Byrnes Gene, Thornton Bishop. A Complete Guide to Drawing Illustration Cartooning and Painting

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1948. — 354 p.Learning by demonstration is undoubtedly as old as the earliest tendencies of the human family to imitate one another. It is a method by which knowledge has been conveyed from one generation to each succeeding generation, and, before the advent of books, it served to perpetuate ideas. It has appeared in a newer form during the past quarter century, and has been accorded academic honors and given a new name-visual education. Years ago the stereopticon lecture, and later the motion-picture film, comprised a new technique of teaching by demonstration and of disseminating knowledge broadly and rapidly. The school systems embraced it to such a degree that it now competes with, and in some instances supplants, textbooks in teaching certain subjects. Industry has adapted its methods to personnel training programs. Sales organizations find m it a means for a more complete and graphic presentation of merchandise than was possible by the written or spoken word. The visual demonstration has standardized merchandising, and the results have paid rich dividends. In passing its specialized and technical information from teacher to student, the field of art has flourished in the use of visual aids. The master-and-pupil relationship by which the arts developed in classic and Renaissance times gave way to the broader dissemination of knowledge in the schools and ateliers of the present time, though even today not everyone is fortunate enough to receive instruction and encouragement from an artist and craftsman eminent in his profession. To observe and study the methods employed by a top-flight technician in the making of a drawing or a painting is a special privilege, and art schools frequently endeavor to found their prestige on the fam.