Sunday, February 21, 2010
Unsur Formalistik Dan Ikonografi
Dalam menghayati sesebuah karya seni dua elemen iaitu "formalistik" dan "ikonografi" ataupun konsep yang lebih mudah disebut yakni "bentuk" dan "isi" yang juga kebiasaannya dikenali sebagai "aturan dan makna"(Mulyadi Mahmood,1993). Kedua-duanya saling bersatu bagi membentuk sesebuah karya seni dan ianya saling menyokong.Contohnya pada seni catan, ciri-ciri formalistik aturan merangkumi elemen-elemen warna,ton, bentuk, rupa, perspektif, ruang, satah, garisan, rentak,pergerakan,jalinan, isipadu,komposisi,sapuan berus, cahaya bayang dan sebagainya.Keupayaan menganalisa atau mengenali ciri-ciri formalistik ini akan mendekatkan kita pada persoalan ikonografi atau makna sesebuah karya.Persoalan-persoalan biasanya berkisar pada bidang kesusasteraan, sosiologi,teologi,politik,psikologi, estetika, sejarah,kepercayaan dan seumpamanya(sekadar mengkelas beberapa bidang ilmu).Ciri-ciri formalistik sedapat mungkin membuka ruang kefahaman di tahap ikonografi atau makna dalam sesebuah karya. Pemahaman terhadap aspek-aspek formalistik ini amat perlu dalam usaha kita mengenal, memahami dan menghasilkan karya seni
Friday, February 19, 2010
Pencarian dalam nilai-nilai seni
Aku masih di sini mencari nilai-nilai yang seharusnya menjadi pegangan dalam rentetan kehidupanku. Aku mulai pasrah setelah beberapa minggu aku menghambakan diriku dalam arus kehidupanku di sini...Aku..begitulah aku untuk kali sekian kalinya mengorak langkah meniti tali perjanjian dek kerana cita dan rasa...meskipun orang berkata ikut rasa binasa....tapi aku mempunyai falsafah..hidup hanya sekali muda juga sekali anugerah kehidupan harus diraih sebanyak mungkin meskipun aku sering tertewas dalam perhitungan kehidupan ini..meninggalkan siisteri yang setia dan puteri-puteriku yang masih dahagakan belaian kasih sayang seorang bapa...tapi kini mereka terpaksa aku tinggalkan dek kerana cita dan rasa untuk meraih anugerah kehidupan yang mungkin hanya mereka yang terpilih mwskipun pada dasarnya pengorbanan dan perjuangan aku sendiri serta rezeki anugerahNya yang mengirimkan aku di sini.
TUGASAN 1
International Journal of Education & the Arts
Editors
Liora Bresler
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Margaret Macintyre Latta
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A.
http://www.ijea.org/ ISSN 1529-8094
Volume 10 Number 1 January 11, 2009
Another Look at Holistic Art Education:
Exploring the Legacy of Henry Schaefer-Simmern
Sally Armstrong Gradle
Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, USA
Citation: Gradle, S. A. (2009). Another look at holistic art education: Exploring the
legacy of Henry Schaefer-Simmern. International Journal of Education & the Arts,
10(1). Retrieved [date] from http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/.
Abstract
In his forward to Curriculum in Abundance (2006), curriculum theorist William
Pinar suggests that education should offer opportunities for self-formation which
include the cultivation of our capacity to surrender, begin again, and dwell in
possibility. This paper examines the theory and art education practices of a
forgotten and often undervalued art educator, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, whose
methodology seems congruent with some of the goals of holistic education today.
Substantial insights were gleaned through interviews with one of his former
students, Professor Emeritus of Art Education, Roy Abrahamson. Dr.
Abrahamson’s collection of published and unpublished papers on Schaefer-
Simmern, his art work done under Schaefer-Simmern’s direction, and his collection
of student work extended my understanding of an alternative, yet viable, holistic
approach to teaching and learning. Another look at this kind of art instruction is
valuable as a part of a contemporary holistic practice.
IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 2
Introduction
Sixty years ago, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, an émigré artist, teacher, and scholar fled Nazi
Germany and settled in New York. His art work became known through exhibits at Harvard,
Columbia Teachers College, and the Museum of Modern Art. Through his connection with
the Carnegie Association and Thomas Munro in Cleveland (Berta, 1994), Schaefer-Simmern
began refining what would become his life’s legacy: theories that explored visual conceiving
and the stages of artistic formation. Though he verified through extensive research that his
theories and methodologies worked with diverse populations, even today his research and
teaching are not widely known or understood in art education. Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas
have enormous implications for holistic approaches to teaching art that 1) address the role of
artistic behaviors in shaping the whole person, 2) show how the development of artistic
thinking is closely linked to the ownership of the individual’s creative process, and 3)
encourage problem finding and problem solving skills through art that could have applications
outside the domain.
For these reasons, I have elected to revisit Schaefer-Simmern’s legacy so that an unexamined
omission in our past will not obliterate a useful viewpoint on teaching and learning (Hamblen,
1993). I begin with an explanatory section about the methods I undertook to better understand
his work. Next I briefly contextualize the unique climate of art education in the mid-century
‘Lowenfeld’ era in order to clarify the historical frame of reference. Building on this
connection to the time period, I explore the theory of visual conceiving that Schaefer-
Simmern developed. I do so in order to ground his teaching practice as evidence of a still
meritorious, holistic approach to teaching art. My concluding thoughts connect his ideas to
contemporary holistic art education in a manner that reintroduces an eclipsed approach in
current practice.
The Research Methodology of the Study
This investigation of Henry Schaefer-Simmern’s (1896-1978) teaching methods began
conversationally with Professor Emeritus of Art Education, Roy Abrahamson, who was one of
Shaefer-Simmern’s students over fifty years ago. Throughout his career as an art educator and
artist, Professor Abrahamson has championed and clarified Schaefer-Simmern’s theories and
holistic approach through his writing (Abrahamson, 1980a, 1980b) and lectures (Abrahamson,
1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1995). In fact, after Abrahamson (2006) enthusiastically lectured
about Schaefer-Simmern to my students, I was intrigued about the application of his mentor’s
ideas. It became clear that Abrahamson had an important contribution to make as one of the
few remaining students of Schaefer-Simmern. I also consulted Dr. Raymond Berta’s (1994)
thorough dissertation of Schaefer-Simmern in order to put Abrahamson’s personal views into
a larger historical perspective. Berta’s exhaustive work includes correspondence and
interviews with outstanding scholars in the field, including Diana Korsenik, Wayne Andersen,
Gradle: Another Look 3
Stanley Madeja, Seymour Sarason, and Rudolf Arnheim, among many others. I found the
edification from these individuals convincing and compelling: the invisibility of Schaefer-
Simmern’s legacy, as Berta phrases it, warrants another look as we consider holistic art
education practices.
In two interviews with Abrahamson (2007, 2008) and several additional communications, I
sought to learn how he applied Schaefer-Simmern’s methodology in his thirty years of
instructing children and pre-service art teachers and what value this approach might hold for
contemporary art education practice within the current climes of holistic teaching and
learning. How did Schaefer-Simmern’s process of teaching art change lives? What did this
professor do, say, and bring to life in students through his kind of art instruction?
When Peter Smith (1982) examined the Germanic roots of art education in the United States,
he acknowledged that Schaefer-Simmern had remarkable success with his art students and he
considered why this was so. He wondered if it was Schaefer-Simmern’s application of art
theorist Gustaf Britsch’s ideas that yielded such remarkable artistic growth with widely varied
populations. Or were these successes simply characteristic of a “supportive, warm and
magnetic person?” (p. 25). Smith contends that we may never fully know if Schaefer-
Simmern applied Britsch’s theories since they have remained largely untranslated.
Regardless, it seemed possible to look through the window of Abrahamson’s experiences with
Schaefer-Simmern to consider what made this approach to art instruction work and, in so
doing, better understand the underlying theory and the man himself.
With Abrahamson’s consent, I explored his published and unpublished writings on Schaefer-
Simmern and those theorists who preceded his mentor (1980a, 1980b, 1986, 1987, 1989,
1990, and 1995). I also examined his collection of adult and child art, his catalogued
compilation of his own work, and two recent retrospective exhibits (2007, 2008). These
works, along with our conversations, reveal a story of teaching and learning that illustrate an
interesting alternative to much of the art education that is practiced today. As Abrahamson
clarified in conversation with me, Schaefer-Simmern’s teaching approach can best be
delineated by someone who has observed his process of teaching, taken notes, and maintained
regular correspondence with his mentor. Abrahamson did just that, and he has worked for
several decades to make Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas more accessible and understandable. This
included the arduous compilation and eventual publication of a posthumous volume,
Consciousness of Artistic Form by Schaefer-Simmern (2003), which was a joint effort by
Gertrude Schaefer-Simmern, Abrahamson, and artist Sylvia Fein
The Context for Schaefer-Simmern’s Work
Germany’s Third Reich forced the exodus of many artists and intellectuals from Europe in the
nineteen thirties; and America became the fortunate recipient of several new and fruitful
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directions in art and education in art. Viktor Lowenfeld, who immigrated to the United States
in the same year (1937) as Schaefer-Simmern, captivated educators with his belief that self
expression was essential for the healthy psychological growth of the child. Edwin Ziegfeld,
through his Owatonna Project in Minnesota, demonstrated the necessity of art as a daily,
useful function in life. Rudolf Arnheim explored the cognitive aspects of artistic processes
and the formalist components that comprise a gestalt structure in artworks. Henry Schaefer-
Simmern, already well known in European circles for his educational theories and as an artist,
arrived in a country that was open to new research on artistic process. His first encounter with
Thomas Munro at the Cleveland Museum of Art ushered Schaefer-Simmern into research in
the arts with a Carnegie Grant (Berta, 1994). Later, the Russell Sage Foundation financed his
experiments which were intended to demonstrate, via case studies, the creative potential
inherent in diverse populations (lay people, professionals, orphans, delinquents, and mentally
disabled individuals at Southbury Training School) all of whom were non-artists. The research
culminated in a book, The Unfolding of Artistic Activity (1948), and included accolades from
John Dewey. In the foreword—which is the only foreword Dewey wrote for an art education
book (Berta, 1994)—he credits Schaefer-Simmern for recognizing “the wholeness of artistic
activity” (1948, p. x); that is, not the unique attribute of a few, but the human inheritance of
all. Schaefer-Simmern’s research was received positively by other scholars in the arts: Victor
D’Amico, Viktor Lowenfeld, Rudolf Arnheim, and Sir Herbert Read (Abrahamson, 1980b).
Art educator Kenneth Beittel (1973) wrote that Schaefer-Simmern’s research, as did
Lowenfeld’s work, both made important contributions to research in art education.
Nevertheless, as Schaefer-Simmern candidly acknowledged in the 1961 Addendum to his
book, his point of view would not be shared by those educators who advocated art as “creative
self-expression;” nor those who gravitated toward a view of art as a cognitive discipline that
employed only rational, mental operations. Art education literature of the past fifty years bears
witness to Schaefer-Simmern’s observation that his approach to art education ran counter to
the prevailing theories of instruction in his time. While his theories have not been readily
embraced in art education over the last half century, I will argue that another look at his
method of teaching contributes much to a holistic learning process in art, and that this in turn
strengthens all education-for-life endeavors.
The Theory: Schaefer-Simmern’s Visual Conceiving
Schaefer-Simmern’s theory of visual conceiving was at least partially based on the ideas of
Gustaf Britsch and through him, art philosopher Conrad Fiedler’s thoughts on artistic
formation. In Schaefer-Simmern’s distillation of these views, he postulated that visual
thinking must occur in addition to intellectual inquiry if the artmaker is going to form an
artistic vision that results in a visual work. Schaefer-Simmern hypothesized that visual
conceiving encompassed the following ideas, although this is not to suggest linearity in a lock
step stage-age progression, but a more natural unfolding of development that occurs only as
Gradle: Another Look 5
an integration of visual structures also occurs. He believed that this was universally the case in
all humankind.
First, Schaefer-Simmern believed that the majority of people (regardless of age, mental
capacity, gender, location, or socio-economic factors) have the innate ability to visually
express their perceptions of experiences. Given the tools and materials, expression has found
artistic form in the work of all humankind throughout history, whether one calls it art, or
something else (Dissanayake, 2000). One need look no further than the remarkable account of
Schaefer-Simmern’s (1948) case study of Selma, the mentally challenged young woman in the
Southbury art room who persisted until she solved a problem in design, was applauded by her
peers for her resolution, and went on to create a visually unified work. This joy, which she
found in having purposeful, self-developed problems to resolve, was a sharp contrast to the
passivity of the same young woman and her peers in the occupational therapy room where the
projects and materials were prescriptive. In his discussion of this instance, Berta (1994)
reveals:
Most appalling, they were given no fundamental choice about participating in the
activity itself because fabricating pot-holders typified the mindless occupational
labor deemed appropriate for mentally retarded people incapable of doing
anything else. From radically different humanistic perspectives and
epistemological considerations, when these same people drew in HSS’s [Henry
Schaefer-Simmern’s] studio, their drawing facilitated problem solving at levels
appropriate to their own developmental stages. Significantly, when HSS
challenged Selma and others to solve their artist problems, he also affirmed their
personalities and their cognition. (p. 179)
In my discussions with Abrahamson, his recollections supported similar observations of
students who were clearly changed due to the ownership of their artistic process and the
agency that Schaefer-Simmern encouraged. Abrahamson observed a change in the appearance
and behavior of one of Schaefer-Simmern’s students in San Francisco who was encouraged to
revise her work as a result of Schaefer-Simmern’s thoughtful questioning. Abrahamson recalls
that Schaefer-Simmern was never surprised at the transformations that occurred in individuals
as they mastered their own challenges in visually conceiving and portraying forms. He often
succinctly remarked that ‘Form forms.’ It mattered little to Schaefer-Simmern whether the
artists were students, professionals, young children, or those challenged with any kind of
disability—he anticipated an outcome in keeping with the learner’s artistic development and
persistence in solving a problem of choice. The medium of expression was likewise
inconsequential to his thoughts on artistic formation. This leads to the second and third closely
intertwined hypotheses in his theory.
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As the artistic forms develop with further experience, reflection, and artmaking, the visual
ideas become clarified and transformed into whole structures (also called gestalts). Space,
shape, color, and line become more clearly delineated. Important in the gestalt development
are the relationships between figure ground, how each separate part relates to the whole, and
how meaning is established based on the formal relationships. Even though Schaefer-
Simmern’s theory of visual conceiving acknowledges that factors such as physical ability,
social and cultural environments, and immediate experiences contribute to artistic formation,
it is the formalist viewpoint of the consciousness of the form that enables all of the physical,
social, and cultural components to merge as a unified visual outcome.
Schaefer-Simmern’s theory, therefore, was anti-mimetic; in other words, he would not
advocate the practice of copying models or imitating natural scenes to develop artistic growth.
The artistic form could not emerge mindlessly from eye to hand; it had to be a process of
“drawing out from eye through mind to hand” (Berta, p. 116). Visual conceiving was not only
in opposition to imitation, then, but also unsupportive of any sort of improvisational pedagogy
that that ignored the deep connection with thoughtful inquiry. Schaefer-Simmern, again
according to Berta, believed that such a practice would not generate gestalt formations.
Schaefer-Simmern’s engagement with art was both formal and pragmatic. Art served a useful
function to humanize existence, provide practical creative opportunities that qualitatively
affected lives. In the conclusion of his book, Schaefer-Simmern (1948) noted the pragmatic,
yet visionary purpose he saw:
Art education that recognizes artistic activity as a general attribute of human
nature and that aims at the unfolding and developing of man’s latent creative
abilities will then contribute its share to the great task which faces all of us, the
resurrection of a humanized world. (p. 201)
And yet, he also clarified, as did Arnheim, that to bring an art work into being involved
artistic cognition that came from solving problems, organizing structures into wholes,
establishing a figure ground relationship, and therein creating unity. As Abrahamson recalls
Schaefer-Simmern discussing his theory, “The Professor always said, ‘Don’t take my word
for it. Don’t believe me unless I can prove it to you.’” And this was demonstrated, through the
implementation of his theory in the students’ own experience with their art.
Third, as visual conceptions become unified, the process of visually organizing the work
results in the simultaneous transformation of the artist who gives the form visibility (i.e.,
Selma and others). The consciousness of artistic forms that Schaefer-Simmern investigated
was apparent to him in children, the mentally disabled, laypeople, and any artist who was
willing to openly consider how their art work could become a clearer expression of their
visual conception. Schaefer-Simmern, along with his lifelong friend, Rudolf Arnheim
Gradle: Another Look 7
(Arnheim, 1997), expressed the belief that these conceptions unfolded or progressed with
greater complexity as an orderly, unified perceptual process. This foreshadows what I believe
to be the crowning achievement that is apparent in his methodology: the wholeness in the
image is mirrored as a transformational sense of wholeness in the artist.
Learning about the Past: The Teaching Methodology of Schaefer-Simmern
My conversations with Professor Abrahamson had the winding flow of a river whose current
carried us back to a time in his life when he was—like many aspiring art students returning
from World War II—soaking up new ideas and grappling with how to develop teaching
competence and personal artistic expression. The year was 1948. Abrahamson was a tall,
serious student of art education at the University of Minnesota (Figure 1) where he studied
forms, perspective, shading, and proportion in the Bauhaus-inspired foundation courses. He
also studied the most contemporary art education work of the time, Viktor Lowenfeld’s
Creative and Mental Growth (1947). Abrahamson remembers this text was the ‘bible’ on how
to teach art back then, and therefore, any alternative ideas which challenged Lowenfeld’s
(1947, 1939) views of the psychological necessity of creative self expression were of great
interest to students. It was during a summer session at the university when Abrahamson
learned that a visiting professor, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, had been invited to present his
theory on visual conception.
Figure 1. Abrahamson, back row on left, with the summer classmates that took Schaefer-Simmern’s course
at the University of Minnesota. Schaefer-Simmern is the tall man in the front row in a suit and bow tie.
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As Abrahamson explained it (1980b), this idea went beyond Arnheim’s (1969; 1954) later
ideas on visual thinking or Gardner’s (1993) conception of an artistic mental process as a
component of intelligence. Impressed with Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas, Abrahamson decided to
study with him at his newly opened Institute of Art Education in Berkeley, California
immediately following his graduation. There, he observed Schaefer-Simmern as he taught a
variety of layman classes for adults and children; he took theory courses with Schaefer-
Simmern in the evenings; and attended sketching and paintings excursions in the Bay area as
part of the studio course work under his direction.
While Schaefer-Simmern did not lecture or write about his methodology of teaching, he
modeled for future teachers, artists, and students how they could begin asking questions in
order to resolve their problems with images. In the following three sections, I will explore
Schaefer-Simmern’s essential teaching methodology through Abrahamson’s observations,
through Abrahamson’s artmaking experiences, and through his application of these methods
in his teaching career. These small methodological edifications will then culminate in the
important considerations of an art education of visual conceiving for contemporary practice.
Indirect Teaching as Socratic Questioning
Educator Brent Davis (2004) defines Socratic Method as the questioning technique in which
the instructor draws forth knowledge from the student. The premise underlying this method
suggests that some knowledge is innate; it resides within the learner; and can be called forth
as a readily available resource by the astute inquirer. In Abrahamson’s (1980b) account of
Schaefer-Simmern’s teaching, he observed that his mentor would guide the student-artist
through a series of questions designed “to challenge, lead, suggest, inform, and encourage
discovery and self-evaluation” (p. 42). While some direct comments were made about the
work of students, Abrahamson recalls that these were rare in his observation. More typically,
Schaefer-Simmern would pose questions after a student had worked for awhile. For example,
one student would put her work on an easel in the front of the room, take a seat beside it, and
Schaefer-Simmern would begin asking questions such as: What parts of your work do you like
the best? What part bothers you? What could you make better? Abrahamson, in all his
observations and interactions with Schaefer-Simmern, noted that his mentor would never
define what he meant by the term ‘better.’ It was up to the student to determine that and to
undertake revisions or begin another version. This initiation into the process of self-discovery
opened and empowered the student to recognize the generative rules of their own work were
“closely related to an existential, experimental reciprocity between the poles of making and
knowing,” as art educator and scholar, Kenneth Beittel (1985, p.92) also observed.
Schaefer-Simmern was not after interpretive meaning ‘behind’ the work. Berta (1994)
recounted an instance in which a young woman wanted to talk about the meaning that was
Gradle: Another Look 9
‘behind’ her image. Schaefer-Simmern picked up the canvas, looked on the back, and declared
that he saw nothing ‘behind’ it. Students were not encouraged to add a psychological
interpretation when they discussed their work, but to work with the images as a gestalt
formation that would resolve a formal problem. As the student gained awareness of his or her
vision for the work, Schaefer-Simmern would offer encouragement to try out another version,
to refine what did not work from the student’s point of view, and to ‘stick with the image’ that
needed further development. According to Abrahamson, Schaefer-Simmern did not dictate
subject matter. Rather, he directed students to examine what they might see in their daily lives
that had meaning to them. “The Professor never told them what to do,” Abrahamson
explained. “One would be working with clay, another with tempera or drawing materials—all
different subjects, too.”
In summing up the general progression of Schaefer-Simmern’s teaching, Abrahamson
clarified that Schaefer-Simmern meant to lead students toward unifying their visual gestalt
formations—and this was a far cry from an immediate, one-shot attempt at ‘self expression.’
His indirect questioning was meant to challenge and lead; direct comments and suggestions
were kept to a minimum, as were technical ‘how to’ demonstrations. The whole class was
never forced to work with the one medium simultaneously. Comments were not generally
invited from the group, according to Abrahamson, but were a dialogue between Schaefer-
Simmern and the student. The goal was the greater independence of the artist in evaluating
their own work, and not a class critique of the student’s work. Any comparisons to historical
works were done after the student had achieved some degree of completion with an idea, so
that insight could enrich, but not dictate these works. Finally, portfolios were greatly
encouraged by Schaefer-Simmern. He wanted students to date their work on the back, and
briefly describe what they were trying to accomplish, whether it worked (in their own
evaluation), and what they would do next as a progression or solution.
In Teaching by Heart (2003), Sara Day Hatton compiled a list of characteristics of sound
teaching practice which appear to share some of the energy, caring, and respect for the process
that are also evident in Schaefer-Simmern’s work with students, exemplified in Abrahamson’s
telling and in Schaefer-Simmern’s (1948) case studies as well. Among the core teaching
practices that seem most essential to the teachers she interviewed and to Henry Schaefer-
Simmern: encouraging learner choice and revision, active inquiry, connection with one’s
surroundings/work, reflection, and new ideas which “spiral gracefully out of the old” (pp.140-
141).
Abrahamson’s Artwork under Schaefer-Simmern’s Direction
Schaefer-Simmern taught his adult art education students like Abrahamson by using the same
process that included indirect questioning, revisions, and portfolio notes on the student’s own
progress. Abrahamson recalls feeling “a shift” in his thinking about his art as the sort of
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“academic stuff” that he produced in his foundation courses at the University of Minnesota.
He began to experience that there was something much more personal occurring which was
dictated by the work itself. Under Schaefer-Simmern’s direction, Abrahamson observed that
anatomical accuracy and perspective were “falling by the wayside,” as he became more aware
of how each part of his painting related and contributed organically to the whole work. For the
first time in his artmaking, Abrahamson no longer sought to adhere to rules of perspective, for
the connection of one part to the whole work demanded that relationships supersede rules of
form.
While Schaefer-Simmern would encourage divergent
thinking as the student explored new media and
alternative versions to the problem, he also championed
convergent thinking (Abrahamson, 1980, p. 14), which
Abrahamson described as the ability to understand
one’s own artwork as a whole, and also perceive its
relation to the larger body of art. I asked if Schaefer-
Simmern ever showed historical works to him, when
this would occur in the process, and what they were.
Abrahamson replied that Schaefer-Simmern only
showed historical works after his (Abrahamson’s)
visual ideas were formed; and at one point, he recalled
that Schaefer-Simmern noted some similarities of his
art to Romanesque works because of the direct, bold
lines, the strong emotional content, and the revelation
of daily life experiences (Figure 2). This was surprising
to Abrahamson, who in his fine arts training had never
felt a particular resonance with Romanesque art.
Figure 2. Father and Son free a Bird,
tempera painting by Abrahamson, 1949.
The benefits of Schaefer-Simmern’s approach in this manner appear to encourage greater
integration of the whole both in the work and in the work’s relational quality to another, larger
venue of art, which seems to suggest a visual correlative to the way that we recognize holistic
integration in the human being as well (Simmons, 2006). Abrahamson commented that
Schaefer-Simmern would frequently say to students, “As you form the work, the work forms
you.”
Gradle: Another Look 11
Figure 3. One of Abrahamson’s earlier depictions of a scene
from a sketching trip in Marin County, tempera, 1950.
For example, Abrahamson recalled painting a series of scenes with the ocean or waterfalls, the
surrounding hills in Marin County, and birds (Figure 3) during the frequent sketching trips
that Schaefer-Simmern organized for his students. Applying the same teaching approach to
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his reflections on his work, Abrahamson painted more than ten versions of this sort of scene,
wrote his reflections about each, and discussed with Schaefer-Simmern what worked well in
each version. Each time he considered what could be better, and then refined the image to his
own satisfaction until all of the parts related and addressed the creation of a new whole. He
described a feeling of elation when he completed the final, integrative piece in one sitting: “It
took one try,” he marveled. “After all the other attempts to develop this same idea, this took
one try!” He speculated that this resolved image (Figure 4) would not have occurred without
the time spent developing several renditions which required him to think deeply about the
nature of the parts that contributed to an organic whole, what qualities integrated the work,
and what should be omitted.
Figure 4. “Ocean Waves,” tempera by Abrahamson, 1950.
Through Schaefer-Simmern’s guidance, he slowly began to observe that his artmaking was
changing. Whereas before Abrahamson felt that his work was largely derived from academic
training, by an educated mind that weighed the merits of perspective, proportion, or emphasis,
now his decisions were made with insight, with reflection, and far more slowly. His artistic
perception, or visual conception, appeared to have a connection to intuition, or insight. An
acceptance of one’s intuitive awareness, according to Abrahamson, “can lead one to a view
Gradle: Another Look 13
outside one’s self, where the main thing is to observe oneself as objectively as possible and
then to change. To be completely honest….[T]he inter-relationships point to a much deeper
understanding…and help bring organization into their wholeness” (personal communication,
2007). This observation of the potential for transformation in this teaching methodology is
telling, for it remains the most important concern of holistic art education today: “To elevate
behavior to the degree that the whole and integrated person appears as they address their work
and their life work” (London, 2006, p. 8). Davis and Sumara (2006), who describe learning as
something that triggers, rather than causes a transformation in the learner, note that the
changes are both behavioral and physical, as Abrahamson clarified and Schaefer-Simmern’s
own case studies support. Transformative learning, as explained by educators Askew and
Carnell (1998), means that one participates in the entire experience of learning, without
emphasis on factual information and objective knowledge as a privileged component in
curriculum. This is a paradigm shift in education to consider the learner as agent, the context
in which they learn as contributory knowledge, and the active processes that make this
possible essential to transformation. Schaefer-Simmern’s approach most certainly fits within
these definitive thoughts on transformation, and would appear to encourage a deep reflective
learning process meant to transform the learner, as Abrahamson has noted throughout his
many discussions.
Applying Schaefer-Simmern’s Methodology with Students in the Art Room
As an application of Schaefer-Simmern’s approach to teaching art, Abrahamson shared the
successive renditions of a 5th grade student, Helen Edelheit, whose bird-in-the-landscape
drawings were executed several times before the final work was complete. While he pointed
out that not all students are capable or interested in going through extensive revisions, Helen
worked diligently: adding parts,
erasing background material,
until the fourth image had a
unified look that pleased her.
This is an example, according to
Abrahamson, of the revisions in
ideas that Schaefer-Simmern
would have encouraged in order
to produce a more complete
visual rendition that was
satisfactory to the student
(Figures 5, 6, & 7).
Figure 5. 1st Drawing by Edelheit.
IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 14
Figure 6. 2nd Drawing by Edelheit.
Figure 7. 3rd Drawing by Edelheit.
Gradle: Another Look 15
Abrahamson showed further examples of an art education student’s self-imposed challenge to
draw a cat. Her notations on the back of each drawing indicated her thinking. In her final note
on the back of the sixth drawing, she wrote: “I have noticed my awareness of the environment
has increased since I began this approach to drawing trees, sky, and the lightness and darkness
of objects… I find myself trying to ’visualize‘ objects more—I have to ’see‘ specific details of
time.” It seems this student was on her way to recognizing, as David Jardine (2006) so aptly
says it, “that the adventure of inquiry is a matter of rejoicing in the abundance and intricacy of
the world, entering into its living questions” (p. 101).
Art educator Howard McConeghey (2003) writes that this kind of approach is a valuable way
of ordering the self, and that “the process of artistic formation is where healing takes place”
(2003, p. 31). In Art and Soul, McConeghey explains that the relationship between the parts of
a work take place as an aesthetic, intuitive perception that is not consciously known to the
artist. It is not a simple process of creating and therein completing the work, but something
which emerges though dialogue and the re-visitation of ideas. McConeghey acknowledges
that this approach does not always seem practical to implement in the limited time allocated
for school art instruction. However, in a view that he shares with Schaefer-Simmern (1948)
and Arnheim (1997), re-visitation of the artistic form leads to a deep understanding of an idea,
rather than superficial engagement with media or tools. Such exploration awakens a spiritual,
aesthetic perception that Schaefer-Simmern saw as arising out of a visual conception, one that
is only partially informed by cognition. According to Schaefer-Simmern, “This activity is
independent of conceptual intellectual calculation” (p. 8), or in Dewey’s words in the
foreword to the same text, there is “an undivided union of factors…called the physical,
emotional, intellectual and practical” (1948, p. ix).
In Arnheim’s (1997) reflections on the past century of growth in art and human experience, he
credits Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas as being foundational for his own theories. Even more
compelling, he continues on the next page with two major set backs he sees in current
instruction. First, rendering only what one sees, whether a natural scene or a social one, is still
confused as being the purpose of art. A second misperception is the popularization of the idea
that all of us, particularly the young, have short attention spans, “inducing teachers to prefer
short lessons and confuse children with a bombardment of different techniques and
assignments.” The phenomena of fragmented attention is not only relegated to the schools, but
is pervasive and widespread in society, so much so that Arnheim considers the social fabric
torn and “a decline in artistic quality” (p. 14) predicated by these faulty theoretical
assumptions.
IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 16
Conclusion: Shaping of Awareness as Holistic Art Education
In each of our discussions, Abrahamson was quick to clarify that the remarkable
transformations which occurred to Schaefer-Simmern’s students as they worked through their
visual conceptions were never the result of “free exploration of materials and tools in which
students were encouraged to ‘be creative’ without direction” (personal communication, 2007).
In Schaefer-Simmern’s methodology, there seems to be a greater good than the simple
pleasure of non-reflective making and doing. The greater good that I speak of, and outlined in
the first section of this paper, is the kind of learning outcome that affects the whole person. In
holistic art education, this means providing learners with support, respect, and encouragement
for deep engagement in their process of working. As Karen Lee Carroll (2006) suggests when
she considers the fit of art education and holistic practice, we can only clarify the purpose of
art education as we also consider the necessity to accommodate great diversity of practices
and content that includes the whole learner. If, as I believe, Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas
contribute to this diversity of practices in teaching that could lead to wholeness, what are
these practices and how do we best apply them?
To ground these questions and relate theory to practice, I turned to feminist writers
(MacDermi, Jurich,, & Myers-Walls, 1992) who have explored wholeness by challenging
themselves to answer: “What is an effective education?” These authors have carefully
considered that learners must make a transition from learning to know to learning to live.
Without this transition, education is not effective. Schaefer-Simmern’s questioning technique
(What part of your work do you like? What can you make better? What do you need to do in
order to make it better?) respects, invites, and empowers learners. They must find their own
way back to the image, and then revise, begin again, and reflect on their growth. This is a first
step in the ownership of a process that continually transforms toward wholeness.
Abrahamson’s student who wrote after several reflections on her work that she had greater
“awareness of the environment…and the lightness and darkness of objects” and that she often
found herself wanting to see “the details of time” and visualize objects more completely, was
taking ownership of her artistic process. When learners are encouraged to act through
questions that require a personal solution, their artistic behaviors are far more likely to shape
the whole person. We saw evidence of this in Berta’s (1994) re-visitation of Selma’s solution
to her drawing problem in Schaefer-Simmern’s case study. Abrahamson also recounted his
personal observations of how artistic formation frequently shaped the behavior, personality,
and even dress of individuals in Schaefer-Simmern’s classes. There have been many art
educators who have supported student growth through problem solving and advocated a
thoughtful way of working that starts with a complete respect for what is occurring (e.g.,
Carroll, 2006; McConeghey, 2003; McKenna, 2006; Rollins, 2005). These individuals have
seen that artistic formation shapes personal formation. If we consider holistic teaching
practices are of great benefit, then the second question generates itself: how can we make
Gradle: Another Look 17
better use of this kind of art instruction? What stands in the way of pursuing a theory and
practice of a holistic type of educational endeavor as explored by Schaefer-Simmern and his
students such as Abrahamson?
The answer for many, I am guessing, would be an echo of Arnheim’s pronouncement quoted
earlier. We often believe that learners, school administrators, and our colleagues will not
support in-depth artistic problem solving that takes months to complete, rather than minutes.
We believe no one will understand the connection between slowing down, reflecting each step
of the way, and returning to the same work with artistic responses that will mature our vision.
We sometimes do not even believe that there is a greater purpose to art making, one that
Schaefer-Simmern believed humanized existence; one that Dewey recognized as “the
wholeness of artistic activity” that was intrinsically related to being “fully alive” (1948, p. x).
To persevere in such doubt requires the keen mind of the reflexive observer-teacher, or the
artist who intuits, as Abrahamson noted earlier, one who is able to explore how the parts interrelate
in a work of art, or in human relationships. The evidence of how to proceed is all
around us. It is in the inquiry that engages the student in order to discover a deeper cohesion
in their own art. It is in the mind of the teacher who leads the student to the form that is
calling for expression. It is in the action that surfaces as surely as the questions arise seeking
more answers. Schaefer-Simmern’s legacy is one of willing participation, documentation, and
continual research—this much is verified. To continually conceive of art education as a visual
form, a gestalt that arises from our own intuitive teaching is the omission from this discussion
that must be addressed by each holistic art educator everywhere.
This is a kind of educative process that champions what we have forgotten that we own as
educators in art: the opportunity to develop unity in a relational world through artistic inquiry.
Written succinctly by poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore (1922):
The joy of unity within ourselves, seeking expression, becomes creative….What
is the truth of this world? It is not in the masses of substance, not in the number
of things, but in their relatedness, which neither can be counted, nor measured,
nor abstracted. It is not in the materials which are many, but in the expression
which is one. (p.5)
IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 18
References
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for tomorrow’s art education. The Second Penn State Conference on the History of Art
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IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 20
Schaefer-Simmern, H. (1948/1961). The unfolding of artistic activity. London: Cambridge
University Press.
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Author Notes:
I wish to thank Dr. Roy Abrahamson for his permission to use his photographs in this
document, for the opportunity to peruse his written works thoroughly, and most of all, for his
kindness and enthusiasm regarding the topic of Henry Schaefer-Simmern.
Ideas must begin somewhere. My knowledge of Henry Schaefer-Simmern’s theories took root
in my Masters Degree program at the University of New Mexico many years ago. My mentor,
Dr. Howard McConeghey, should be recognized here for his major contribution to my
thinking.
Although I do not know Dr. Raymond Berta, his dissertation on Henry Schaefer-Simmern
deserves praise as the most thoroughly researched and organized source on the life, theories,
and historical information about Henry Schaefer-Simmern.
