Creative and Mental Growth 3ed.

By Viktor Lowenfeld

This book is written for art teachers- teachers who teach art, teachers and kindergarten teachers, and all who want not only to appreciate the creative production of children merely from an aesthetic viewpoint but would like to look behind the doors to see the sources from which their creative activity springs. It is written for those who want to understand the mental and emotional development of children. The idealistic concept of the child as an innate artist who has simply to get material and nothing else in order to create has done as much harm to art education as the neglect of the child's creative impulse. Books that are written from an idealistic view discourage teachers who are unable to produce the same easy and "beautiful" responses described by the writers of such books. Much of the literature in art education deals with results achieved under ideal conditions rather than with the outcomes which may be reasonably expected in the average classroom.

Macmillan. 1957. 572p.