Waldorf pedagogy is based on the ancient and universal human ideal of Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Beautiful impressions and surroundings have long been known to stimulate actions that are morally good, while unlovely impressions and ugly environments do the opposite. How do we instil a sense of beauty in the children we teach, how do we make creating goodness through beauty a life-long habit? And what about the use of black?
“Is it Beautiful?”
That question is on our mind as we prepare our lessons. “What you present to the children, and what they make of it, must be beautiful!” was an often-repeated exhortation in the teacher training course, and this striving for beauty explains many aspects of The Waldorf Way. In the lower classes, some of them are …
- not drawing contour lines
- not drawing facial features
- not using lead pencil
- not having black in the crayon case
And why? Not because these things are somehow bad, but because they need artistic training to achieve a pleasing result – or even one that appears barely satisfactory to its creator.
Children are influenced and inspired by the images they see. These are mostly drawn with black contour lines and appear effortless because they are created by illustrators and graphic designers. As children attempt to copy this style, they have no notion of the long years of training and the intense process of drafting and redrafting that underpin the work of professional artists.
Failing to achieve similar results leads them to conclude, innocently, prematurely and needlessly, that “I’m no good at drawing” – when in fact they are trying their hand at a technique they are not ready for.
Like many adults, children are under the illusion that drawing is something one either can or cannot do; though all understand perfectly well that one cannot play a sonata without practising arpeggios first, or solve maths problems without learning the required operations, or write a book without knowledge of grammar and spelling, or build a house by spontaneously assembling building materials … but more on that another time.
The Problem with Outlines
“In art, the contour line is an untruth,” Rudolf Steiner pointed out, and Truth is one of our most important educational cornerstones. The contour line could be called a lie, because no such line separates mountains and clouds from the sky, nor the sky from the sea. Stones and plants, animals, people and manmade objects show no contour lines either.
And yet drawing contour lines is a great technique – one of many in an artist’s repertoire – but its deceptive simplicity requires a great deal of training to yield the appealing and expressive results we admire.
The ability to touch the heart with nothing but contour lines denotes a great master:
But, absorbing such images from an early age, children naturally get the impression that this is the only way to draw. They reach for the black pencil, their lines “go wrong”, the eraser is put to work – and as the drawing gets rumpled and messy, realisation dawns that what they wanted to achieve is quite beyond them.
There may be exceptions, but these only confirm the rule.
Waldorf Education avoids this disheartening process by teaching a different approach to the creation of images, perfectly summarised in the motto:
“Shaping Colours, Not Colouring Shapes”
Shaping shades of colour without outlines allows us, teacher and pupils alike, to create beautiful images by letting our imagination flow into the colours we spread on paper or the blackboard, beginning with unconstricted forms that expand, change and merge in the process of their creation.
It allows us to live in the colours’ moods, their blending and their movements, and we experience their interaction in a way that is evidently prevented by contour lines.
This age-appropriate approach to creating images trains artistic awareness, and it makes beautiful results attainable to all children, irrespective of natural talent. Outcomes are often surprising to their creators, and usually satisfying rather than disappointing.
As they accompany a developing drawing or painting attentively, with an open mind, they are able to respond to what happens in the moment, rather than pursuing a preconceived plan.
Waldorf teachers instruct and inspire their class with clearly defined tasks of either ‘guided’ or ‘free’ artwork. But that is a topic for another day.
The Problem with Faces
Among the most difficult things to draw well are human expressions. Adults struggle with it, and children even more. Facial features often spoil an otherwise lovely drawing. This insight should not lead to a ban on the drawing of eyes, nose and mouth, which are after all of vital importance, but it can be explained:
“You see, drawing faces well is very difficult, even for me, and right now it isn’t really necessary. We shall learn how to do it later, in Class 4, and then you will find it much easier.”
The Norse Myths are great for this … but more on that another time.
As a child, I was relieved when this was explained to me, and grateful for the instruction that such tricky details were not needed because we could imagine any expression we liked on a person that was drawn with a blank face. And obviously our drawings were the better for it.
Faces that invite the children to picture their expressions actively are an essential aspect of Waldorf dolls and figurines. Their intentional incompleteness stimulates the child’s imaginative picturing, and this activity strengthens the soul force of imagination and develops the brain, just as physical training builds muscles.
The Problem with Lead Pencil
If one is not an accomplished artist, it is practically impossible to create a beautiful page with lead pencil. Hard pencils etch the paper’s surface, soft pencils smudge it, and their leaden colour is not appealing.
A lead pencil is first and foremost a drafting tool, its advantage being that its lines and marks are easier to erase than all others. Graphite lines are most expressive of intellectual analysis and factual statement, suited to precise construction and to perspective and technical drawings.
These characteristics link the lead pencil’s use to the developmental step of puberty, beginning in Class 6 with the introduction to a more scientific approach, as described here.
But in the early years of the Lower School, “Is it beautiful?” answers the question if lead pencil ought to be used by young pupils.
The Problem with Black
Much misunderstanding surrounds the purported Waldorf commandment “Thou Shalt Not Use Black”, and all kinds of moral judgements have been attached to it because black is the negation of colour and an expression of darkness.
Some pointed out that Rudolf Steiner always wore black and therefore this “Steiner rule” makes no sense. In fact, his view was that “Black represents the spiritual image of the lifeless (…) shows itself alien to life, hostile to life (…) but the spirit flourishes; the spirit can penetrate the blackness and assert itself within it.”
In one of his many notebooks, Steiner equates the colour black with freedom – so one might say that he did not take a black-and-white view of the matter. And we all remember that we liked to wear black in our teenage years for the subtle sense of strength and protection it imparts.
But none of this applies to the problem in question. The reason to withhold black in early childhood and the first school years is quite simply the need for training to handle it well, similar to sharp knives, power tools and other things of great impact.
