Franz Cižek (1865-1946) was an Austrian genre and portrait painter, who was best known as
a teacher and reformer of art education. He began the Child Art Movement in Vienna, opening the Juvenile Art Class in 1897. Franz Cižek was known as “the ‘father’ of creative art teaching.
While a student, he lived with a family and the children visited him in his room, where he allowed them to use his art supplies and encouraged them to express themselves. He was impressed by their creativity, and showed the work to fellow artists at the university, who encouraged him to start an art school for children. The Juvenile Art Classes were free of charge to children of Vienna. They were interviewed and selected by Franz. His teaching method had limited structure, and imagination and free expression were encouraged. Franz Cižek strongly influenced the development of art education and won strong support especially in England and the USA.
Cizek approached art making by creating a child friendly environment where formal instruction was non existent and the work was based on nurturing the creative tendencies inherent in all children, allowing them to freely explore their own ideas through a range of materials.
My view is that you need both structure and freedom. An interesting thing is that he “picked” which children could come to his class. Since he picked, we can probably assume that he picked those most likely to succeed. I think that the structure of learning the basis of drawing, perspective and color can actually bring you more freedom in the end and less frustration as to “what is wrong with my painting”. Being an adult learner, as I started at 45, and wanting to do portraits, I just couldn’t figure out how and where to start a painting. Learning those things has given me the freedom to discover my own way of doing things. I think that children need some of that too.
Biblio: Rob Meredith Wikipedia
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