not in words, are now an every-day experience. The subject of composition is here considered from the point of view of common experience. The object is to find some universal ground of sensation and understanding, for even formal technical rules must be based on human terms. If we go directly to the source, the human equation, we meet our problems in a more efficient manner. The following of a rule blindly may bring safe results, but rules are at best generalizations leading to type forms of expression. They never allow for the personal equation, which must enter largely into any form of graphic work. There is no close parallel between grammar and picture ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 233 composition. Grammar has its definite and accepted rules which must be regarded, and the form of the sentences them- selves is a matter of personal choice within narrow limits. Picture composition is the expression of a balanced thought, and the modes of its accomplishment are as various as the people it serves. If the thought is well told or the emotion so expressed as to reach others the composition has stood the technical test. The limits are those of intelligibility, and the quality depends on the person using it rather than on formal methods. Words are man-made and follow the laws man imposes on them; the words of the visual language are general human reactions to visual cause. The test of intelligibility is a certain one for the student, no matter how inexperienced; it is of a nature to call out all the instinctive and acquired knowledge he may have at his disposal. It is not to be supposed that rules, manners, customs, or conventions, which are results from the experience of the centuries, are of no value. We cannot get away from them if we will, any more than we can assume the mentality of primitive man. Even in breaking away from these inheri- tances we measure and acknowledge them. They are the foundation for many of our instinctive ways. Our first mark does not start from the beginning. If we take composition as the art of telling a story, we have some clue at once as to the course to pursue. A story is not the simple statement of a fact or an emotion, but the presentation of it with such circumstances as enrich it and enhance its value. There is a central thought, point, or climax: all else is contributory to that and should increase its importance. A story without a point is flat. A picture without a centred interest is equally ineffective. Composition is suggestion controlled for a definite purpose. In literature 234 THE ART OF SEEING this is done in sequence, the time element aiding the sugges- tion and leading the mind through the events to the climax, which in itself could be stated in a few words. In pictures the statement is simultaneous; all of the facts are in sight at once, and the mind must be carefully directed to the controlling one by the appropriate subordination of all the others. The subordination of secondary fact accomplishes several things. These minor elements not only lead the attention to the central thought, but increase its importance by contrast and suggestion. This subordination constitutes picture com- position and calls for choice and psychological knowledge, either instinctive or acquired. Bad composition is bad choice, and always for the single reason that the attention has been diverted from the centre of interest by lesser things. It is evident that choice must be based on a knowledge of human preferences—on an understanding of what is likely to arrest the attention, or what will pass unnoticed even though seen. Much of this knowledge can be drawn from common experience. The source of all of the laws and rules that might be for- mulated in composition is the human being. The laws for composition cannot be like the laws of matter, because human preference, which is a mental quality, is always pres- ent as a chief ingredient. We may average these preferences and establish perhaps an empirical standard of good taste; but beyond some few considerations which have a basis in general human impulses, most of the standards would de- pend on race, custom, and given conditions. A good compo- sition of to-day would have been inadmissible fifty years ago. We think in terms of the time. There are a few general human impulses which we may turn to our advantage in directing the attention to some ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 235 part of the picture we consider important. The eye is naturally attracted by a contrast, a bright light, or a brilliant color. These are considerations that would influence a child as well as a grown person, and can all be used as a means for leading the attention. Rarity also attracts. In a quart of white beans spread out on the table, we would look at the one black bean in the lot. If we had a square filled with alternating spots of red and blue, no one place in the square would attract the eye more than another, and even the spots would lose their identity and merge in a general tone. If we decreased one color and increased the other we would produce the attrac- tion of rarity and look at the lesser quantity. We value that of which we have least. If we wish to attract attention by a contrast, there must be no other contrast so great as that at the point of interest. The eye naturally seeks climax. It is human in its preferences and is attracted by the unusual or the extreme. In addition to focusing the eyes and the attention on the centre of interest there are natural methods of emphasizing it by its surroundings. A superior interest is made more superior by inferior ones about it. It shines by contrast, and dulness serves its useful purpose. This process would be called the Subordination of the Accessories in technical language. It occurs automatically in our mental concept whenever the attention is fixed on one spot. In direct draw- ing or painting the student may well forget this fact, mak- ing each minor thing as he works an interest in itself. There can be but one centre of attraction. Rambling remarks do not make a story: even a verbatim report must contribute to a situation. Presumably we pick our subject for some special interest it has for us—color, light, form, or some human association; and whatever we save out of all 236 THE ART OF SEEING that might be said, we make of importance, major or minor, as the case may be. We call it choice, and we ourselves are the rules for its practice. Choice depends on the quality of our perceptions. There are other and more mechanical ways of directing the attention through lines and sequence of spots. The eye is likely to follow a line having some sensation of movement. The eye rests on a spot, but it moves with a line. It is also attracted by regularity of spotting, which is in effect a broken line. This was recognized during the World Warin the placing of the guns so as to avoid any arrangement of spots which would easily be seen. A line may lead the eye in either direction. Parallel lines are indeterminate, but if the lines converge the eye follows in the direction of the point of meeting. If two lines cross they practically become four, and we naturally look at the point of crossing. Direction may be modified and the sugges- tion reversed by some thought such as that of light radiating from a source. In either case motion to or from a central point is implied. These means of directing the attention are valuable since they follow the instinctive action of the mind. They have their reason in our unconscious habits of sight, and are the more potent for being unconscious since they do not interrupt or divert the attention but lead the mind to the point of interest as the natural place to look. The painter is deliberate in his methods, but if he were to follow his instincts alone, he would employ the same means, for, to all of us, ‘‘things look that way.”’ Though we speak of the foregoing means as representation in connection with the composition of a picture, the same considerations apply to design. A border might repeat a filled space; the space itself may be so centred as to draw the ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 237 attention, forming a second repeat. Or the idea of motion could be given by leading the eye from one space to the next. The problem is how to attract and lead the attention to the spot of our choice. All of the general habits of seeing are of use to us, whether our picture is to tell the story of a sensation or to advertise a cereal. We have the habit of generalizing our visual sensa- tions, and in some few cases we reduce them to a sort of abstract symbol. Line, which is a symbol, since it does not exist in nature, means to us boundary of form or a sequence of objects, big or little. Line also stands for the sensation of motion when used in such a way as to increase the suggestion of motion. These abstractions generalize some special ex- perience and are like the word identifying an object. Lines are graphic words and not an objective statement. They are always used in connection with the objective; they would not be sufficiently specific used alone. Rising wavy lines, for instance, would suggest heat when used in con- nection with a volcano in eruption, the association being with the feeling of motion in-radiating heat, or the refraction seen above a heated surface. With lines of motion the sensa- tion of movement is given by the association. In addition to these symbols of common experience, we have modifications of form due to our manner of seeing. When we look at a spot our eyes and our attention are focussed on that spot, and the image is clear and distinct. We are conscious of much else, but it is seen vaguely both as to precise form and detail. If we recognize this fact in our use of objects and color, we have what corresponds to a mental picture; that is, the subordination of much in sight to a point of special interest. In such a picture it would be difficult to miss the interest, because the arrangement ' corresponds with our habit of seeing. 238 THE ART OF SEEING There are other deliberate variations from literal form — that are expressive and useful, particularly in giving the sensation of motion. One class of these is based on the com- posite image we see—the actual visual difference between a still and a moving object. The common example is a revolv- ing wheel which is a blur of spokes to the eye, though struc- turally it has definite form. A high speed photograph would show the structure but not the condition. Visually it is not so much what the object is as what is happening to it that matters. This brings us back to our story. Moving figures do not give us a sharp image. In spite of that fact we are more likely to associate motion with the poise of the body than with any blurred outline we might see, and so, following a common habit of thought, we depend on poise to give the sensation. If we remember that there is a chief interest in the picture we can generally depend upon a natural instinct for the placing of the subject in the space to be covered by the drawing or painting. There must be enough room to tell the story. Scale and, to some extent, placing are established with this thought. Our principal figures or our most im- portant objects cannot be larger than the limits of the space, or so big as to leave no room for the minor things that surround them. The well-told story does not consist of the point alone; the choicely balanced circumstances as well give real value. There must be space enough to tell all that need be known in connection with the principal interest. There are as many ways of arranging the elements of a picture as there are people; and all of them are good so long as the story is told. There are some things, however, that are not done, chiefly because they would divert instead of enhance the interest. To avoid these things, most of the - ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 239 rules are written. But habits of sight change as well as conventions, and rules should constantly be modified to meet changing conditions. Common sense is a good guide, perhaps even the best. The main thing to remember is that we are trying to tell something, and that irrelevant remarks damage the telling instead of clarifying it. The general effect of irrelevant statement is to bore, and nothing is more boring than the pointless story. Following this thought, the main interest of a drawing could scarcely be crowded to one side of the space without making its position a subject of attention. If such a fact belonged to the story it would be good composition; but if there was no reason for it, the placing is faulty, as it intro- duces a thought that has nothing to do with the subject. The question to be considered is whether or not the attention is diverted from the main point by unexpected lack of space or the loss of something that should be there. We do not look at the expected, but we notice the loss of it. The problem comes often in this form to the portrait painter, who must subordinate the hands of his sitter to the face, though they may be as bright a spot as the face it- self. The obvious way to avoid the difficulty is by reducing the light on the hands with a cast shadow, so centring the attention by a superior light-attraction on the face. If the hands are left out or manifestly underpainted they become a subject of notice. The psychological point to strike is that of indifference. The hands would be seen if they were too prominent, missed if they were omitted, but accepted with- out thought at the place of perfect balance. We have a case of psychological values—mental values, which enter into every composition and determine the emphasis that shall be given to each object. 240 THE ART OF SEEING To the realist of former days it would be heresy to imply that any advantageous change could be made in what nature offers our eyes. Yet even his mind selected such of the facts as interested him and rejected the rest. Nature is like the country store where we are buying the materials for our pudding. We find whatever we are looking for, and if our mind were set on breakfast instead of dinner we would be served equally well. The real estate dealer, a friend of nature, as he talks of his land, does not deal in all of the facts any more than does the painter who looks at nature to find his material. It is necessary to make a distinction between the visual effect of form and of color. Form appeals to the mind in many ways, both directly and indirectly. It has the power of suggestion that leads the mind through association limited only by the mental quality of the person. Color, on the other hand, is an emotional experience. It has no intellectual value, and if there is suggestive power to its influence, that power is connected with some superficial association. Being emotional, color is a very personal affair, and has to be regarded accordingly. Bad color is a matter of opinion. The color sense is like that of taste or smell. There is no evil in any one of the sensations, although there may be a warning. The finest development of the color sense, as might be expected, is found in color composition, which includes not only the color relations, one to another, but also the color quantities. The quantities in any arrangement of color require personal choice. The possible combinations which may be used, even to fill a small space, are literally without number. The most direct way to measure the importance of color quantities is from nature; for, though the principle is the same wherever we may be, the source of light is unobstructed out-of-doors, and the larger relations are easier to follow. ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 241 If we take the simplest possible subject, sea and sky, we have, if we omit detail, but two general colors, which are definitely related, one to the other, by the quality of the day. The color relation is fixed and may not be changed if that special hour is to be recorded. The proportion we give these two colors, however, is a matter of personal choice. The Eye-level Line, wherever it is drawn to divide the color, establishes the height from which we have looked. The division is between sea and sky, but its placing depends on whether our eyes are turned up or down. They could be turned down so much that we could see but little sky, and the eye-level line would be at the top of the composition; or it might be that our interest lay in the sky, and the place of the eye-level line would be lowered accordingly. The division, then, depends on where we find our interest, and by the division we indicate our interest. When we look from a mountain top, the fact that much country is spread before us leads us to look down. Our eye- level line is, therefore, high in the picture, but that is due entirely to our interest, for if our gaze were level we would see as much sky as land, and the line would come at the middle. This impulse to look down is so strong when looking from an airplane that we see very few photographs taken in the air with any eye-level line at all, and we are led to wonder if in such circumstances it would not be found in some unusual place. The emotional value of color, generally, escapes us alto- gether, and yet color is always before us; we live in a colored world. In the case of the sea and sky, whatever our thought of form and incident may be, we are in a state of color emotion as we receive the facts. Color is like the music of a pleasant voice as the story is told; it has little to do with the narrative, and yet it represents the surrounding atmosphere. The sensation we receive from a given color relation 242 THE ART OF SEEING changes with the proportions. There is always a quantity at which each color is at its finest in a color design. In planning a picture a painter would consider how large a space he can give to his green meadow, in relation to the other color divisions, to have the green at its best, or in painting the sea and sky, what should be the proportion of one to the other. This choice of proportion is a direct appeal to the color sense, an intimate and personal matter which seems to vary with every individual. There are no reasons one can give for such an instinctive choice. The important thing is to know that a choice is made and to lend the aid of the conscious to the subconscious mind. Every test to which composition may be put is based on a human intention. If our subject is a border—a surface to be enriched with form and color—surface is the underlying fact and must not be lost, whatever decoration is used. If, in representation, some thought or emotion is to be expressed through material appearances, a good composition is one that tells the story adequately. The simple statement of a fact alone will not be of great importance. It must be remem- bered that it is impossible to make a statement without any accompanying suggestion. When we say ‘‘the man died’’—without other facts—we have the story of the mor- tality of man in a way too general to be interesting. The details mentioned in connection with the death make it a story, increasing the suggestion and giving the event special significance and perhaps importance. The picture of a jug on a table is the fact of a jug, but it may be much else. The visual fact of a jug alone is like the simple statement of an event—a topic but with nothing said about it. Although there might be nothing to say in words, in terms of sight the case is different. To see the jug at all there must be light, and light is a major event. ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION 245 A topic is the subject of our thought, but the surrounding circumstances elaborate, explain, and give importance to that thought. It is in the control of these elements that Composition finds its place. The purpose of Composition will be clearer to most of us if the mind can be freed from the thought of imitation and the picture be made as a deliberate attempt to use form and color in the same manner as we use words, stating our point and elaborating it by the choice of qualifying circumstances. There are no mysteries in such language. Where it be- comes abstract, general experience has been summed up and an average type made to represent that class of sensation. No fine thought is the better for being unintelligibly expressed. To be coherent and intelligible is the first step in communication, whatever may be the ulterior aim. The language must be learned, whether we want to write a letter or to illustrate an advertisement. Drawing and painting as Art are found in their purpose rather than in their forms. The painter, even in his mode of thought, differs from the rest of the world in degree rather than in kind. Composition is a technical process, so in its way is eating. Neither is reserved for a few specially favored persons. The painter is trying to express some thought or emotion drawn from a source that is universal. He has no restricted way; he travels a road that all may take to the limit of their perceptions. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN INTRODUCTION The seven lessons in Design in the Course in Observation cover the fundamental principles of Design. From these principles arise all possible variations, and it is only as the children possess and adapt them that their future grasp of the subject is assured. The Line Stories, Measure, and the Standards of Vertical and Horizontal in the Course form a natural preparation and introduction to the study of Design. Before letting the children make an original design, the teacher should lead them to suggest an object or a material to which it may be applied, so stimulating interest in the knowledge of the practical use of Design. Designs always must be for a specific object, in thought if the actual object is not at hand. Natural objects, or pictures of them, should be shown in class to point out nature’s consistent laws of order, which form the basis of all Design. . Whenever possible, dramatize these principles of order. They may be illustrated in this way with the children: A row of children becomes a problem in Repetition. A line of children, first a boy then a girl, or one child facing front and another back, or one kneeling and one standing, illustrates Alternation. The children standing according to their heights, the shortest at one end and the tallest at the other, illustrates Progression. Simple problems of Axial and Central Balance may also be worked out in similar manner in the children’s games. 2d ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 245 It is of the greatest importance that the children apply the principles of Design in as much of their daily work as possible. For instance, when they plan note-books or charts, which usually are made up of printing, drawings, and pasted pictures, the teacher should set them to thinking of the balance and order in the divisions and spacings of the pages. In all of their written work, also, they should think of the placing of margins, titles, illustrations, etc., in accordance with the principles of Design. The children will become more observant of their surround- ings at home if the teacher suggests that they bring to school some object or picture which illustrates a principle of Design, and that they find these principles in rugs, carpets, wall- paper, and materials among their immediate surroundings. Visits to museums will become more profitable after the objects near at hand have been analyzed, for the children will enjoy finding the most interesting illustrations of the principles of Design with which they have already become familiar. | Whenever possible, the children should be shown, and be allowed to examine, good original examples. When these are not available they may be shown reproductions or photo- eraphs—of such things as textiles, carvings, metal work, Indian baskets, illuminated manuscripts, etc. It is important that the children should draw good designs from memory instead of copying them directly. The reason for this was elaborated in the chapter on Memory Drawing. The examples given in this book illustrate the basic princi- ples in the simplest way. They are to be used as sug- gestions to stimulate any number of variations for problems in Design. The six standard colors only are used in the first three lessons. After the third lesson, black and white are intro- 246 THE ART OF SEEING duced. In later lessons the colors are reviewed, in related — sequences and in complement. In the kindergarten the first three principles are to be taught as demonstrated by the geometric figures in the seven lessons. The drawings should be on a large scale and done with the same rapidity and firmness as in the Line Stories. As the five principles covered by the seven lessons are basic, they should all be given in the first year of the primary grades. From each exercise the children should in- vent as many simple original designs as time permits. The principles and exercises should be reviewed in the second and third years of the primary, using paint and brush as well as crayon for the practice. In the intermediate grades the recognition and application of all the principles should have become habitual. The geometric figures and the laws of order should be so familiar to the pupils that innumerable designs will spring from this foundation, according to the value of suggestion, from the material and the imagination of the pupil. Occasions for the practical use of Design in every-day matters will multiply as the pupils grow older. The work should be in close co-ordination with the school and home needs of each child. | In conventionalizing for Design, the subject should be chosen either directly from nature or from the pupil’s memory drawings. The designs of others should never be copied; when they are made use of, they should always be drawn from memory. Suggestions for greater variety of pattern must be worked out by the teacher according to the material and time available. Different groupings of figures, changes in position, of number, size, or color; enrichments by lines and dots; the ELEMENTS OF DESIGN Q47 combination of two shapes—all these may be used as the exercises proceed from the simplest forms to increasingly diffi- cult patterns. By these means the children will acquire a fundamental knowledge of Design and a permanent interest in the appli- cation, consciously or subconsciously, of their own knowl- edge to all objects that can be decorated with which they may come in contact. If children begin by applying the large principles of order to their own world, their appreciation and interest in the Fine Arts will be set on a sound basis. Every-day use of these principles will help them to acquire standards of good taste and discrimination. The teacher should have constantly in mind the fact that - the origin of design was the desire to add to the beauty and value of some object by setting lines to form patterns in some special order to that end. Therefore children should associate from the start a material or an object with their designs. Tue NAMES OF THE Five Basic PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN PARAPHRASED FOR THE CHILDREN 1. Repetition—* Do it again and again.” 2. Alternation—‘‘First one thing and then another.”’ 3. Progression—‘‘Things of different sizes growing from little to big or large to small.”’ 4. Axial Balance—‘‘The same weight on each side of a line.”’ 5. Central Balance—‘‘The same weight about a point.” These five principles can be made clear to the children at an early age through the paraphrasing of the technical 248 THE ART OF SEEING terms as above. The names of the principles should be | given in the grades beyond the kindergarten, but not in- sisted on until the pupils are thoroughly familiar with their practice. Each time a new exercise is presented, the pupils should repeat the paraphrase of the principle in question. Nature’s habits of order should be pointed out, and as many as possible of the nature examples mentioned in the Lessons in Design, should be shown in class. The children should bring to school pine cones, honeycombs, seeds, cells, etc., and should be asked the principles involved in the pattern of each. The objects chosen for drawing should be the ones which best illustrate a given principle, and they should be drawn according to the Memory Drawing Sequence. The principles must be emphasized, in order that the children may hold them in their minds as they draw. LINE STORIES The training in Line Stories is continued from Part III and developed in connection with the teaching of the prin- ciples of Design through the simpler geometrical figures. The Line Stories are co-ordinated with the first three principles of Design as early as possible in the Kinder- garten. | The Line Story is told first and the line or figure drawn used as the motive for the practice in Design. The train- ing in Vertical and Horizontal lines and Oblique or Diagonal lines and suggestions for stories may be found in Part III in the chapter on Line Stories. As the Oblong is a variation of the Square, type stories for the training in Line Stories are omitted before Lesson IV. There is no Line Story training for the Half-Circle. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 249 Lesson I—VERTICAL AND HoRIZONTAL (Colors: Red and Orange) Problem 1.—Line Stortes. Example in nature: Trees in relation to the ground. (For type of material see chapter on Line Stories.) Problem 2.—Repetition. Examples in nature: (Vertical) Tree trunks in a row. (Horizontal) Lines on shells. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on snakes. Problem 4.—Progression. Examples in nature: Deer’s antlers. Problem 5.—Axial Balance. Examplein nature: Man. Problem 6.—Central Balance. Examples in nature: Snow crystals (photograph of crystals). Lesson [I—OBLIQUE (Colors: Yellow and Green) Problem 1.—Line Stories. | Examples in nature: Blown rain or sleet. Problem 2.—Repetition. Examples in nature: Marks of wind and tide on sand. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on fish. Problem 4.—Progression. Examples in nature: Lines on shells. 250 THE ART OF SEEING Problem 5.—Axial Balance. Example in nature: Growth of tree branches. Problem 6.—Central Balance. Examples in nature: Minerals and snow crystals. Lesson III—SQUARE Line Stories—Example LET THE CHILDREN PLACE FOUR POINTS ON THE BOARD AND CONNECT THEM BY LINES SO AS TO MAKE A SQUARE. These points must be so used as to make regular figures. The geometrical names of the figures should be mentioned but not insisted on. This practice will give the children an idea of the fact that figures may be classified. Classification is a mental habit to be established as early as possible. The teacher should remember that the story should come first, the name of the figure afterward. A type story by a boy. The farmer’s children brought milk from the farm here every morning to three houses rented by city people. They put the glass bottles of milk on a small wagon Show where the children drew the wagon. A type story by a girl. A robin started from the nest here to get a worm for his children. He found a fat one here but, by mistake, ate it himself. At the next place here another bird got the worm first. He had to go on here to find a good worm to bring batk to the nest. Show where the robin went to get food for his children. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 251 Lesson IJI—Souare (Colors: Blue and Violet) Problem 1.—Line Stories. No examples in nature. Problem 2.—Repetition. Examples in nature: Spots on frogs and toads. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on birds’ feathers and tails. Problem 4.—Progression. Example in nature: Segmented worm. Problem 5.—Axzal Balance. Examples in nature: Flower forms. Problem 6.—Central Balance. Example in nature: Starfish. | Lesson IV.—OBLONG (Review of Colors) (Warm and cold colors) Problem 1.—Line Stories. No example in nature. Problem 2.— Repetition. Example in nature: Honeycomb. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on bugs and beetles. Problem 4.—Progression. Examples in nature: Birds’ feathers. Problem 5.—Axial Balance. Example in nature: An apple cut lengthwise. Provlem 6.—Central Balance. Examples in nature: An apple or tomato cut, cross- wise. 252 THE ART OF SEEING Lesson V—TRIANGLE Line Stories—Example Let the children place one point above and two below on the board, about a foot apart. Start at the upper point and draw to each of the others, returning to the upper point. These points must be so placed as to make a regular triangle. A type story by a boy: A steamboat started from the city here. She dropped some passengers at an island here. Took on some at another island here and went back to the city. Show where the boat went on her round trip. A type story by a girl: Sister wanted a pennant for our school inta hurry. She had some blue felt and cut out a three cornered piece as quickly and as straight as she could. Show where the scissors went as she cut out the pennant. LEsson V—TRIANGLE (Related Colors) Problem 1.—Line Stories. Examples in nature: Snowflakes. Problem 2.—Repetition. Examples in nature: Spots on fishes, snakes, shells. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on a leopard. Problem 4.—Progression Examples in nature: Angles in a spider’s web. Problem 5.—Axial Balance. Example in nature: Butterfly. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 253 Problem 6.—Central Balance. Examples in nature: Eye in tail feathers of pheasants and peacocks. Lesson VI—CIRCLE Line Stories—Example LET THE CHILDREN PLACE ONE POINT ON THE BOARD AND THEN DRAW A CIRCLE ROUND IT WITH A SINGLE SWEEP OF THE ARM. A circle is a line every point of which is at the same dis- tance from a centre. For this reason the centre should be placed first that the conception of the figure may be correct, whatever the attainment. To draw the curve first and place the centre later destroys the thought of the figure. Accurate results are not to be expected. The exercise finds its chief technical value in the freedom of movement from the shoulder as a pivot. As in the preceding lessons, a definite point must be hit, the point from which the children start to draw the curve; but at the same time, the line of the circle has a constant reference to the central point, which gives two points to the exercise; one a definite objective, the other held in the mind. In drawing circles, the work should be done at the board when possible. At the desk, the motion must come neces- sarily from the elbow and the pencil must be held vertically in the fingers. Type Stories : Here is a Maypole. Here is a circle of children dancing round it. Show the Maypole and where the children danced. Here is where a stone fell into the water. Here is the circle it made on the water. Show where the stone went in and the circle. 254 THE ART OF SEEING Lesson VI—CIRCLE (Complementary Colors) Problem 1.—Line Stories. Use stories with the drawing of the circles. Problem 2.—Repetition. Examples in nature: Peas in a pod. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on shells. Problem 4.—Progression. Examples in nature: Sizes of leaves on a stem. Problem 5.—Axial Balance. Examples in nature: Flowers branching from stem. Problem 6.—Central Balance. Examples in nature: Any flower with round corolla. Lesson VII—HA.r-CircLeE (Choice of Color or Choice of Warm or Cold Color Sequence) Problem 1.—No Line Stories—Draw Nature Example from memory. Examples in nature: Shells. Problem 2.—Repetition. Examples in nature: Seeds in a suntlower. Problem 3.—Alternation. Examples in nature: Spots on butterflies. Problem 4.—Progression. Examples in nature: Progression in flower petals. Problem 5.—Axial Balance. Example in nature: A Spider. Problem 6.—Central Balance. Example in nature: Sand Dollar. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN : 255 APPLICATION OF LESSONS IN DESIGN SUGGESTIONS FOR THE KINDERGARTEN The first three fundamental principles of Design—Repeti- tion, Alternation, Progression—may be taught in the kindergarten. The Line Stories, the three first principles, and the simple geometric figures are covered in the first four problems in each of the seven lessons. The teacher should think of the principles of Design in the children’s words. Repetition is a ‘“‘Do it again and again”’ story; Alterna- tion is a story of ‘‘placing first one thing and then another”’; Progression is a “‘setting of things in order from little to big or large to small’’—these terms indicate arrangements that are soon discovered by the children in their surroundings and in their kindergarten work and play. The lessons should be co-ordinated directly with the Line Stories. They may easily be illustrated with kindergarten materials before drawing is attempted. The following type lessons with the circle should suggest to the kindergarten teacher the way in which the first four problems in any of the lessons may be applied to her class. Type LESSONS WITH THE CIRCLE FOR THE KINDERGARTEN Repetition.—A ‘Do it again and again”’ story. Type Lesson I—Size We have told our circle stories on the board and we have found all the round things in this room—the clock face, balls, rings, and the tops of our mugs. We play games in a ring and we cut large and small circles out of our gay colored papers. 256 THE ART OF SEEING We are going to take some of the circles we have cut out and tell a “‘Do it again and again story”’ by the way we paste them on our cards. We will choose whether we want a large or a small circle and paste it on the card; then we will do it again and paste a circle exactly like the first one next door, then another circle of the same size until we have told a ‘‘Do it again and again’’ story. Type Lesson II—Color To-day we are going to tell another ‘‘Do it again and again”’ story. We will choose big or small circles of whatever color we like best. Harry likes a big red circle and Tom a small green circle. Harry will paste his red circles and Tom his green ones in a row on his card. We can tell our ‘‘Do it again and again stories” by pasting the circles across the card or up and down on the card. Which will each child choose to do? See how much straighter Harry pasted his circles to tell his story than he did last week. Alternation—A ‘‘First one thing and then another”’ story. Type Lesson [—Size Here are our cards with ‘‘Do it again and again”’ stories on them, told in circles. To-day we are going to tell a different story with circles. We will take a large circle and paste it on the card. Now we will place a smaller circle next to it. Now another large one and next to that a small one. What story have we told? ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 257 The story of ‘‘First one thing and then another’’—first a circle of one size and then a circle of another size, marching across the card. Type Lesson I[I—Color We will tell a “First one thing and then another’”’ story in another way. First we will paste a large red circle on our cards. Then a small green circle next to it. Then another red one and a green circle to follow. We have a story of first one kind of color and then another kind across or up and down our cards. Progression.—A ‘‘From little to big and from large to small”’ Story. Type Lesson I—Size We will tell another story with circles—three kinds of circles—big, middle sized, and little, like the three bears. We will paste the circles across the card. First a little circle, then a middle sized circle, and then a big circle. Now we will begin again with the smallest circle. Our card looks like a ladder with big rounds on which we could climb up on one side, down again on the other, and then up and down. We have told a ‘‘From little to big and from large to small’’ story with circles. Type Lesson—Color The story we told with little, middle sized, and big circles we will tell in another way. We will tell it with three colors—red, yellow, and blue. The little circles are red. The middle sized circles are yellow. The big circles are blue. 258 THE ART OF SEEING We will paste the circles across the card. First a little red - circle. Next a middle sized yellow circle. Then a big blue circle. Now we will put another large blue circle to keep that one company, and next the little red circle. Do you remember what story we have told with the earles of different sizes and different colors? NotE—The kindergarten teacher should read the more detailed suggestions for the application of the lessons in the primary grades. Many of the problems can be simplified and used for the kindergarten. APPLICATION OF LESSONS IN DESIGN Suggestions for the Primary Grades The application of the seven lessons in Design has been worked out in more detail for the primary classes than for the kindergarten or the intermediate grades. As the teaching plan is similar for all the grades, the dif- ference between the primary and kindergarten or inter- mediate grades is in the simplification of the problems for the one and the elaboration of them for the other. None of the exercises need be applied literally. They are to be taken as suggestions to the teacher and adapted according to the special conditions presented by the class. Before considering a Design, there should always be dis- cussion by the class of the possibilities and limitations both of the object to be decorated and the medium to be used in decorating. A full type lesson in co-ordination with modelling is given for the primary grades in addition to the exercises for each lesson in the principles of Design. TYPE LESSONS WITH GEOMETRIC FIGURES USED IN THE SEVEN LESSONS IN DESIGN FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES 259 Lesson I—Vertical and Horizontal The children will decorate a calendar, a holiday card, or any other simple flat object, with a border. They may use one or more of the first three principles—Repetition, Alterna- tion, or Progression. The colors indicated in the lesson (red and orange) should be used. 260 NO! VERTIGAL — HORIZONTAL COLORS RED~ ORANGE 1 DRAW LINES et | aso. Aree LION a SALTERNATION Sey 4 PROGRESSION .@) OQ ‘i eel ||SI|=I 5 AXIAL BALANCE re | to. ce) é CENTRAL BALANGE al aa ae Ras [ - | _R ee Pe: Vertical and Horizontal Examples Illustrating Lesson No, 1 in Design, 261 Lesson II —Oblique Let the children invent a design for decorating the ends of a long scarf. The principles of Axial Balance and Central Balance are to be used. Yellow and green are the colors with which the design is to be made. This lesson may be varied with designs for scarfs, towels, trays, small rugs, etc. 262 NO,2 OBLIQUE. YELLOW +GREEN | DRAW LINES. oe NG eres fe CUTLON, Me ~We 3SALTERNATION. B/N) \/ 4 PROGRESSION: DAA IA S AXIAL BALANG By. i; 6 CENTRAL BALANGE. a va a < FIRS Oblique Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 2 in Design 263 Lesson III—Square Let the children make a design for a book cover, a book end, or a picture frame. Each child in the class may select the principle or principles on which he wishes to build his design, and he is to combine with the square any of the figures of the previous lessons—the vertical, the horizontal, or the oblique. The predominating colors should be blue and violet. The teacher may, however, allow the use of one or more additional colors for the design, since the six standard colors have been covered with this lesson. A lesson on tone relations may be given after the six standard colors have been used. As a type lesson for work in black and white, let the children draw two squares on white paper, then mount one on gray paper and one on black. The effect is to be considered and discussed. 264 NO.4. OBLONG REVIEW OF COLORS 1 BUILD OBLONG oe eee! ION | aaa SALTERNATION 4 PROGRESSION ae ee ee 5 AX(AL BALANCE sie [| [el 6 CENTRAL BALANGE | =| AS | [] . Oblong Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 4 in Design. 267 Lesson V—Triangle The triangle is to be used, and may be combined with one or two of the figures in previous lessons. Dots also may enrich the patterns. The children may choose for decoration any of the follow- ing objects: a tile, the cover of a medium-size square or oblong box, a candle shade. These may be decorated with a border design or with a centre design, using axial or central balance. The related colors are to be used, and black may be added. 268 NO,5 TRIANGLE RELATED CQLORS TORAW TRIANGLE L\ 2 REPETITION RNAS SALTERNATION. LV AVNY & PROGRESSION Be LV /NAN L\ A SAXIAL BALAN GE /\ ie GCENTRAL BALANGE Triangular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 5 in Design 269 Lesson VI—Circle Let the children make a design for a round or square cushion or a round or square centrepiece, using the circle. The first design should be developed in circles only. Dif- ferent sizes, arrangements, and colors should be considered and drawn. A second design should be made, combining the circle with figures in previous lessons. When possible, a museum or large house should be visited and the arrangement of circular forms with other figures in good designs observed. These arrangements should be drawn from memory later, but the pupils should have no drawings before them when inventing their own designs. 276 NOG CIRCLE COMPLIMENTARY COLORS 1T DRAW CIRCLE >, eomere Wt TION. BOMO® SALTERNATION BOO) OOO APROGRESSION. b f SS sy Y v y v Soo, CL) oo. Geooo Oe) oo 5SAXIAL BALANCE 4 J O Qs Silas. 6 CENTRAL BALANCE Circular Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 6 in Design, 271 Lesson VII—Semicircle Let the children invent a design for curtain or dress ma- terial, using the half-circle. With it may be combined the circle, the square, or the triangle. Call the children’s attention to the half-circles in their drawings of flowers and fruits, the crescent moon, and to half-circles in good examples of design. Let them invent from memory an all-over design for the scarf or dress material. The colors used should be choice of either a warm or a cold sequence. 272 NO.7 HALF CIRCLE CHOICE OF COLORS. 1 DRAW HALF CIRCLE » > 2 REPETITION. Gdd@ SALTERNATION ISDScD eee ON Ye I ay IAKIAL BALANGE CID 6 CENTRAL BALANGE Half-Circle Examples Illustrating Lesson No. 7 in Design. 