Published each month of the school year, October through June. To order SCHOOL LIFE send your check, money order, or a dollar bill (no stamps) with your subscription request to the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D. C. SCHOOL LIFE service comes to you at a school-year subscription price of $1.00. Yearly fee to countries in which the frank of the U. S. Government is not recognized is $1.50. A discount of 25 percent is allowed on orders for 100 copies or more sent to one address within the United States. Printing of SCHOOL LIFE has been approved by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget.

OSCAR R. EWING..... Federal Security Administrator
EARL JAMES MCGRATH... Commissioner of Education
RALPH C. M. FLYNT......... Executive Assistant to the Commissioner
GEORGE KERRY SMITH... Chief, Information and Publications Service
JOHN H. LLOYD............ Assistant Chief, Information and Publications
Service

Address all SCHOOL LIFE inquiries to the Chief, Information and
Publications Service, Office of Education, Federal Security Agency,
Washington 25, D. C.

THE Office of Education was estab lished in 1867 "for the purpose of collecting such statistics and facts as shall show the condition and progress of education in the several States and Territories, and of dif fusing such information respecting the organization and management of schools and school systems and methods of teaching, as shall aid the people of the United States in the establishment and maintenance of efficient school systems, and otherwise promote the cause of education throughout the

country."

T

HE ART EXHIBITION from the Vienna museums closed at the National Gallery on January 22. Its stay of 2 months presented unusual problems to members of the museum's educational staff. The attendance was 875,173; a large number of our visitors welcomed educational guidance. Thus the 6 lecturing members of the staff were called upon to conduct 46 general tours of the exhibition and 47 special topic tours. There were also 112 talks before individual works of art and 9 Sunday lectures. Besides these we were asked to conduct 52 special tours for clubs, school, and college groups. Finally there were visits from foreign educators brought by the American Council of Education and visitors sent by the Department of State and by members of Congress. We joined with the members of the curatorial staff in helping conduct these latter through the collections.

At the outset, we were asked if it would not be possible to arrange special tours for the school children of Washington. Obviously, with such enormous crowds and so many scheduled appointments for adults, this department was unable to conduct tours for all the city schools. A partial solution of the problem was arrived at between the members of the National Gallery staff and

Volume 32, Number 7

the superintendent of schools, Hobart M. Corning.

During the holiday week between Christmas and New Year's Day three briefing lectures were given in the Gallery auditorium especially for Washington school teachers. In these lectures 50 color slides were used. With them we explained in great detail 30 of the exhibition's leading works. After each lecture the teachers were conducted on tours. Each teacher had a specially designed syllabus sheet mimeographed by the Department of Public Schools. This listed the 30 objets d'art with an indication of their placement in the exhibition. Most of the teachers bought the exhibition catalogue with an excellent historical introduction prepared by the Austrian curators, Dr. Ernst H. Buschbeck and Dr. Erich V. Strohmer. Later many of the teachers brought their classes to the Gallery and conducted their own tours.

Mr. Arne W. Randall of the U. S. Office of Education has asked for a brief indication of the approach to the 30 significant objects, i. e., the introductory pages of the hour's lecture, for the information of SCHOOL LIFE readers.

In speaking with children about pictures, the approach naturally differs with dif

ferent ages. The third and fourth grades will be more interested in the lively details: cats, dogs, monkeys, and people, than in the composition, color scheme, or historical associations of the picture. Thus in guiding the young art students through such an exhibition as ours, it seems wise to lead them first to paintings with many bright details. A teacher may easily stimulate them to discover objects within the paintings, to discuss these objects, and eventually discover why the artist needed them to create a unified whole. The children will do most of the talking, and the skillful teacher may lead the conversation toward the artist's meaning and his means of expression. Such an interest in details. is the beginning of a scientific observational approach to art, knowledge acquired, as

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Naturally this approach does not suffice for mature minds. However, even adults enjoy something closely related to it-an examination of the picture's historical values. For several weeks our docents have found that many visitors are particularly interested in a canvas by the Dutch artist Teniers. This consists in greater part of tiny copies of many of the paintings bought by the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm during his governorship of the Spanish Netherlands between 1646-56. Eight of the canvases shown in this painting are in the present exhibition. Many people enjoy rediscovering them on the walls. The historical faculty of mankind is kin to this instinct for recognition. Children from the fourth grade on are easily able to recognize in the costumes of this painting its date; the time was that of our Pilgrims and the founding of Manhattan by the Dutch. Such observations lead naturally to a discussion of the dates of the objects in the exhibition and the historical events they signified. The armor for the Emperor

Maximilian comes from close to 1492 and the picture of the Dominican saint by Francesco Guardi or the portrait of the composer Gluck by Josephe-Sifrede Duplessis were done around 1776. Here then, are the three dates on American history most likely to have meaning to many school children.

The entire exhibition could be studied as an intimate documentation of the collector's taste of the Hapsburg family from 1150 to 1850. Graduate students in art from the colleges might like this approach. To help a group of educators associated with the State Department visualize this time span, the Educational Department has drawn up a genealogical chart of the collection showing the different parts of Europe from which the Imperial house drew its artists. This has been mimeographed by the Washington school department and distributed for use in high schools.

