Page 132 - Constructing Craft
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Dr Franz Cižek
The NEF promoted schooling which was ‘liberal, holistic and democratic, and
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[which] valued self-expression, dialogue and creativity’. The conference placed
considerable emphasis on the role of art and craft as a central part of classroom
programmes – particularly in the primary school. The ideas of the Austrian Dr Franz
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Cižek, who did not attend the conference in person, were thought most important.
Cižek's notions on the creative potential of young children, and the belief that the
mind of the child was qualitatively different from that of the adult, resulted in an
approach to art education that moved away from more rigid forms of training, such
as drawing still life towards free expression with a variety of materials.
Dr Franz Cižek's working with his children in 1936. Photo:
Wilhelm Viola.
The children learning in Cižek's schools were not training to be ‘artists … in the
ordinary sense. For him there was an underlying unity in art and craft, and he was
well satisfied to think of the powers that had been awakened in his children being
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exercised in later life in home and workshop.’ Cižek's ideas were widely accepted
by 1931 in the Northern Hemisphere, but were only recognised in the Southern
Hemisphere after 1937 as a result of the NEF conference.
Constructing Craft