273 274 THE ART OF SEEING TypE LESSON FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES Clay Bowl In choosing the design we want to use, we must remember not to have a pattern too small for the size of the bowl. We want the design to stand out clearly. If the lines and dots were too small, we would have to take the bowl in our hands to see the pattern; and if it was standing on the sideboard, we would not be able to see the design at all. We must also remember not to make the border too wide and heavy for the size and shape of the bowl. If we did, the heavy border would appear to change the good shape we had modelled. To look ordered, a border must be divided from the rest of the bowl by a band. We can put on the edge or margin of the design two heavy lines or two narrow lines, or, perhaps, three lines. Find out which is best for the pattern you have chosen. Now our patterns are complete on paper and exactly the size we want for the bowl. We will take a sharp modelling tool and draw the design on the bowl as neatly as we can. We must watch our pattern closely and keep our lines and spaces even. It will be fun to ees a bowl that you have made and decorated yourself from the very beginning. If you cannot make it look exactly as you would like the first time, because your fingers do not obey you when you tell them to draw in an orderly way, keep the thought of what you want to do in your mind and you will soon find that your hands are able and willing to carry out your thought. ELEMENTS OF DESIGN 275 APPLICATION OF LESSONS IN DESIGN Suggestions for the Intermediate Grades In the intermediate grades the seven lessons in Design are to be given in the same sequence as in the primary grades, but with a broader application and with more complicated problems. The knowledge gained in the primary classes of the five principles of Design should make it possible for pupils to invent richer and more intricate patterns in the intermediate grades. The children should have acquired the habit of keeping in mind the principles of order when making a design or finding material for one in nature or in works of art. The possibilities or limitations of the subject, as well as of the medium, should also be instinctively considered by them. When possible the drawings to be conventionalized for Design should be from nature—fruits, flowers, trees, birds, and animals of all kinds. The final drawing of a memory sequence, also, will serve as the basis for a Design. Both the period for memory drawing and that for nature study can be closely co-ordinated with the work in Design. The way this material is conventionalized will vary as the pupils them- selves vary in imagination and ingenuity. All holiday material, such as Christmas plants and Easter flowers, should be drawn from nature, directly and by memory, before being conventionalized for holiday cards, etc. In this way fresh designs will be brought to old subjects, and the mere repeating of a commonplace rendering will be avoided. Even conventionalized holiday symbols, such as eggs, chickens, and rabbits at Easter, will have new life when they have been drawn from nature or from memory and conventionalized without direct reference to the drawings. 276 THE ART OF SEEING The boys will invent designs for the objects they make in manual training; the girls will invent simple patterns for the clothes, towels, bags, etc., they may be making in their sewing classes. For both boys and girls a room in a house may be chosen for decoration—perhaps a bedroom—and a list of subjects named for the application of design: toilet set, brush and comb tray, bureau scarf, bedspread, cushions, rugs, lamp shades, bookcases, writing table, book ends desk pad, etc. In a problem of this sort much material can be found to interest the pupils. No suggestions for conventionalizing should be given by the teacher. All the comment should be reserved until the pupil has expressed his idea, and should then consist of suggestions as to how the idea might be more adequately expressed. It must be repeated that definite intention is necessary — for fruitful invention in design. When it is not possible directly to apply the design to the object, the thought of the object to be decorated must be held in the mind. A design unconnected with its application to a specific object or material is meaningless. In order to enrich the pupils’ thought, visits to museums, manufacturies, and special exhibits for the study of textiles, pottery, jewelry, etc., are essential. It is suggested that much of the practice work done for design should be with the brush, as this means gives greater freedom and rapidity. Type LESSON—INTERMEDIATE GRADES Linen Runner We are going to decorate a linen runner which can be used in a number of ways. It could be placed on a long narrow dining room table, ELEMENTS OF DESIGN Q277 used for a sideboard cover with the ends hanging down, or for a bureau. As its purpose is both useful and ornamental, we must decorate it so well that we will never tire of the design and will enjoy looking at it every day. Most of our dining room tables are not long and narrow. If we use the linen for an ordinary table we will put a border around the edge because every inch of it will show as it lies flat on the table. For the other purposes mentioned a design on either end where the runner hangs over would be effective. If the piece of linen was shorter and meant to lie flat on a bureau covered by many objects, the design would be differently planned. We first decide on our medium. Would we rather use stencil or apply a design in another material or color ? What- ever design we make will be greatly influenced by the kind of medium we use. We will make our design with stencil this time. Now let us consider whether we want a motive repeated once or twice at the ends of the runner. Or do we prefer a border—at least on one side of the linen where it will be in view ? In such a case if we choose a border, it can be wide, as it will be plainly seen. Next, we will decide whether we want the border to be made up of single motives or a pattern of sequence—some- thing that carries the eye along. As stencil is to be used, a repeating pattern would be suitable. We will now consider what principle of design would best serve our purpose, motives of Alternation or Progression or a motive of Central or Axial Balance—the border will carry the principle of Repetition in any case. Let us try a border of sequence choosing the combination 278 THE ART OF SEEING of square and triangle. We will add lines if we wish to enrich our pattern. Now, we are ready to draw, each according to his own idea, until we exhaust the possibilities for the time and begin to select from them the design we are to use for the runner. Let us have in mind—the width, the length, the changing of one line, the grouping of two or three motives—the increase or decrease in the relative size of one or more shapes; the choice of a heavy bordering line or of two single bordering lines. At the end of the lesson we have many patterns. Three designs are selected from which to make a final choice that will be by the vote of the class. ELEMENTS OF COLOR Color is an emotional experience. How far it goes toward the well-being of humanity on the physical side, or even what the relation of light is to human life, are problems not as yet solved. We take light as a necessity and color as its flavor, we enjoy our color as we do the taste of our food. The study of such a sensation offers many difficulties, for though we may know much of the physical cause of our feelings and our own personal reactions, our measures must be mental ones and involve personal choice. There is no special physical reason why one color should give us any greater emotion of pleasure than another of the same in- tensity, yet we have definite color preferences, both personal and racial. It is natural that quantity of light should attract, and every normal person sees it in varying degrees which can be physically measured. If we add color we are bringing with it an element of personal choice, which refuses to be stand- ardized. The causes of our sensation, however, may be analyzed and color used deliberately to arouse emotion, even though the reason for the reaction itself may be obscure. We all know that the sensation of light is caused by a small group of ether waves to which the nerves of the eye are sensitive. These waves, taken together, give the sensation of white light. Color is not an addition to white light, but a portion of it—a single light wave, or any fractional combina- tion of all the waves, that gives us the sensation of white. Black is the absence of light and is a negative term. We use the word cold in the same way, not as a positive thing, but to describe a lack of heat. 279 280 THE ART OF SEEING There are three simple color sensations which taken to- gether make white, but which are like the chemical elements and cannot be subdivided. They are the primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. The other colors we know are combinations of the primaries. A complementary color is only a remnant of the spectrum, the remainder of the white light after a special color has been taken from it. The two together must always make white. The complementary of red would