Picture book for children
The picture book for children was an encyclopedic non-fiction and textbook, the largest book project by Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747–1822), the successful publisher of the Weimar Classics .
The educational environment
In the 18th century, often called the “ pedagogical ”, new forms of education developed in theory and practice. Representatives of the reform pedagogy of the time were convinced that every person could be morally perfect and in every other desired way through appropriate education. At the same time, there were solid economic reasons for new ways in education, for teaching a certain work ethic . Manufactories and factories needed a large number of employees of a new type: enlightened, reasoned, hard-working on their own - "industrial" as an expression of that time. The public education system was still inefficient. In Prussia, for example, there was only compulsory schooling for six to fourteen year olds since 1794, and limited occupational safety for children and young people since 1839. Both were often ignored and hardly controlled. Child labor was widespread.
Early textbooks
The new pedagogy was accompanied and supported by books of the “orbis pictus” type (Latin: “the painted circle” = the image of the world). The first of these thematically comprehensive non-fiction books for teaching was published in 1658 by Johann Amos Comenius . His “ orbis sensualium pictus ” was illustrated with woodcuts and wanted to illustrate all the phenomena in the world, from God in the first chapter to the Last Judgment . - In 1774 the “Elementarwerk” by Johann Bernhard Basedow , the founder of the alternative “ Philanthropinum ” in Dessau, was published - a volume with copperplate engravings by Daniel Chodowiecki , supplemented by two volumes with commentaries. It dealt with basic questions of education, nature and activities of humans, logic, religion and ethics, history and natural history. In 1784, the Nuremberg pedagogue Johann Siegmund Stoy presented his “Picture Academy for Young People”, again an illustrated book and two text volumes, inspired by Basedow's much-read “Elementary Work”, but much more firmly attached to the Christian religion.
Bertuch's "picture book for children"
The Prussian pedagogue Friedrich Gedike wrote in 1789: “Not a single literary manufacture is so much going on as bookmaking for the young ... Every Leipzig summer and winter fair, like the flood of the sea, washes countless numbers of books of this kind onto the shore. . every year, especially under the sub-title 'Christmas present for dear children', which is attractive for dear parents and bases . Johann Justin Bertuch therefore produced for a large, but also highly competitive market. His work became the highlight of the literary genre "orbis pictus" in terms of scope and quality.
The publisher justified his project - "A picture book is just as essential and even more indispensable a meuble for a nursery than the cradle, the doll or the hobbyhorse" - and in the foreword described his didactic ideas in great detail. There he explained that a picture book must "have nicely and correctly drawn and not badly engraved copper, because nothing is more important than the child's eye to get used to the true representation of the objects right from the start." And further: " It doesn't have to crowd too many and very different objects together on a board; otherwise it confuses the child's imagination and distracts his or her attention. ”“ It must have little and not learned text; because the child does not read or study his picture book, but just wants to have fun with it. "" Where possible, it must contain strange, rare, but instructive objects that the child does not already see every day. "
All images were assigned to one of 14 subject groups: 1. Four-legged animals; 2.birds; 3. fish; 4. insects; 5. plants; 6. People and costumes; 7. worms; 8. Conchylia (= molluscs); 9. corals; 10. amphibians ; 11. minerals; 12. Architecture; 13. Antiquities; 14. Mixed items. Natural history topics clearly had priority, especially in the early years. With the rapid progress of technical development, newer objects from this area were increasingly included in the “Mixed objects” group, such as the first hot air balloon in 1802 and the steamboat in 1816 . The sequence of the drawings often seems completely unsystematic. Bertuch: "... I have chosen the brightest and most colorful mixture of objects and always ask ... to consider that I am dealing with children whom I just want to amuse." He also asked the child users to color in the copperplate engravings if they were not colored , cut them out and hang them on the wall.
Bertuch's company was one of the largest publishers in Germany with up to 450 employees and a total production of over 2000 book and magazine titles. The “Picture Book for Children” was published between 1790 and 1830 in an edition of 3000 copies, it contains a total of 1185 colored picture plates with around 6000 individual copperplate engravings. Bertuch found artistic collaborators for the numerous illustrations in the Princely Free Drawing School , which he himself was involved in founding in Weimar in 1776. Since 1796 there have been 12 accompanying volumes, each 700 pages thick, edited by the pedagogue Karl Philipp Funke (1752–1807). Your title: “Detailed text on Bertuch's picture book for children. A commentary for parents and teachers who want to use this work in teaching their children and students ”. To ensure that the work remained affordable for the relatively poor, it was released in 237 partial deliveries. Nevertheless, the complete edition including the accompanying volumes cost around 125 thalers in the end. Back then, a bricklayer earned 72 thalers. Today's second-hand bookshop price is around € 15,000.
The book genre of “orbis pictus” remained alive until the late 19th century. The tendency already recognizable with Bertuch intensified - the change from the holistic representation of an essentially religious worldview as with Comenius to the relatively sober collection of realities, to the pure representation of nature and technology.
The wonders of the world
Eruption of Vesuvius
Ship models
literature
- Stephan Füssel: Bertuch - encyclopedia for children / picture book for children . 600 p. Taschen Verlag 2005. ISBN 3-8228-3147-6 .
- Hubert Göbels (Hrsg.): Picture book for children. A selection . The bibliophile paperbacks, volume 287.Dortmund 1979.
- Albrecht von Heinemann: A merchant of the Goethe time. Friedrich Johann Bertuch's life and work . Weimar 1955.
- Siglinde Hohenstein: Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747-1822) - admired, envied, controversial . Catalog for the exhibition in the Gutenberg Museum Mainz, 1985.
Web links
- Digitized copy of the picture book in the digital library of Heidelberg University Library.
- Digital copies of all 12 volumes of the picture book in the digital collections of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library Weimar.
- Digitization of all 12 volumes in the digital collections of the Library for Research on Educational History, Berlin
annotation
All quotations are taken from the following source: