Page 133 - Constructing Craft

Dr Paul Dengler

Dr Paul Dengler, also an Austrian, expanded on Cižek’s ideas at the conference

explaining that they were founded on three basic principles. First was the
importance of children working in a pleasant environment thereby encouraging

creative self-expression. The second principle was to allow children to have
freedom of choice without instruction in technique and to discourage direct

assistance by teachers even when requested by children ‒ sometimes called the

expressive theory. Finally Dengler emphasised Cižek’s belief that children
expressed emotion in their work and that in the pre-adolescence years this was

untainted by intellect. He further explained that the aim was not to train children for
a future career in the arts or crafts, but to enable ‘the unconscious ego of the child

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to express itself joyfully through art, free from the domination of adult ideas.’

Arthur Lismer

Arthur Lismer, a British-born painter came from Canada to speak at the conference.

He was also an avid supporter of education through art. He began his series of talks

in New Zealand with a speech entitled ‘Art in a Changing World’, in which the place
of art in society was elevated to almost celestial levels. In a second speech called

‘Art and Creative Education’ he attempted to democratise art by suggesting that
through art ‘the common man – the ordinary, work-a-day person … [might gain a

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level of] self-knowledge and self-respect …’. But it was necessary first to
understand that adults had something to learn from children in the field of art and
through this understanding adults could help children on their path to a more fruitful

and fulfilling future. His third speech, ‘Education Through Art’, extended the idea of
art as a democratic process and made a plea for art to be integrated into the

classroom programme.

The debate about whether art and craft were subjects in their own right or

instruments to encourage creativity across the curriculum became the dividing issue

Constructing Craft