be a combination of blue and yellow, or green, since that is the color they make when they are mixed together. There is a considerable difference in the loss of intensity between the combining of light and that resulting from the combination of pigment; for, while light would show but little diminution in the combination, pigment would lose intensity to a considerable degree. The three primary pigments mixed together will give a dull gray, which is a true white of low value. It has no color, because it contains all of the colors and is what we call a neutral. As a matter of convenience to the painter the various colors are classified into the warm and the cold hues; the warm being at the red end of the spectrum, and the cold at the violet. These are the few physical facts that it is neces- sary to know about color in order to handle pigment intelli- gently. They have nothing to do with any mental effect that color may have on us. In order to understand something of the psychological side of color, we must draw on general and, in most cases, subconscious experience. We speak of seeing a color, but we have practically no experience of a single color unassociated with others, one color filling our entire field of vision. A single color may hold our whole attention, but we see many others about it at the same time, and our light sensation is ELEMENTS OF COLOR 281 as complex as the sound that reaches our ears in a chord of music. If the notes in the chord change, our sensation changes with them, just as a color will change with altered surroundings. We may be sure that an apple on the table will retain its apparent form if joined by an orange, and subsequently by an onion, or even a carrot, but the color of the apple will depend on the company it keeps, and we will find that the quality of the red will change in its association with other colors. Color is a complex sensation, and this fact must be taken into account whenever we are in search of causes. We have also to allow for our personal ability to respond to the physical cause. So far as the light waves themselves -are concerned, they extend beyond the spectrum at both ends and might give us the sensation of light, if we were furnished with the means to receive them. What we get physically —and there is considerable individual variation at this point —rceords itself mentally, where it is again modified by all kinds of personal inabilities and inhibitions. We may have faith in our own eyes, but there is more doubt about the eyes of another. Fortunately this is not a matter of first importance, for we have other grounds of meeting in addition to those of absolute sensation. What- ever red may be in itself, its relation to blue is a fixed thing and felt alike by most people. The relation is more definite than the objective facts. It is on this point that we would begin the study of color. ‘ When we try to put any sort of color experience into words we meet at once with a difficulty. We may say the tree was very green, and bring to the mind of our listener the thought of vivid greenness based on his personal experience and having little or no relation to our own mental image. To characterize more closely, by name and comparison and 282 THE ART OF SEEING further appeal to experience, would only serve to complicate matters and in the end still leave our emotion undescribed. It cannot be done. Our brilliant tree might disappoint us entirely if robbed of its neighbors, or of the sky, or even of the old barn which it was trying to cover. How is it possible to put such an intricate situation into words or any other arbitrary symbols? Imitation, perhaps, would be our refuge, but even that simple resource is not as possible as it would seem. We do not imitate color, for it is color itself we are using, or misusing, as the case may be. The responsibility is wholly ours. The line between form and color must be sharply drawn. We represent or suggest form, but color is the cause of an emotion, whether its order is directed by us or is a part of our visible world. | The point at issue is our idea of order, and our object is not to convey a thought but to raise an emotion. Order is in itself a relation, so ordered color is color that follows as a result of some natural law which imposes the inevitable changes. The source of daylight is the sun, which gives us a white light, divided and reflected by the various material objects, © according to their nature. If we take another source of illumination, these same objects will respond and their color will change accordingly. The color of an object depends on the source of light. The painter’s term ‘‘unity of color” means color that is consistent with the source of illumination. The color of objects at noonday, for example, is very dif- ferent from what it will be at sunset. The reason is that in one case we have white light with all its possible subdivisions, and in the other only a portion of it to be divided among the objects in sight. Matter has power to absorb only a part of the light rays ELEMENTS OF COLOR ; 283 falling on it, leaving a remainder to be reflected. That remainder we see as the color of the object. As any division must depend on what is divided, we must refer to the source of illumination to judge our color sensation at any given time. At noonday the light is white, and it is possible to find all of the colors of the spectrum in the objects about us. The red light of sunset, however, is itself a fraction of light. Ifit were a pure red no other color in Nature would be possible, since red is indivisible. The objects in sight are the color they seem to be at the time. Their hue is a capacity to absorb and reject light, and not an inherent possession of color. . The division of color with reference to the source is _ termed ‘‘color unity,’’ which is the simple mathematical statement that the sum of all of the parts must make the whole. As each day varies a little in its quality of light, due to changing conditions of moisture and cloud, the prob- lem of unity is always a new one, and even two gray days, seemingly alike, will show distinctive color variations. Unity of color and harmony are of different orders. Harmony is a color association agreeable to our senses and has no necessary connection with a common origin of the colors in question. Under no circumstances could a sunset world be lacking in unity of color, though there might be doubt as to its harmony and acceptability. Harmony or dissonance may be used as the occasion demands, but if the object is to represent in accordance with the laws of color, the unity of light must be preserved. When we turn to the personal effect that color has on us, the first fact to consider must be the influence of surround- ings on hue. A square of red on a field of green will change its apparent hue if blue be substituted for the green. Evena change in color quantities will have its influence, and we are 284 THE ART OF SEEING- forced to the conclusion that the actual color sensation is determined by the relation of colors rather than by the facts themselves. Every color association gives its special sen- sation, just as do any two notes sounded together. The painter’s problem is to adjust the different colors in such a relation to each other as to give the total color sensa- tion he is in search of, and he does it in much the same manner as the piano-tuner who tries his notes until they are relatively right. The relation of the larger color divi- sions of his picture he calls the color values, and they are in effect what we all see as color when we look without a .centred interest. If we ask a child about the color of his picture he will say the trees were green, the sky blue, the rocks red, the water dark blue, and so give the main color facts. That would be quite enough in its way to characterize the different parts of the picture, but it would fail to tell anything of the condi- tions of any special sunny day. These conditions would be described by the relation of the four colors, which would be fixed by the source of light, as has been explained. The trees would be green under any ordinary circumstances, but green is only a word that roughly classifies, and is like say- ing the town is in the northwest corner of the State. The light of the day orders the trees to reflect light. They have none of their own, and can only send back part of what has been given them. So it is with the other colors in the pic- tures. They are bound together like members of a family owing allegiance to a common source. The impulse of a child to color his drawing in a few flat masses is a sound one. He does not see minor gradations, but gets a general color reaction unhampered by lesser things. This is from ignorance, but it has an important bearing on the facts, for if we of greater experience and ELEMENTS OF COLOR 285 sophistication were really to trust our eyes, without inter- ference from our large store of information, we would find that our color sensation comes from but a few color masses, much like those seen by a child. We kn o much to be- lieve what we see, and c t_ourselves in th seein only what we know. As a proof of the fact that color is generally seen in masses we may appeal to memory and try to describe the