Page:Christmas pictures by children with an introduction by Edmund Dulac.djvu/10

 We fail, in general, to realise that technique is based on memory, the regulating element of most subconscious phenomena. The artist, even in drawing from nature, is reproducing forms that are memorised between the moment he looks at his model and the moment he puts his pencil on paper. Whether the model is immediately in front of him or was, a day or a month before, the process is the same, and it should not be any more difficult to keep an impression of a form for many hours or even days than for the short space of time required in drawing from nature.

Now, the child has this faculty developed to an extraordinary degree, because his subconscious organisation is still unimpaired, and his mnemonic stimulants have not yet been completely replaced by conscious habits. The younger he is, the easier the process. Why then, should we view such accomplishments with wonder, and sometimes suspicion seeing that we take it for granted that the learning of languages, which involves a far more complicated mechanism, and is sometimes an impossibility to grown-ups, is the natural privilege of children?

Professor Čižek has successfully demonstrated with his methods that the scope of these unspoiled memory reflexes can be enlarged, and that because a child is taught to paint, he need not necessarily have in view Art as an end and a profession. Understood in that manner, it ought merely to form part of every child's education; it should not consist any more in the drudgery of drawing plaster casts or stuffed animals, but should aim at preserving the freshness and spontaneity of the subconscious machine that is still at our disposal in the lumber room of our childhood.

This would help us to develop a greater sense of balance between objective and subjective worlds, to lose the fear engendered by the paralysing respect for our own habits, and we might be able instead of taking our cue from the puzzling contingencies that surround us, to time realities to the rhythm within ourselves, and realise perhaps the perfect harmony described by the Chinese philosopher when he said: