HANDWORK and HANDICRAFTS - Research …

1 HANDWORK and HANDICRAFTSFrom IndIcatIons by rudolF steIner PREFACEOut of print reference books are often difficult to locate. Through the foresight and support of the Waldorf Curriculum Fund, this title has been resurrected and is now available gratis in an electronic version on , one of the websites of the Research Institute for Waldorf Education. We hope you will find this resource valuable. Please contact us if you have other books that you would like to see posted. David MitchellResearch Institute for Waldorf EducationBoulder, COAugust 008 HANDWORK AND HANDICRAFTSbyHEDWIG HAUCK from indications by Rudolf SteinerTranslated by Graham Rickett The electronic publication was funded by the Waldorf Curriculum FundElectronic Copy Research Institute for Waldorf Education, 008 Editor: David MitchellScanning and Copyediting: Ann ErwinIssued by the Steiner Schools Fellowship, 9 8 and translated from the original German (published Stuttgart, 9 7)by permission of the Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

2 Distributed by the Steiner Press, Park Road, London, NW Originally Printed in England by Copycraft, Tunbridge Wells, Kent7 CONTENTSINTRODUCTION .. 9 CHAPTERSI Indications Concerning Color and Painting .. II Education in General; Technology and the Crafts .. III HANDWORK in the Kindergarten and First School Years .. IV Phases of Child Development in the Early School Years .. V The Line in Painting and HANDWORK .. 8VI HANDWORK for Children Classes 8 .. 0 VII After the Lower School .. VIII Rudolf Steiner, the Teacher of Artists.. IV Bookbinding and Folders .. Title Drawings: Ornamental Designs End-VignettesX Indications on Dress and Its Decoration .. XI Color in Clothing and Interior Decoration .. 8 XII The History of the Art of Clothing.

3 FashionPast and FutureAPPENDIX I: The Pedagogical Value of Making Animals in Soft HANDWORK .. 78 APPENDIX II: From Conferences at the Waldorf School, StuttgartPart - Kindergarten, Play, Left-handedness, and Handwriting .. 8 Part - HANDWORK , Crafts, Bookbinding .. 8 Part - Painting and Drawing; Art and Aesthetics; Wall Decoration and Displays .. 9 ILLUSTRATIONSP lates , , have not been included. 89 INTRODUCTIONOur age is a technological one, and grows ever more so as the years go by. Machines now perform the work that was until recently done by the human being himself; he is obliged to serve the machine, although, in many cases, he is quite ignorant of its construction and of the force by which it is driven. He can take little or no interest in an occupation of this kind, and weakness and emptiness in his soul-life are the inevitable enters into all departments of life, and attempts are made on all sides to extend its influence.

4 It even invades the world of art, and introduces mechanism where there was once a living intercourse between the soul of the human being and the work created by his hands. This inner connection between the human being and his work is undermined. Factories now produce things that once went out into the world as a result of the feeling and striving of a human personality. Consequently the objects we use and have around us take on an increasingly inhuman appearance. This is especially noticeable in the sphere of modern crafts, which, borrowing their forms from the new functional style in architecture, give much that they produce an air of emptiness and existence of the crafts is also threatened on a purely economic level by the universal invasion of technology.

5 The case might be mentioned of the head of the Crafts Department of the Stuttgart Museum of Home Industries, who found himself obliged to publish a lengthy newspaper article defending the rights of his own department in the face of demands made by the technical departments for more space to be allotted to them at the expense of the crafts. He said in the article: To fulfill these demands would mean total collapse, not merely the transfer of two rooms from the Crafts Department to the Technical Department. Once the process of decay sets in, complete collapse is inevitable. A good museum of HANDICRAFTS must endeavor to collect the best possible samples, and all ages and all peoples should be represented. This means that it should not confine itself to the products of the land to which it belongs.

6 Once this Museum becomes merely a record of our national industries, or even a kind of business concern, and no longer fulfills its function as a source of constant and valuable stimulus, it cannot claim to be a museum of really high standards. No more is needed to illustrate the position in which the crafts find themselves today. The artistic sense of mankind is in danger of being lost through the forces of economics and technology. Appreciation of the importance in the life of the nation as a whole of a piece of HANDWORK artistically made will disappear altogether if no attempt is made to arrest this process. It is important, therefore, not only to enliven the artistic sense in those who receive the finished work of art, but to awaken the faculty of artistic activity itself, and to rekindle it wherever it is in danger of complete means whereby the creative faculties of the human being can be awakened have been revealed to us by Rudolf Steiner in his anthroposophy.

7 The aim of this book is 0to reproduce some of the indications about HANDWORK given by Steiner in his lectures on education, and to show how they were applied while he was directing the Waldorf School in Stuttgart towards the end of his showed the teachers how HANDWORK provides the balancing element which the more intellectual activities require if the development of the child is to be a harmonious one. Classes in HANDWORK , as well as in crafts, are compulsory for both girls and boys. Children are guided in the Waldorf schools so that they are able to develop not only an open mind for the things of practical life but also a deep understanding for art as a whole, quite apart from those abilities that are founded more upon the intellect. Creative powers are awakened which can find fruitful application in the most varied fields in later life.

8 Steiner considered it desirable that HANDWORK in the Waldorf schools should lead over into the crafts, and on his visits to the classrooms and in lectures and meetings, he gave examples showing how this can be achieved. Much of this has already been made available. Our primary aim here is to reproduce what has not yet been published. But we have also endeavored to make a kind of compendium of statements that are scattered throughout a large number of his books and spoken remarks made by Steiner at the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which have lived on in the memory of a number of teachers, and which we now wish to make accessible to a wider public, have been quoted as faithfully as possible in spite of the fact that some things may strike the reader as obvious or as too elementary to deserve inclusion in the book.

9 But it was a feature of all Steiner s indications that, through the loving attention with which he took them into consideration, even the apparently most insignificant things proved later to be living seeds from which quite new points of view could be grown, and which supplied the basis for an extension or even a complete revision of our methods. CHAPTER IIndIcatIons concernIng color and PaIntIng One of the most important elements in HANDWORK is color. Let us therefore quote something of what Steiner had to say about the introduction and handling of color in the art lesson. In an educational lecture given in Oxford he said: You will observe that the aim is to build up the HANDWORK and needlework lessons in connection with what is learned in the painting lessons.

10 In the painting lessons the children are not taught to draw (with a brush) or make patterns (sticken), but learn to deal freely and spontaneously with the element of color itself. Thus it is immensely important that the children should have come to a right experience of color .. they must not paint from a palette or block, but from a jar or mug with liquid color in it, color dissolved in water. Then the child will come to feel how one color goes with another, he will feel the inner harmony of colors, he will experience them inwardly. Steiner has shown in another lecture what a lively experience it can be for children if colors are introduced to them in this way: The main point is that the children should develop a feeling for the building up of color values and have an experience of the life of the color world in fairy tales.