The Use of Black
By the time Waldorf pupils reach the Middle School, they have studied Light and Darkness in guided drawings and developed their skills to a level that gets good results when using black.
This training is deepened in Class 8 and 9 and continues to the end of Class 12. As a subject, Black-and-White Drawing is essentially a matter for Upper School Art lessons, but some exceptions can make sense.
For example, I found Class 6 to be the best time to introduce diagonal shading, a technique that makes great demands on self-discipline … but that is a topic for another day.
By contrast, there is much evidence of the harm black does to the artwork of young children, and, as always, exceptions just confirm the rule.
Pre-school children’s drawings are the traces of impulsive movements that express their complete unitedness of body and soul and are not yet steered by the overview of inner distance. In their hands, the colour black acts like a blowtorch that carbonises their drawing.
In the first school years, children gradually move from this will-imbued drawing to a more conceptual approach. They are open to being guided in their artwork and keen to imitate their teacher’s admired example, just as they will imitate cartoons if no such guidance is forthcoming.
Now they are able to understand what you tell them about the problems with contour lines, facial features, lead pencil and the use of black, and accept it as sensible.
Black Needs Mindful Handling
Precisely because black crayons and pencils have the potential to spoil drawings, they are stored in the teacher’s cupboard for the first three school years. Black is not banned but reserved for special occasions.
And whenever the teacher brings out this box or tin – to draw the horse of a story, for example, or the crow of Aesop’s famous fable – the class buzzes as the children announce to each other with importance and excitement, “We’re going to use BLACK!”
Having been taught not to draw outlines, they will use black in the same way as any other colour.
By Class 4 the black crayons and pencils are given into the children’s care, for now they are ready to use them with awareness and skill.
And that’s all there is to it, really.
If teachers as respected authorities understand the requirements of contour line drawing, facial features, lead pencil and the colour black, their pupils will do so too, accept their explanations, and practise with patience to handle these special tools and techniques competently and well.
Comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share experiences, questions and feedback below.
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I can see your starting point clearer now, and agree that much is being discussed or put forward without understanding the basics WHY we do things. A blog / contribution as what you are offering is invaluable – and greatly needed. Provided that indeed the flexibility is the golden rule – there is already way too much dogma in Waldorf education. From one point of view I could say: you are putting out what I (and several colleagues) have had in mind for years. Thank you.
Re the diagnosis of a child using black extensively: this can’t be answered in just a few sentences. There are so many different situations, backgrounds, cases, children, to put a blanket statement on why they do that is not meeting the essence of the topic. Aspects, though, were a lack of imagination (I am thinking of a boy who was “nourished” by video games, movies and cartoons, children in difficult home situations, depression (even at early age), etc. More than once I experienced children being frustrated by the fact that they could not use black when they wanted to express themselves in a free drawing.
I think we are both on the same page, except that the colour of the page may different. 😉
I’m pleased to learn that you and others have felt the need for a blogsite like mine for years. That is motivating indeed! And yes, we probably are on the same page; but anyhow, differing views and experiences should be freely shared. And as for “children being frustrated by the fact that they could not use black” when they felt they needed to – that is precisely one of several “Waldorf misunderstandings” I would like to help clear up, as explained above.
I found this article very informative. Although I am quite familiar with Waldorf pedagogy and art teaching, and have read other books and articles on the subject, the explanation here was actually clearer than any I had seen before. And the artworks chosen to illustrate it were perfect, underscoring and amplifying the reasons for the Waldorf approach.
Thank you for this lovely feedback! If your view is shared by my readers in general, then the many hours of writing and editing that go into putting such an article together have been well spent.
I fully agree that children have to learn to handle black, but withholding that colour from them is not the way to go. Though the general approach of this blog is correct, in my 35+ years as class teacher this question often met with the realities of the children: What about aboriginal children (I live in Australia) with black hair? How can you draw a witch without black (cloak and hair) and her black cat? In class 2 the fables and legends main lessons always included indigenous stories in my teachings. Black is necessary for that culture – their (the aborigines’) art, weapons, etc have only white, yellow, red, black and brown. What about the bushfires that regularly rage in Australia, the effects of which (burned out areas, sometimes in their neighbourhood) the children often want to draw as healing activity. Etc. Not to mention the schools in black Africa.
I repeat: I fully agree that children have to learn to handle black, but withholding that colour from them is not the way to go. It reveals a lot about the soul of the child when s/he uses black (extensively). It is the task of the teacher to allow the soul of the child to express itself and then for him / her to act accordingly, by either guiding, healing or consulting the parents (and colleagues / councillors). Black is an important and essential diagnostic tool for the teacher and WE in Waldorf education have to learn to handle it, so that we can work with the children.
You see, my writing is not primarily addressed to experienced teachers like yourself who know how to apply The Waldorf Way to their needs, but to those who are new to it. Wouldn’t you agree that before one adapts an established mode to one’s group of children, one ought to understand why it exists? Most especially as a new class teacher?
It is my intention to shed light on Waldorf practices that are being discussed (quite often devoid of understanding) on social media, and to show that our ways of doing things are not “outdated” and “weird” but reasoned and practical. In any case we are best guided by Goethe’s fanaticism-preventing motto “In Theory absolute, in Practice flexible” – but before we apply fundamental ideals flexibly, I advocate that we gain a real understanding of their raison d’être.
There is no reason why the special box of black crayons should not be brought out more frequently in particular cultural settings. And I am curious to learn what diagnosis you arrived at when a child uses black extensively. In my experience it was always a new pupil who joined the class and had not learnt any other way to draw. But all of them caught up quickly and produced beautiful work which neither they nor their family had believed possible. Q.E.D.