Chapter 37 : Drawing

When, nine months ago, I entered upon the teaching of drawing, I had as yet no definite plan, either for laying out the course of instruction or for guiding the pupils. I had neither designs nor models, save for a few albums of illustrations, which, however, I did not make use of at the time of my most advanced lessons, confining myself to simple auxiliary means, such as can always be found in every country school. A painted wooden board, chalk, slates, and rectangular boards of various sizes, and sticks, which we had used in the visual teaching of mathematics these were all the material we had for our instruction, and yet we were not hindered from copying everything that came under our hands.

Not one of the pupils had ever before had any lessons in drawing; they brought to me only their faculty of judgment, which they were given perfect liberty to express when and as they pleased, and which I wanted as a guide to teach me their requirements so that I might afterwards lay down a definite scheme of work.

The first thing I did was to make a square out of four sticks and experimented to discover if the boys, without any preliminary teaching, would be able to copy that square. A few of the boys only drew some very irregular squares, indicating by straight lines the square sticks which made the square. I was perfectly satisfied with this. For the less able ones I drew a square with chalk on the board. Then we constructed a cross in the same way, and copied that.

An unconscious innate feeling impelled the children to find as a general thing a sufficiently accurate correlation of the lines, although they drew the lines badly enough. And I did not consider it necessary to insist on the accuracy of the straight lines in each figure, for I did not wish to torment them unnecessarily, and all I wanted was to have the figure copied. I preferred at first to give the children a comprehension of the relations of the lines according to their size and their direction, rather than to labor over their ability to draw these lines as regularly as possible.

The child will understand the relation between length and shortness of lines, the difference between a right angle and parallels, before he will learn by himself to draw a straight line tolerably well.

Little by little in the succeeding lessons we succeeded in copying the angles of these quadrangular sticks, and then we made the most varied figures with them.

The pupils entirely neglected the thickness of the sticks, the third dimension, and we drew all the time only the front side of the objects set before us.

The difficulty of clearly presenting the position and coordination of figures, owing to our deficiency of materials, compelled me sometimes to draw the figures on the board. I often combined a sketch from nature with a sketch from models, taking any object whatever: if the boys could not copy the given object, I would sketch it myself on the board.

The drawing of figures from the board proceeded as follows: I drew at first a horizontal or perpendicular line; I divided it by points into a certain number of parts; the pupils copied this line. Then I drew another or several perpendicular or slanting lines to the first, and divided into equal parts. Then we united the points of division of these lines with straight or curved lines, and thus composed a kind of symmetrical figure, which, according as it developed, the boys copied. It seemed to me that this was advantageous, in the first place, in this relation: that the boy, by looking on, learns the whole process of drawing figures, and, in the second place, on the other hand there is developed in him a far better comprehension of the relations of lines through this sketching on the board than through copying of sketches and originals. By this system the possibility of out and out copying is entirely obviated, the figure itself, like an object from Nature, must be drawn on a smaller scale.

It is almost always useless to hang up a large picture or figure already perfectly drawn, because the beginner will really be at his wits' ends before it, just as before an object from Nature. But the development of a figure before his eyes has great significance. The pupil in this case sees the -bones of the sketch, the skeleton on which afterwards the body itself will be constructed.

The pupils were constantly called on to criticize the bones which I drew, and their relations. I often drew them incorrectly on purpose, so as to find out how far their judgment was formed concerning the relations and correctness of the lines. Then I would ask the boys, when I had drawn a figure, where, in their opinion, another line should be added, and I even made one or another of them think out a way of constructing a figure.

By this means I awakened in the boys not only a more lively but also a free cooperation in the construction and development of the figures; and this annihilated in the children the question "Why?" which the child always naturally asks himself when he is set to copying an original.

The course and method of instruction have been chiefly determined by the ease or difficulty of comprehension, the greater or less amount of interest manifested, and I have often thrown away something entirely prepared for the lesson, simply because it was wearisome or unfamiliar to the boys.

Hitherto I have given symmetrical figures to copy because their formation is the easiest and most obvious. Then by way of experiment I asked the best pupils to invent and design figures on the board. Although almost all drew in one given style, nevertheless it was interesting to observe their awakening rivalry, their criticism of others, and the originality of the figures they constructed. Many of these sketches were in perfect correspondence with the pupils' characters.

Each child has a tendency toward independence, which it would be injurious to destroy in any kind of instruction, and which is particularly manifested in the dissatisfaction at drawing from models. In the methods here described this independence is not only not vitiated, but is developed and strengthened.

If the pupil is not taught in school to create, then he will go on through life imitating and copying, since few of those that have been taught to copy would be able to make independent application of these acquirements.

By constantly holding to natural forms in our designing, and by frequently taking various objects, as, for example, leaves of a characteristic form, flowers, household ware, and objects used in common life, and instruments, I tried to prevent our drawing from degenerating into routine and mannerism.

With the greatest caution I entered into an explanation of shading, and chiaroscuro, because the beginner, by means of shading lines, easily destroys the clearness and regularity of the figure, and becomes accustomed to disorderly and vague daubing.

By this method I succeeded within a few months in initiating more than thirty pupils into a fair fundamental knowledge of the coordination of lines in various figures and objects, and into the art of reproducing these figures by even and accurate lines. The mechanical art of linear drawing gradually developed of itself. More difficult than anything else was it for me to teach the pupils neatness in keeping their sketch-books and their designs. The facility of rubbing out what they had drawn on slates made my task in this respect very difficult. Giving sketch-books to the better and more talented pupils, I attained greater neatness in the sketch itself; for the great difficulty of rubbing out compels them to great neatness in regard to what they are designing. In a short time the best pupils attained to a very accurate and tidy use of the pencil, so that they could draw neatly and accurately, not only rectilinear figures, but also the most fantastic ones composed of curved lines.

I set some of the pupils to correcting the figures of the others when they had finished their own, and this exercise in teaching notably stimulated the pupils, for in this way they could immediately apply what they had learned.

Of late, I have occupied the older ones in drawing objects in the most varied positions in perspective, without holding exclusively to the well-known method of Dupuis.