Although the book is sixty years old, Viktor Lowenfeld described the childhood stages of perception, via drawing and painting, and included a section on the blind and deaf. Lowenfeld was very perceptive and astute in using art to measure the mental progress of young ‘uns.
“I Am Eating Candy” is the title of a clay sculpture by an 11 year old blind and deaf girl who attended the Perkins Institution for the Blind in the late 1940s. It’s from a book entitled “Creative and Mental Growth – A Textbook on Art Education,” by Viktor Lowenfeld, Pennsylvania State College, published by The Macmillan Company, New York, 1950. Here’s the full plate:
I’m tempted to scan the entire book into .pdf format… it’s that awesome.
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Tags: 1950's, art, Art Instruction, blind, deaf, Retro, sculpture, Viktor Lowenfeld
Sunday, 26 September 2010 at 3:29 PM
Fantastic find
Sunday, 26 September 2010 at 4:38 PM
nursem– My mom was an elementary school art teacher. Those images came from her textbook. The descriptions of stages of perception, via childhood artwork is very interesting, from circular scribbles indicating movement to drawing heads without bodies, to heads with arms and feet, etc. In drawings and paintings, the most important features are often grossly exaggerated in size, huge hands for example. Cool stuff.