M. L. Middelhoek, A. Middelhoek, and A. Duyser
Oog en Hand: Moderne Teekenmethode voor de Lagere School, 1931
Zwijndrecht: Wed. Plancken & Zoon
2369
Two quarto-sized folders, one containing 20 cards; the second with 19. These sets of geometric images represent the first stages of a larger curriculum in modern visual design emphasizing the...
Two quarto-sized folders, one containing 20 cards; the second with 19. These sets of geometric images represent the first stages of a larger curriculum in modern visual design emphasizing the total objectivity of basic shapes and colors in the interest of marrying aesthetic purity and industrial utility. The target audience was elementary school students between four and eleven or twelve years old. The modernist impulse toward a renewal of vision here meets behavioral attunement; in other words, a new visual sense could be trained from the very start of a conscious creative life. The cards are thus concrete evidence of the impact of modernism upon childhood education - one could certainly construe the cards as appropriate for a Bauhaus for children. Martinus Leonardus Middelhoek was a Dutch painter whose own art was not especially avant-garde but whose technical training has here been put to innovative use. A. Middelhoek has a track record as a biologist, and there is a clear affinity between the abstract forms on these cards and the arrangements of microbes on his illustrated plates. The complete curriculum set (seven folders plus textbook) is only held in one American institution, and partial sets are equally scarce. Plate 13 lacking from second portfolio. Marginal rubs, some wear to folders, else near fine.