color of some place we have in mind. Unless our attention for some reason was fixed on a color spot, we will be able to recon- struct only in the most general terms. Even then it is likely that the image will be somewhat of a composite, proving in its turn our habit of generalization. If such is our habit of sight, it would be the logical means through which to appeal to our sight emotions, not because there is no more to be seen, but because that is our way of seeing. There is a charm to the association of a few colors. We feel it in children’s drawings and in Japanese prints. We do not like our color relations too mixed, any more than we would like so great a number of notes struck on the piano simultaneously that no relations could be distinguished. The effect would be the merging, of colors or of notes as the case may be, and the loss of their relative values. The painter sometimes takes advantage of this fact in making a single tone of several unmixed colors—a broken tone, as he calls it—but his object is to give the tone a slight instability to the eye and the feeling of vibration due to differences subconsciously noted. If the differences are so apparent as to attract the attention, the effect is lost. This is the reason why many a picture is unintelligible to the public, for there are passages in technic that are intended to be felt rather than seen, and they are not adapted to meet the rigors of a physical examination. 286 THE ART OF SEEING The technical methods of the painter are often mistaken for an objective statement when his intention may have been of another sort. The blue shadow has been received with much scepticism by the public at large, and even color such as the painter sometimes uses is accepted with much reserve. The fact of the case is, a shadow out-of-doors on a sunny day is always of a colder order of color than the light, no matter what color it may actually be—the painter’s use of blue is the statement of that important fact, rather than the record of a local color. The triumphant person who finds a blue shadow without the assistance of white light has discovered a color foundling. Under normal conditions there is always a difference in order between the light and the shadow; in moonlight the lights are cold and the shadows warm, as is also the case indoors. Special conditions may modify this statement, but it is the general way of light. In the days of the Barbizon school this fact was unknown or disregarded. The pictures of that time were based on harmony of color, which was more a matter of good taste than observation and limited the color sensation to a con- siderable degree. The drama lay in form and chiaroscuro, and the pictures were left without the full emotional values that color might have given them. At the present time when we follow Nature’s laws our range is much greater and we limit ourselves only to unity of light. There is an arbitrary use of color which neither represents form nor follows any laws except those of emotional excite- ment. This use is personal and depends only on the quality of the individual chiefly concerned. It is a legitimate stimu- lant, and the test that can be applied to it is that of the successful attainment of the object. We must recognize that color has the same emotional effect on us as rhythm or vibration of any sort, whether mechanical ELEMENTS OF COLOR 287 or in the form of sound. Such ‘sensation is quite aside from any thought or association of ideas and is as much a part of us as motion is of mass. There is an essential difference between the teaching of the use of color and the teaching of drawing. The color we use is the real material. We are building our play house of genuine bricks—the green we use for our tree in the picture is as truly color as that which the tree shows us: we construct with reflected light. Drawing, however, is a language; it is symbolic. Color is food for what is sometimes called the color sense; we study how to combine our elements and to measure the emotional effect. But we have one unknown factor to allow for in the Personal Equation. If we could measure the Personal Equation, Art would become a Science. The logical place at which to begin to develop the color sense is at the point of some general preference. It is not to be. expected that delicate color and subtle gradations will attract at first, even were they noticed. We turn our atten- tion first to bright color, strong contrast, or brilliant light, as do children and primitive peoples, and it is not to be assumed that this untrained liking stamps the impulse as an inferior one. It is, like the large vision of ignorance in the matter of color values, a basic thing in which the quality can only be found through knowledge. Brilliancy of color may be increased by the association of the complementaries. This fact leads immediately to the most important characteristic of color—its dependence on its surroundings. The point may be made easily, for it is demonstrated best when the colors are few and the children’s natural impulse is to be satisfied with few varia- tions. If it can be shown them that a change in one of their masses seems to affect the others, the way is open to the appreciation of color. 288 THE ART OF SEEING Where early work is concerned, whether it be by children or their elders, the number of colors in the picture should be © limited to a half dozen at most. This gives training in various directions. By reason of our habit of sight, it is possible to characterize whatever we see in a few colors. The color variations we find on close examination are lost in our general impression, and if unskilfully used would only destroy it. The effort required to reduce many small colors to an average tone is training in itself and opens the mind to fresh impressions. Technically, it will be found that a small sketch from nature, in which the color is reduced to a limited number of related tones, will gain a look of completion by drawing and modelling the edges of the different color planes. The forms are suggested sufficiently to be intelligible, and the color sensation is fully given. Above all, when dealing with a few colors it is possible to obtain a unity of effect, which is one of the conditions of sight. The mixing of color is a simple matter and requires little attention beyond a few general directions. It is better to put the full weight of the instruction on color as a sensation, rather than on its more mechanical aspect. INDEX Action figures, 21, 25, 27, 44 ff., 89, 93, TOS, 172, 173, 203, 207, 211, 214, 222 Adults, 15, 24, 27, 32, 186, 187 Age of reason, 32, 36, 52 Cause and effect, 17, 26, 33, 34, 37, 38, 40, 49, 150, 211 Color, 21, 26, 53, 154, 175, 204, 208, 215, 221, 223, 256, 257, 279 Color relations, 21, 28 Comparison, 58, 69, 98, 102 Composition, 21, 26, 174, 231, 233, 243 Continuity, 23, 42, 51 Design, 21, 27, 28, 47, 69, 174, 204, 208, 213, 215, 221, 223, 244, 247, 255, 258, 259 Dewey, John, 13 Direct drawing, 188 Direction, 6, 21, 25, 58, 69, 76,.77, 81, 83, 207 Dramatization, 42, 43, 44, 75, 81, 144, 204 Emotion, 21, 24, 26 Examples for: Action figures, 97, 99, 100, 102, 106 Every-day perspective, 109, 114, ELS, 110, 120, 122, 124; 125, 127, 128 Line stories, 58, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 250, 252, 253 Measure, 70, 71, 72, 74 Vertical and horizontal, 82, 83 Froebel, 205 Games, 42, 61, 62, 76, 205, 244 Horizontal and vertical, 21, 25, 27, 43, Semeeteel 72-203, 211 5'213, 2Y7,/222; 249, 260 289 Imaginative drawing, 21, 28, 106, 2009 Information drawing, 26, AG 13 2uL 7D, E7Owe12 Intermediate grades, 45, 85, 178, 107, 198, 199, 201, 217 Intermediate grade teachers, 161, 167, 275, 276 Kindergarten, 25, 28, 30, 45, 62, 85 Kindergarten teachers, 143, 203, 255 Leonardo da Vinci, 1, 19, 55, 87, 191, 229 Light and shade, 21, 26, 29, 45, 49, 153; WY Por ee Oe ee Line, y; 27, 60 Line stories, 6, 7, 21, 25, 26, 27, ete O27 OO ML Io egos noO7,. 210, 2035.07 7, 22 ier 24oP250, 252.0253 Means, 22, 25, 26, 28, 140, 165, 166, 174, 204, 205,212; 215 Measure, 6, 21, 25, 27, 43, 58, 59, 75, E72) 2071207; 230, 213,257,207 Memory, 26, 45, 47 Memory drawing, 21, 26 ff., 45 ff., 40, 132, 134, 141, 142, 143, 144, 176, 178, 188, 204, 208, 212, 214, 220 Modelling, 16, 26, 47; 49, 148, 149, I50, 177 Motion, 21, 25, 44, 61, 64, 89, 92, 93 Museums, 16, 29 Perspective, 26, 27, I10, 173, 214, 220 Practice, 10, 85 Primary grades, 30, 85, 146, 150, 195 Primary teachers, 210, 254 Proportion, 21, 26, 93, 98, 99 Purpose, 3 ff., 17, 32, 47 Reconstructed images, 146 Results's22, 30,45, 2023, 4207, 210; 213; 217, 221 290 , _ INDEX Sargent, Walter, 150 Type lessons, 34, 62, 75, 143, 146, I50, Schedule: 181, 255, 250, 257, 259, 274 Abnormal, 199, 201 Type months, 193 Normal, 195, 197, 198 Type weeks, 195, 197, 198 Stories: Type years, 197, 201 Action figures, 99, 100, 102, 106 Ado Dataad cE Every-day perspective, 115, Line stories, 6, 7, 25 ff., 62, 64 ff. Value, 157 . Measure, 70 ff. Vertical and horizontal, 21, 25, 27, 43, Vertical and horizontal, 83 ff. 76, 81, 172, 203, 211, 254,;2my ees Supervisors, 22, 51 249, 260 ‘ te eA : : N A ’ be - Fe r x eu y a } \ : NG 1 \ -, e , Co é beets . ‘ it ‘ 1 of \ 2 * , ; ‘ “nde wd 7 / f iy aed ae ad a it wae? : Ro haa te - P ve eA