Author Biography:
Sally Armstrong Gradle is the Program Coordinator and an assistant professor of art education
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where she teaches pre-service art education
students. Her research interests include contemplative practice in education, holistic teaching
and learning, performance and ritual studies in art education and reflective teacher practice.
International Journal of Education & the Arts
Editors
Liora Bresler
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Margaret Macintyre Latta
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A.
Managing Editor
Alex Ruthmann
University of Massachusetts Lowell, U.S.A.
Associate Editors
Jolyn Blank
University of South Florida, U.S.A
David G. Hebert
Sibelius Academy, Finland
Editorial Board
Peter F. Abbs University of Sussex, U.K.
Eunice Boardman University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Norman Denzin University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Kieran Egan Simon Fraser University, Canada
Elliot Eisner Stanford University, U.S.A.
Magne Espeland Stord/Haugesund University College, Norway
Rita Irwin University of British Columbia, Canada
Gary McPherson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Julian Sefton-Green University of South Australia, Australia
Robert E. Stake University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Susan Stinson University of North Carolina—Greensboro, U.S.A.
Graeme Sullivan Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A.
Christine Thompson Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.
Elizabeth (Beau) Valence Indiana University, Bloomington, U.S.A.
Peter Webster Northwestern University, U.S.A.
Editors
Liora Bresler
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Margaret Macintyre Latta
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A.
http://www.ijea.org/ ISSN 1529-8094
Volume 10 Number 1 January 11, 2009
Another Look at Holistic Art Education:
Exploring the Legacy of Henry Schaefer-Simmern
Sally Armstrong Gradle
Southern Illinois University - Carbondale, USA
Citation: Gradle, S. A. (2009). Another look at holistic art education: Exploring the
legacy of Henry Schaefer-Simmern. International Journal of Education & the Arts,
10(1). Retrieved [date] from http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/.
Abstract
In his forward to Curriculum in Abundance (2006), curriculum theorist William
Pinar suggests that education should offer opportunities for self-formation which
include the cultivation of our capacity to surrender, begin again, and dwell in
possibility. This paper examines the theory and art education practices of a
forgotten and often undervalued art educator, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, whose
methodology seems congruent with some of the goals of holistic education today.
Substantial insights were gleaned through interviews with one of his former
students, Professor Emeritus of Art Education, Roy Abrahamson. Dr.
Abrahamson’s collection of published and unpublished papers on Schaefer-
Simmern, his art work done under Schaefer-Simmern’s direction, and his collection
of student work extended my understanding of an alternative, yet viable, holistic
approach to teaching and learning. Another look at this kind of art instruction is
valuable as a part of a contemporary holistic practice.
IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 2
Introduction
Sixty years ago, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, an émigré artist, teacher, and scholar fled Nazi
Germany and settled in New York. His art work became known through exhibits at Harvard,
Columbia Teachers College, and the Museum of Modern Art. Through his connection with
the Carnegie Association and Thomas Munro in Cleveland (Berta, 1994), Schaefer-Simmern
began refining what would become his life’s legacy: theories that explored visual conceiving
and the stages of artistic formation. Though he verified through extensive research that his
theories and methodologies worked with diverse populations, even today his research and
teaching are not widely known or understood in art education. Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas
have enormous implications for holistic approaches to teaching art that 1) address the role of
artistic behaviors in shaping the whole person, 2) show how the development of artistic
thinking is closely linked to the ownership of the individual’s creative process, and 3)
encourage problem finding and problem solving skills through art that could have applications
outside the domain.
For these reasons, I have elected to revisit Schaefer-Simmern’s legacy so that an unexamined
omission in our past will not obliterate a useful viewpoint on teaching and learning (Hamblen,
1993). I begin with an explanatory section about the methods I undertook to better understand
his work. Next I briefly contextualize the unique climate of art education in the mid-century
‘Lowenfeld’ era in order to clarify the historical frame of reference. Building on this
connection to the time period, I explore the theory of visual conceiving that Schaefer-
Simmern developed. I do so in order to ground his teaching practice as evidence of a still
meritorious, holistic approach to teaching art. My concluding thoughts connect his ideas to
contemporary holistic art education in a manner that reintroduces an eclipsed approach in
current practice.
The Research Methodology of the Study
This investigation of Henry Schaefer-Simmern’s (1896-1978) teaching methods began
conversationally with Professor Emeritus of Art Education, Roy Abrahamson, who was one of
Shaefer-Simmern’s students over fifty years ago. Throughout his career as an art educator and
artist, Professor Abrahamson has championed and clarified Schaefer-Simmern’s theories and
holistic approach through his writing (Abrahamson, 1980a, 1980b) and lectures (Abrahamson,
1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1995). In fact, after Abrahamson (2006) enthusiastically lectured
about Schaefer-Simmern to my students, I was intrigued about the application of his mentor’s
ideas. It became clear that Abrahamson had an important contribution to make as one of the
few remaining students of Schaefer-Simmern. I also consulted Dr. Raymond Berta’s (1994)
thorough dissertation of Schaefer-Simmern in order to put Abrahamson’s personal views into
a larger historical perspective. Berta’s exhaustive work includes correspondence and
interviews with outstanding scholars in the field, including Diana Korsenik, Wayne Andersen,
Gradle: Another Look 3
Stanley Madeja, Seymour Sarason, and Rudolf Arnheim, among many others. I found the
edification from these individuals convincing and compelling: the invisibility of Schaefer-
Simmern’s legacy, as Berta phrases it, warrants another look as we consider holistic art
education practices.
In two interviews with Abrahamson (2007, 2008) and several additional communications, I
sought to learn how he applied Schaefer-Simmern’s methodology in his thirty years of
instructing children and pre-service art teachers and what value this approach might hold for
contemporary art education practice within the current climes of holistic teaching and
learning. How did Schaefer-Simmern’s process of teaching art change lives? What did this
professor do, say, and bring to life in students through his kind of art instruction?
When Peter Smith (1982) examined the Germanic roots of art education in the United States,
he acknowledged that Schaefer-Simmern had remarkable success with his art students and he
considered why this was so. He wondered if it was Schaefer-Simmern’s application of art
theorist Gustaf Britsch’s ideas that yielded such remarkable artistic growth with widely varied
populations. Or were these successes simply characteristic of a “supportive, warm and
magnetic person?” (p. 25). Smith contends that we may never fully know if Schaefer-
Simmern applied Britsch’s theories since they have remained largely untranslated.
Regardless, it seemed possible to look through the window of Abrahamson’s experiences with
Schaefer-Simmern to consider what made this approach to art instruction work and, in so
doing, better understand the underlying theory and the man himself.
With Abrahamson’s consent, I explored his published and unpublished writings on Schaefer-
Simmern and those theorists who preceded his mentor (1980a, 1980b, 1986, 1987, 1989,
1990, and 1995). I also examined his collection of adult and child art, his catalogued
compilation of his own work, and two recent retrospective exhibits (2007, 2008). These
works, along with our conversations, reveal a story of teaching and learning that illustrate an
interesting alternative to much of the art education that is practiced today. As Abrahamson
clarified in conversation with me, Schaefer-Simmern’s teaching approach can best be
delineated by someone who has observed his process of teaching, taken notes, and maintained
regular correspondence with his mentor. Abrahamson did just that, and he has worked for
several decades to make Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas more accessible and understandable. This
included the arduous compilation and eventual publication of a posthumous volume,
Consciousness of Artistic Form by Schaefer-Simmern (2003), which was a joint effort by
Gertrude Schaefer-Simmern, Abrahamson, and artist Sylvia Fein
The Context for Schaefer-Simmern’s Work
Germany’s Third Reich forced the exodus of many artists and intellectuals from Europe in the
nineteen thirties; and America became the fortunate recipient of several new and fruitful
IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 4
directions in art and education in art. Viktor Lowenfeld, who immigrated to the United States
in the same year (1937) as Schaefer-Simmern, captivated educators with his belief that self
expression was essential for the healthy psychological growth of the child. Edwin Ziegfeld,
through his Owatonna Project in Minnesota, demonstrated the necessity of art as a daily,
useful function in life. Rudolf Arnheim explored the cognitive aspects of artistic processes
and the formalist components that comprise a gestalt structure in artworks. Henry Schaefer-
Simmern, already well known in European circles for his educational theories and as an artist,
arrived in a country that was open to new research on artistic process. His first encounter with
Thomas Munro at the Cleveland Museum of Art ushered Schaefer-Simmern into research in
the arts with a Carnegie Grant (Berta, 1994). Later, the Russell Sage Foundation financed his
experiments which were intended to demonstrate, via case studies, the creative potential
inherent in diverse populations (lay people, professionals, orphans, delinquents, and mentally
disabled individuals at Southbury Training School) all of whom were non-artists. The research
culminated in a book, The Unfolding of Artistic Activity (1948), and included accolades from
John Dewey. In the foreword—which is the only foreword Dewey wrote for an art education
book (Berta, 1994)—he credits Schaefer-Simmern for recognizing “the wholeness of artistic
activity” (1948, p. x); that is, not the unique attribute of a few, but the human inheritance of
all. Schaefer-Simmern’s research was received positively by other scholars in the arts: Victor
D’Amico, Viktor Lowenfeld, Rudolf Arnheim, and Sir Herbert Read (Abrahamson, 1980b).
Art educator Kenneth Beittel (1973) wrote that Schaefer-Simmern’s research, as did
Lowenfeld’s work, both made important contributions to research in art education.
Nevertheless, as Schaefer-Simmern candidly acknowledged in the 1961 Addendum to his
book, his point of view would not be shared by those educators who advocated art as “creative
self-expression;” nor those who gravitated toward a view of art as a cognitive discipline that
employed only rational, mental operations. Art education literature of the past fifty years bears
witness to Schaefer-Simmern’s observation that his approach to art education ran counter to
the prevailing theories of instruction in his time. While his theories have not been readily
embraced in art education over the last half century, I will argue that another look at his
method of teaching contributes much to a holistic learning process in art, and that this in turn
strengthens all education-for-life endeavors.
The Theory: Schaefer-Simmern’s Visual Conceiving
Schaefer-Simmern’s theory of visual conceiving was at least partially based on the ideas of
Gustaf Britsch and through him, art philosopher Conrad Fiedler’s thoughts on artistic
formation. In Schaefer-Simmern’s distillation of these views, he postulated that visual
thinking must occur in addition to intellectual inquiry if the artmaker is going to form an
artistic vision that results in a visual work. Schaefer-Simmern hypothesized that visual
conceiving encompassed the following ideas, although this is not to suggest linearity in a lock
step stage-age progression, but a more natural unfolding of development that occurs only as
Gradle: Another Look 5
an integration of visual structures also occurs. He believed that this was universally the case in
all humankind.
First, Schaefer-Simmern believed that the majority of people (regardless of age, mental
capacity, gender, location, or socio-economic factors) have the innate ability to visually
express their perceptions of experiences. Given the tools and materials, expression has found
artistic form in the work of all humankind throughout history, whether one calls it art, or
something else (Dissanayake, 2000). One need look no further than the remarkable account of
Schaefer-Simmern’s (1948) case study of Selma, the mentally challenged young woman in the
Southbury art room who persisted until she solved a problem in design, was applauded by her
peers for her resolution, and went on to create a visually unified work. This joy, which she
found in having purposeful, self-developed problems to resolve, was a sharp contrast to the
passivity of the same young woman and her peers in the occupational therapy room where the
projects and materials were prescriptive. In his discussion of this instance, Berta (1994)
reveals:
Most appalling, they were given no fundamental choice about participating in the
activity itself because fabricating pot-holders typified the mindless occupational
labor deemed appropriate for mentally retarded people incapable of doing
anything else. From radically different humanistic perspectives and
epistemological considerations, when these same people drew in HSS’s [Henry
Schaefer-Simmern’s] studio, their drawing facilitated problem solving at levels
appropriate to their own developmental stages. Significantly, when HSS
challenged Selma and others to solve their artist problems, he also affirmed their
personalities and their cognition. (p. 179)
In my discussions with Abrahamson, his recollections supported similar observations of
students who were clearly changed due to the ownership of their artistic process and the
agency that Schaefer-Simmern encouraged. Abrahamson observed a change in the appearance
and behavior of one of Schaefer-Simmern’s students in San Francisco who was encouraged to
revise her work as a result of Schaefer-Simmern’s thoughtful questioning. Abrahamson recalls
that Schaefer-Simmern was never surprised at the transformations that occurred in individuals
as they mastered their own challenges in visually conceiving and portraying forms. He often
succinctly remarked that ‘Form forms.’ It mattered little to Schaefer-Simmern whether the
artists were students, professionals, young children, or those challenged with any kind of
disability—he anticipated an outcome in keeping with the learner’s artistic development and
persistence in solving a problem of choice. The medium of expression was likewise
inconsequential to his thoughts on artistic formation. This leads to the second and third closely
intertwined hypotheses in his theory.
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As the artistic forms develop with further experience, reflection, and artmaking, the visual
ideas become clarified and transformed into whole structures (also called gestalts). Space,
shape, color, and line become more clearly delineated. Important in the gestalt development
are the relationships between figure ground, how each separate part relates to the whole, and
how meaning is established based on the formal relationships. Even though Schaefer-
Simmern’s theory of visual conceiving acknowledges that factors such as physical ability,
social and cultural environments, and immediate experiences contribute to artistic formation,
it is the formalist viewpoint of the consciousness of the form that enables all of the physical,
social, and cultural components to merge as a unified visual outcome.
Schaefer-Simmern’s theory, therefore, was anti-mimetic; in other words, he would not
advocate the practice of copying models or imitating natural scenes to develop artistic growth.
The artistic form could not emerge mindlessly from eye to hand; it had to be a process of
“drawing out from eye through mind to hand” (Berta, p. 116). Visual conceiving was not only
in opposition to imitation, then, but also unsupportive of any sort of improvisational pedagogy
that that ignored the deep connection with thoughtful inquiry. Schaefer-Simmern, again
according to Berta, believed that such a practice would not generate gestalt formations.
Schaefer-Simmern’s engagement with art was both formal and pragmatic. Art served a useful
function to humanize existence, provide practical creative opportunities that qualitatively
affected lives. In the conclusion of his book, Schaefer-Simmern (1948) noted the pragmatic,
yet visionary purpose he saw:
Art education that recognizes artistic activity as a general attribute of human
nature and that aims at the unfolding and developing of man’s latent creative
abilities will then contribute its share to the great task which faces all of us, the
resurrection of a humanized world. (p. 201)
And yet, he also clarified, as did Arnheim, that to bring an art work into being involved
artistic cognition that came from solving problems, organizing structures into wholes,
establishing a figure ground relationship, and therein creating unity. As Abrahamson recalls
Schaefer-Simmern discussing his theory, “The Professor always said, ‘Don’t take my word
for it. Don’t believe me unless I can prove it to you.’” And this was demonstrated, through the
implementation of his theory in the students’ own experience with their art.
Third, as visual conceptions become unified, the process of visually organizing the work
results in the simultaneous transformation of the artist who gives the form visibility (i.e.,
Selma and others). The consciousness of artistic forms that Schaefer-Simmern investigated
was apparent to him in children, the mentally disabled, laypeople, and any artist who was
willing to openly consider how their art work could become a clearer expression of their
visual conception. Schaefer-Simmern, along with his lifelong friend, Rudolf Arnheim
Gradle: Another Look 7
(Arnheim, 1997), expressed the belief that these conceptions unfolded or progressed with
greater complexity as an orderly, unified perceptual process. This foreshadows what I believe
to be the crowning achievement that is apparent in his methodology: the wholeness in the
image is mirrored as a transformational sense of wholeness in the artist.
Learning about the Past: The Teaching Methodology of Schaefer-Simmern
My conversations with Professor Abrahamson had the winding flow of a river whose current
carried us back to a time in his life when he was—like many aspiring art students returning
from World War II—soaking up new ideas and grappling with how to develop teaching
competence and personal artistic expression. The year was 1948. Abrahamson was a tall,
serious student of art education at the University of Minnesota (Figure 1) where he studied
forms, perspective, shading, and proportion in the Bauhaus-inspired foundation courses. He
also studied the most contemporary art education work of the time, Viktor Lowenfeld’s
Creative and Mental Growth (1947). Abrahamson remembers this text was the ‘bible’ on how
to teach art back then, and therefore, any alternative ideas which challenged Lowenfeld’s
(1947, 1939) views of the psychological necessity of creative self expression were of great
interest to students. It was during a summer session at the university when Abrahamson
learned that a visiting professor, Henry Schaefer-Simmern, had been invited to present his
theory on visual conception.
Figure 1. Abrahamson, back row on left, with the summer classmates that took Schaefer-Simmern’s course
at the University of Minnesota. Schaefer-Simmern is the tall man in the front row in a suit and bow tie.
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As Abrahamson explained it (1980b), this idea went beyond Arnheim’s (1969; 1954) later
ideas on visual thinking or Gardner’s (1993) conception of an artistic mental process as a
component of intelligence. Impressed with Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas, Abrahamson decided to
study with him at his newly opened Institute of Art Education in Berkeley, California
immediately following his graduation. There, he observed Schaefer-Simmern as he taught a
variety of layman classes for adults and children; he took theory courses with Schaefer-
Simmern in the evenings; and attended sketching and paintings excursions in the Bay area as
part of the studio course work under his direction.
While Schaefer-Simmern did not lecture or write about his methodology of teaching, he
modeled for future teachers, artists, and students how they could begin asking questions in
order to resolve their problems with images. In the following three sections, I will explore
Schaefer-Simmern’s essential teaching methodology through Abrahamson’s observations,
through Abrahamson’s artmaking experiences, and through his application of these methods
in his teaching career. These small methodological edifications will then culminate in the
important considerations of an art education of visual conceiving for contemporary practice.