An historical discussion might lead quite naturally in the higher grade levels to what can be called the "social science" approach to art. A picture by the Dutch artist Jan Steen, illustrated here, has been considered by some of our local critics a little dangerous for children. Actually, this painting was intended to teach a moral lesson entertainingly the only way such a lesson is ever liable to be very effective. The story shown is probably that of the prodigal son.

The Lute Player.

Artist: Bernardo Strozzi (1581-1644).

A small wooden tablet in the lower right of the picture contains a motto which explains its meaning, "When you lead the high life be prudent." In a more direct and sober fashion the canvas by Francesco Guardi showing a Dominican saint rescuing drowning pilgrims after the collapse of a bridge was meant to teach a religious lesson.

Each of the foregoing pictures could be studied as a means for helping the student identify himself and his ideas with some time in history or some philosophy of life. Through them the teacher could use art as a pedagogic medium for the carriage of ideas which might lead the student outside himself into the broad stream of human culture.

But art's essential purpose seems more than this. This purpose is a type of spiritual refreshment without definite religious or social goals. We observe that people usually visit art exhibitions for other than

The National Gallery of Art has prepared a strip of film in black and white showing 300 paintings representative of the Gallery's collection. This film is of particular value to both schools and community because it can be cut and made into 300 2- by 2-inch slides for projection. The cost of the strip is $6. Although this filmstrip is not available for preview purposes, the quality of each strip is guaranteed. Requests should be addressed to the Curator in Charge of Education.

Color reproductions are also available for purchase. Post cards are 5 cents each, and the 11- by 14-inch size is 25 cents; if purchased in quantities, special rates will be given. For further information write to the Publications Fund of the National Gallery of Art, Washington 25, D. C.

purely pedagogic reasons. The "Lute Player," by a Genoese Capuchin monk named Bernardo Strozzi cannot easily be used for any of the three above purposes. However, it greatly enriches our perception of human life. This thoughtful musician tuning his lute is rendered in terms of pleasing color and in an intricate pattern. of light and shade. He epitomizes art's unique purpose among mankind's activities. From its costume it is hard to date this picture historically, although we feel that it has something to do with the joys of the Renaissance while still retaining something of the medieval spirit of the troubadors. Here is a joy in artistic performance and in the development of music which will charm other beings.

Studying this painting, it is easy to concentrate on the formal or purely aesthetic values. The central axis of the lute cuts the canvas diagonally in one direction, the body of the player in the other, so that the two are designed upon a cross. The head, in the light at the left, and the book with the music in bright light against the deep darks on the lower right, form interesting contrasts. At either extreme of the lute, the superbly drawn hands have delicate and skilled fingers. These suggest that the player as well as the painter was a virtuoso. Both draw out of their instruments, lute and brush, effects which delight both ear and eye.

As one describes these subtle and pleasing effects one realizes that it is difficult to explain this aesthetic meaning through words alone. Yet students in all age levels are prepared to enjoy it. Indeed as one watches the creative drawing and painting of the children in the lowest grade levels, one finds this ability to compose and play with lines and shapes and color almost completely free of subject matter and history. Only the people we call artists in our culture have been able to preserve and use this childlike, joyful ability to manipulate inaterials into designs. The rest of us adults have been fitted into all the more material and functional purposes of society. With such paintings the unique value of the artist to society becomes clear. His raison d'etre in the Divine scheme of things is to create these very moments of social joy through which all of us can relax and recover some measure of that lost childhood ability to capture life in simple, direct, and playful terms without too much pondering on the heavy problems of the universe.

W

HY IS THE ATTENDANCE at art museums increasing? Why do we desire to know more about art? Why do the leading newspapers and magazines provide information on art as one of their regular services and why do towns hold art exhibits in library corridors, gymnasiums, or other public buildings?

As America attains its maturity, our art wealth will increase, but we are confident this art will not remain in the vaults as did the objets d'art of the past. Our leading museums and institutions are exerting every effort to bring before the public the art of the past, and to show the contemporary art through the expanding services of traveling exhibits, exchange showings, evening and Saturday classes, various forms of visual aids, and articles in newspapers and maga

zines.1 Radio and television have been employed very successfully to increase our understanding. A high point will be attained when color television will regularly duplicate the type of experimental program which was so successfully broadcast recently from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. It incorporated all of the arts, dance, music, fine and applied arts, to perfection.

It is evident that Americans are becoming increasingly cognizant of art as a necessity rather than a frill. The integral part that art plays in modern business has become a fact. There is virtually no merchandisable article, big or little, that does not begin

1 For example, in the June 1950, issue of National Geographic, will appear a complete section in full color on the Austrian Show.

with an artist's sketch and whose sale is not dependent upon some art.

New vocations in art are appearing while established professions are increasing the number of artists employed. More than ever, business feels the need for creative work of a type that can be produced only through the arts. Improved and new methods of reproduction are providing avenues of volume propaganda that a few years ago were considered impossible.

Art in America has suffered the extremes of public acceptance and rejection. We have passed ignobly through painful stages of the different art eras to our present desire to know and understand art. We have progressed to a point where, as educators, we consider it one of the essentials in our curriculum.