Painting and Personality: A Study of Young Children by Rose H. Alschuler, La Berta Weiss Hattwick, and: Art for Preadolescents by Angiola R. Churchill (review)

88 Books ment of these sites. Mannerist painting was not 'clumsy, ill-proportioned'. It was highly sophisticated and elegant and its distortions were a form of idealism. That Henry Wilson was not always 'sensible and serviceable ' is demonstrated by his chalice at St Bartholomew's, Brighton. Greek vases do not neglect craftsmen at work, for instance, the 'Foundry Painter' in Berlin shows workshop scenes with furnace, bellows, tools and intaglio matrices. Hughes jumps about rather confusingly in time but he is probably not to blame for faults in production such as the often chaotic arrangement ofthe illustrations. For example, pre-Columbian American and Moghul work are displayed on facing pages and Rococo in the middle of a passage on Art Nouveau, while the captions are frequently on different pages from the photographs. However, only a polymath could hope to achieve perfection in such an encyclopaedic work and one must congratulate Hughes on having done so well. Von Neumann is a member of the faculty of the University of Illinois and his jewelry was selected to represent America at the World's Fair in Brussels in 1958. The fact that a second edition of his book is called for is in itself a recommendation. It has been expanded, corrected and given new chapters on historic and contemporary techniques. Processes are clearly described and illustrated by simple diagrams. There are appendices on weights and measures, an extensive bibliography and a list of suppliers (all in America). Choate's book is minutely detailed and instructive but less stimulating to read. Many ofthe works illustrated as examplars are of poor design and an apparent deficiency in historical background is suggested by such statements as: 'Niello is another surface inlay often found in silver jewelry made in Thailand.' As the book covers much the same ground as von Neumann's, and costs more, one questions what special needs it fulfils. It is perhaps worth buying for the sake of its comprehensive tables and formulae, which seem to anticipate every contingency. Painting and Personality: A Study of Young Children. Rose H. Alschuler and La Berta Weiss Hattwick. University of Chicago Press, London, 1969. 205 pp., iIIus. £7.45. Art for Preadolescents. Angiola R. Churchill, McGraw-Hili, DUsseldorf, 1970. 455 pp., iIIus. D.M. 46.20. Reviewed by: John M. Kennedy* Mysterious ties between emotional development and artistic expression form the common ground for two recent publications (the first book an abridged reprinting ). Mysterious ties, yes. Elusive ties, yes. Ephemeral or evanescent ties, no. These are the beliefs at the core of both publications. And yet when the authors have said all they can say, the link between emotion and expression teases at the limits of our understanding, for plain contradictions remain to puzzle us. Alschuler and Hartwick first presented a two volume report of a year-long study with 150 children (3 to 5-yearolds ) in 1947. Their work is a maze of substantial facts and correlations between artwork and mood. Their thesis deserves this reissue in which the conclusions are stressed and just enough case history material is retained to exemplify the points in their arguments. The result is heavy reading-s-a factual account of the spillover into artwork of psychic dramas in the lives of preschoolers. * Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 1265Military Trail, West Hill, Ontario, Canada. The subjects may have been young and unschooled but their paintings were significant in precise ways. For example, the dominant colors would reflect their emotions, while line would often indicate prevailing levels of control and rational conduct and in their use of space the children would often show their overall relationship to their environments. For these children, it seemed that the function of painting was to display moods and to play with feelings, what was being felt being more important than what was seen. Abrupt changes in a child's well-being were plain in his artwork, as though in a symbolic medical report. Alschuler and Hartwick's book is a research document . In contrast, Churchill's is a text for teachers of 9 to 13-year-olds. Churchill claims, probably wisely, that children of this age trouble teachers, as the easy enthusiasm of childhood...