Indirect Teaching as Socratic Questioning
Educator Brent Davis (2004) defines Socratic Method as the questioning technique in which
the instructor draws forth knowledge from the student. The premise underlying this method
suggests that some knowledge is innate; it resides within the learner; and can be called forth
as a readily available resource by the astute inquirer. In Abrahamson’s (1980b) account of
Schaefer-Simmern’s teaching, he observed that his mentor would guide the student-artist
through a series of questions designed “to challenge, lead, suggest, inform, and encourage
discovery and self-evaluation” (p. 42). While some direct comments were made about the
work of students, Abrahamson recalls that these were rare in his observation. More typically,
Schaefer-Simmern would pose questions after a student had worked for awhile. For example,
one student would put her work on an easel in the front of the room, take a seat beside it, and
Schaefer-Simmern would begin asking questions such as: What parts of your work do you like
the best? What part bothers you? What could you make better? Abrahamson, in all his
observations and interactions with Schaefer-Simmern, noted that his mentor would never
define what he meant by the term ‘better.’ It was up to the student to determine that and to
undertake revisions or begin another version. This initiation into the process of self-discovery
opened and empowered the student to recognize the generative rules of their own work were
“closely related to an existential, experimental reciprocity between the poles of making and
knowing,” as art educator and scholar, Kenneth Beittel (1985, p.92) also observed.
Schaefer-Simmern was not after interpretive meaning ‘behind’ the work. Berta (1994)
recounted an instance in which a young woman wanted to talk about the meaning that was
Gradle: Another Look 9
‘behind’ her image. Schaefer-Simmern picked up the canvas, looked on the back, and declared
that he saw nothing ‘behind’ it. Students were not encouraged to add a psychological
interpretation when they discussed their work, but to work with the images as a gestalt
formation that would resolve a formal problem. As the student gained awareness of his or her
vision for the work, Schaefer-Simmern would offer encouragement to try out another version,
to refine what did not work from the student’s point of view, and to ‘stick with the image’ that
needed further development. According to Abrahamson, Schaefer-Simmern did not dictate
subject matter. Rather, he directed students to examine what they might see in their daily lives
that had meaning to them. “The Professor never told them what to do,” Abrahamson
explained. “One would be working with clay, another with tempera or drawing materials—all
different subjects, too.”
In summing up the general progression of Schaefer-Simmern’s teaching, Abrahamson
clarified that Schaefer-Simmern meant to lead students toward unifying their visual gestalt
formations—and this was a far cry from an immediate, one-shot attempt at ‘self expression.’
His indirect questioning was meant to challenge and lead; direct comments and suggestions
were kept to a minimum, as were technical ‘how to’ demonstrations. The whole class was
never forced to work with the one medium simultaneously. Comments were not generally
invited from the group, according to Abrahamson, but were a dialogue between Schaefer-
Simmern and the student. The goal was the greater independence of the artist in evaluating
their own work, and not a class critique of the student’s work. Any comparisons to historical
works were done after the student had achieved some degree of completion with an idea, so
that insight could enrich, but not dictate these works. Finally, portfolios were greatly
encouraged by Schaefer-Simmern. He wanted students to date their work on the back, and
briefly describe what they were trying to accomplish, whether it worked (in their own
evaluation), and what they would do next as a progression or solution.
In Teaching by Heart (2003), Sara Day Hatton compiled a list of characteristics of sound
teaching practice which appear to share some of the energy, caring, and respect for the process
that are also evident in Schaefer-Simmern’s work with students, exemplified in Abrahamson’s
telling and in Schaefer-Simmern’s (1948) case studies as well. Among the core teaching
practices that seem most essential to the teachers she interviewed and to Henry Schaefer-
Simmern: encouraging learner choice and revision, active inquiry, connection with one’s
surroundings/work, reflection, and new ideas which “spiral gracefully out of the old” (pp.140-
141).
Abrahamson’s Artwork under Schaefer-Simmern’s Direction
Schaefer-Simmern taught his adult art education students like Abrahamson by using the same
process that included indirect questioning, revisions, and portfolio notes on the student’s own
progress. Abrahamson recalls feeling “a shift” in his thinking about his art as the sort of
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“academic stuff” that he produced in his foundation courses at the University of Minnesota.
He began to experience that there was something much more personal occurring which was
dictated by the work itself. Under Schaefer-Simmern’s direction, Abrahamson observed that
anatomical accuracy and perspective were “falling by the wayside,” as he became more aware
of how each part of his painting related and contributed organically to the whole work. For the
first time in his artmaking, Abrahamson no longer sought to adhere to rules of perspective, for
the connection of one part to the whole work demanded that relationships supersede rules of
form.
While Schaefer-Simmern would encourage divergent
thinking as the student explored new media and
alternative versions to the problem, he also championed
convergent thinking (Abrahamson, 1980, p. 14), which
Abrahamson described as the ability to understand
one’s own artwork as a whole, and also perceive its
relation to the larger body of art. I asked if Schaefer-
Simmern ever showed historical works to him, when
this would occur in the process, and what they were.
Abrahamson replied that Schaefer-Simmern only
showed historical works after his (Abrahamson’s)
visual ideas were formed; and at one point, he recalled
that Schaefer-Simmern noted some similarities of his
art to Romanesque works because of the direct, bold
lines, the strong emotional content, and the revelation
of daily life experiences (Figure 2). This was surprising
to Abrahamson, who in his fine arts training had never
felt a particular resonance with Romanesque art.
Figure 2. Father and Son free a Bird,
tempera painting by Abrahamson, 1949.
The benefits of Schaefer-Simmern’s approach in this manner appear to encourage greater
integration of the whole both in the work and in the work’s relational quality to another, larger
venue of art, which seems to suggest a visual correlative to the way that we recognize holistic
integration in the human being as well (Simmons, 2006). Abrahamson commented that
Schaefer-Simmern would frequently say to students, “As you form the work, the work forms
you.”
Gradle: Another Look 11
Figure 3. One of Abrahamson’s earlier depictions of a scene
from a sketching trip in Marin County, tempera, 1950.
For example, Abrahamson recalled painting a series of scenes with the ocean or waterfalls, the
surrounding hills in Marin County, and birds (Figure 3) during the frequent sketching trips
that Schaefer-Simmern organized for his students. Applying the same teaching approach to
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his reflections on his work, Abrahamson painted more than ten versions of this sort of scene,
wrote his reflections about each, and discussed with Schaefer-Simmern what worked well in
each version. Each time he considered what could be better, and then refined the image to his
own satisfaction until all of the parts related and addressed the creation of a new whole. He
described a feeling of elation when he completed the final, integrative piece in one sitting: “It
took one try,” he marveled. “After all the other attempts to develop this same idea, this took
one try!” He speculated that this resolved image (Figure 4) would not have occurred without
the time spent developing several renditions which required him to think deeply about the
nature of the parts that contributed to an organic whole, what qualities integrated the work,
and what should be omitted.
Figure 4. “Ocean Waves,” tempera by Abrahamson, 1950.
Through Schaefer-Simmern’s guidance, he slowly began to observe that his artmaking was
changing. Whereas before Abrahamson felt that his work was largely derived from academic
training, by an educated mind that weighed the merits of perspective, proportion, or emphasis,
now his decisions were made with insight, with reflection, and far more slowly. His artistic
perception, or visual conception, appeared to have a connection to intuition, or insight. An
acceptance of one’s intuitive awareness, according to Abrahamson, “can lead one to a view
Gradle: Another Look 13
outside one’s self, where the main thing is to observe oneself as objectively as possible and
then to change. To be completely honest….[T]he inter-relationships point to a much deeper
understanding…and help bring organization into their wholeness” (personal communication,
2007). This observation of the potential for transformation in this teaching methodology is
telling, for it remains the most important concern of holistic art education today: “To elevate
behavior to the degree that the whole and integrated person appears as they address their work
and their life work” (London, 2006, p. 8). Davis and Sumara (2006), who describe learning as
something that triggers, rather than causes a transformation in the learner, note that the
changes are both behavioral and physical, as Abrahamson clarified and Schaefer-Simmern’s
own case studies support. Transformative learning, as explained by educators Askew and
Carnell (1998), means that one participates in the entire experience of learning, without
emphasis on factual information and objective knowledge as a privileged component in
curriculum. This is a paradigm shift in education to consider the learner as agent, the context
in which they learn as contributory knowledge, and the active processes that make this
possible essential to transformation. Schaefer-Simmern’s approach most certainly fits within
these definitive thoughts on transformation, and would appear to encourage a deep reflective
learning process meant to transform the learner, as Abrahamson has noted throughout his
many discussions.
Applying Schaefer-Simmern’s Methodology with Students in the Art Room
As an application of Schaefer-Simmern’s approach to teaching art, Abrahamson shared the
successive renditions of a 5th grade student, Helen Edelheit, whose bird-in-the-landscape
drawings were executed several times before the final work was complete. While he pointed
out that not all students are capable or interested in going through extensive revisions, Helen
worked diligently: adding parts,
erasing background material,
until the fourth image had a
unified look that pleased her.
This is an example, according to
Abrahamson, of the revisions in
ideas that Schaefer-Simmern
would have encouraged in order
to produce a more complete
visual rendition that was
satisfactory to the student
(Figures 5, 6, & 7).
Figure 5. 1st Drawing by Edelheit.
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Figure 6. 2nd Drawing by Edelheit.
Figure 7. 3rd Drawing by Edelheit.
Gradle: Another Look 15
Abrahamson showed further examples of an art education student’s self-imposed challenge to
draw a cat. Her notations on the back of each drawing indicated her thinking. In her final note
on the back of the sixth drawing, she wrote: “I have noticed my awareness of the environment
has increased since I began this approach to drawing trees, sky, and the lightness and darkness
of objects… I find myself trying to ’visualize‘ objects more—I have to ’see‘ specific details of
time.” It seems this student was on her way to recognizing, as David Jardine (2006) so aptly
says it, “that the adventure of inquiry is a matter of rejoicing in the abundance and intricacy of
the world, entering into its living questions” (p. 101).
Art educator Howard McConeghey (2003) writes that this kind of approach is a valuable way
of ordering the self, and that “the process of artistic formation is where healing takes place”
(2003, p. 31). In Art and Soul, McConeghey explains that the relationship between the parts of
a work take place as an aesthetic, intuitive perception that is not consciously known to the
artist. It is not a simple process of creating and therein completing the work, but something
which emerges though dialogue and the re-visitation of ideas. McConeghey acknowledges
that this approach does not always seem practical to implement in the limited time allocated
for school art instruction. However, in a view that he shares with Schaefer-Simmern (1948)
and Arnheim (1997), re-visitation of the artistic form leads to a deep understanding of an idea,
rather than superficial engagement with media or tools. Such exploration awakens a spiritual,
aesthetic perception that Schaefer-Simmern saw as arising out of a visual conception, one that
is only partially informed by cognition. According to Schaefer-Simmern, “This activity is
independent of conceptual intellectual calculation” (p. 8), or in Dewey’s words in the
foreword to the same text, there is “an undivided union of factors…called the physical,
emotional, intellectual and practical” (1948, p. ix).
In Arnheim’s (1997) reflections on the past century of growth in art and human experience, he
credits Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas as being foundational for his own theories. Even more
compelling, he continues on the next page with two major set backs he sees in current
instruction. First, rendering only what one sees, whether a natural scene or a social one, is still
confused as being the purpose of art. A second misperception is the popularization of the idea
that all of us, particularly the young, have short attention spans, “inducing teachers to prefer
short lessons and confuse children with a bombardment of different techniques and
assignments.” The phenomena of fragmented attention is not only relegated to the schools, but
is pervasive and widespread in society, so much so that Arnheim considers the social fabric
torn and “a decline in artistic quality” (p. 14) predicated by these faulty theoretical
assumptions.
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Conclusion: Shaping of Awareness as Holistic Art Education
In each of our discussions, Abrahamson was quick to clarify that the remarkable
transformations which occurred to Schaefer-Simmern’s students as they worked through their
visual conceptions were never the result of “free exploration of materials and tools in which
students were encouraged to ‘be creative’ without direction” (personal communication, 2007).
In Schaefer-Simmern’s methodology, there seems to be a greater good than the simple
pleasure of non-reflective making and doing. The greater good that I speak of, and outlined in
the first section of this paper, is the kind of learning outcome that affects the whole person. In
holistic art education, this means providing learners with support, respect, and encouragement
for deep engagement in their process of working. As Karen Lee Carroll (2006) suggests when
she considers the fit of art education and holistic practice, we can only clarify the purpose of
art education as we also consider the necessity to accommodate great diversity of practices
and content that includes the whole learner. If, as I believe, Schaefer-Simmern’s ideas
contribute to this diversity of practices in teaching that could lead to wholeness, what are
these practices and how do we best apply them?
To ground these questions and relate theory to practice, I turned to feminist writers
(MacDermi, Jurich,, & Myers-Walls, 1992) who have explored wholeness by challenging
themselves to answer: “What is an effective education?” These authors have carefully
considered that learners must make a transition from learning to know to learning to live.
Without this transition, education is not effective. Schaefer-Simmern’s questioning technique
(What part of your work do you like? What can you make better? What do you need to do in
order to make it better?) respects, invites, and empowers learners. They must find their own
way back to the image, and then revise, begin again, and reflect on their growth. This is a first
step in the ownership of a process that continually transforms toward wholeness.
Abrahamson’s student who wrote after several reflections on her work that she had greater
“awareness of the environment…and the lightness and darkness of objects” and that she often
found herself wanting to see “the details of time” and visualize objects more completely, was
taking ownership of her artistic process. When learners are encouraged to act through
questions that require a personal solution, their artistic behaviors are far more likely to shape
the whole person. We saw evidence of this in Berta’s (1994) re-visitation of Selma’s solution
to her drawing problem in Schaefer-Simmern’s case study. Abrahamson also recounted his
personal observations of how artistic formation frequently shaped the behavior, personality,
and even dress of individuals in Schaefer-Simmern’s classes. There have been many art
educators who have supported student growth through problem solving and advocated a
thoughtful way of working that starts with a complete respect for what is occurring (e.g.,
Carroll, 2006; McConeghey, 2003; McKenna, 2006; Rollins, 2005). These individuals have
seen that artistic formation shapes personal formation. If we consider holistic teaching
practices are of great benefit, then the second question generates itself: how can we make
Gradle: Another Look 17
better use of this kind of art instruction? What stands in the way of pursuing a theory and
practice of a holistic type of educational endeavor as explored by Schaefer-Simmern and his
students such as Abrahamson?
The answer for many, I am guessing, would be an echo of Arnheim’s pronouncement quoted
earlier. We often believe that learners, school administrators, and our colleagues will not
support in-depth artistic problem solving that takes months to complete, rather than minutes.
We believe no one will understand the connection between slowing down, reflecting each step
of the way, and returning to the same work with artistic responses that will mature our vision.
We sometimes do not even believe that there is a greater purpose to art making, one that
Schaefer-Simmern believed humanized existence; one that Dewey recognized as “the
wholeness of artistic activity” that was intrinsically related to being “fully alive” (1948, p. x).
To persevere in such doubt requires the keen mind of the reflexive observer-teacher, or the
artist who intuits, as Abrahamson noted earlier, one who is able to explore how the parts interrelate
in a work of art, or in human relationships. The evidence of how to proceed is all
around us. It is in the inquiry that engages the student in order to discover a deeper cohesion
in their own art. It is in the mind of the teacher who leads the student to the form that is
calling for expression. It is in the action that surfaces as surely as the questions arise seeking
more answers. Schaefer-Simmern’s legacy is one of willing participation, documentation, and
continual research—this much is verified. To continually conceive of art education as a visual
form, a gestalt that arises from our own intuitive teaching is the omission from this discussion
that must be addressed by each holistic art educator everywhere.
This is a kind of educative process that champions what we have forgotten that we own as
educators in art: the opportunity to develop unity in a relational world through artistic inquiry.
Written succinctly by poet and artist Rabindranath Tagore (1922):
The joy of unity within ourselves, seeking expression, becomes creative….What
is the truth of this world? It is not in the masses of substance, not in the number
of things, but in their relatedness, which neither can be counted, nor measured,
nor abstracted. It is not in the materials which are many, but in the expression
which is one. (p.5)
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IJEA Vol. 10 No. 1 - http://www.ijea.org/v10n1/ 20
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Author Notes:
I wish to thank Dr. Roy Abrahamson for his permission to use his photographs in this
document, for the opportunity to peruse his written works thoroughly, and most of all, for his
kindness and enthusiasm regarding the topic of Henry Schaefer-Simmern.
Ideas must begin somewhere. My knowledge of Henry Schaefer-Simmern’s theories took root
in my Masters Degree program at the University of New Mexico many years ago. My mentor,
Dr. Howard McConeghey, should be recognized here for his major contribution to my
thinking.
Although I do not know Dr. Raymond Berta, his dissertation on Henry Schaefer-Simmern
deserves praise as the most thoroughly researched and organized source on the life, theories,
and historical information about Henry Schaefer-Simmern.
Author Biography:
Sally Armstrong Gradle is the Program Coordinator and an assistant professor of art education
at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where she teaches pre-service art education
students. Her research interests include contemplative practice in education, holistic teaching
and learning, performance and ritual studies in art education and reflective teacher practice.
International Journal of Education & the Arts
Editors
Liora Bresler
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Margaret Macintyre Latta
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, U.S.A.
Managing Editor
Alex Ruthmann
University of Massachusetts Lowell, U.S.A.
Associate Editors
Jolyn Blank
University of South Florida, U.S.A
David G. Hebert
Sibelius Academy, Finland
Editorial Board
Peter F. Abbs University of Sussex, U.K.
Eunice Boardman University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Norman Denzin University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Kieran Egan Simon Fraser University, Canada
Elliot Eisner Stanford University, U.S.A.
Magne Espeland Stord/Haugesund University College, Norway
Rita Irwin University of British Columbia, Canada
Gary McPherson University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Julian Sefton-Green University of South Australia, Australia
Robert E. Stake University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A.
Susan Stinson University of North Carolina—Greensboro, U.S.A.
Graeme Sullivan Teachers College, Columbia University, U.S.A.
Christine Thompson Pennsylvania State University, U.S.A.
Elizabeth (Beau) Valence Indiana University, Bloomington, U.S.A.
Peter Webster Northwestern University, U.S.A.
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