German children’s art during World War I

Bibliographic Data

ID13005705
AuthorsCarolyn Kay (0000-0002-3209-3542, Trent University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume11
Issue2
Pages195-212
Publication date2021-05-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGlobal Studies of Childhood (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2043-6106 • E-ISSN: 2043-6106
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/20436106211015694
OpenAlexW3165417423
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited16

My article considers German wartime propaganda and pedagogy from 1914 to 1916, which influenced young schoolchildren (aged 5–14) to create drawings and paintings of Germany’s military in World War I. In this art, the children drew bodies of German soldiers as tough, heroic, on the move, armed with powerful weapons, and part of a superior military movement; their enemies (French, Russian, British soldiers) embodied disorder, backwardness, ineptitude, and deadly weakness. The artwork by these schoolchildren thus reveals the intense propaganda of the war years, and the children’s tendency to see the German military as the most accomplished combatant in the war. During the first two years of the war, in the primary schools of the nation, many children did such art under the supervision of teachers who passionately embraced the nation and the war cause. Within the classroom, teachers directed students to imagine the war by drawing scenes of battles, including the sinking of the Lusitania. Some of these teachers had been influenced by the Kunsterziehungsbewegung (the arts’ education movement) and thus encouraged children’s creativity in art of the war years. In this pedagogical wartime environment the young student became actively engaged in creative learning and study about the war, expressing romantic ideas of the indomitable German soldier and sailor. My research has involved analysis of over 250 school drawings done by children aged 10–14 in a school in Wilhelmsburg, near Hamburg, in 1915. I analyze the depiction of the German forces in six of these sources and also consider the history of art instruction in German schools. Furthermore, I address the ways in which historians can analyze children’s art as a historical document for understanding the child’s experience

Art · Creativity · German · Media studies · Nazi Germany · Political science · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Visual arts · World War II · European history and politics · History · Law · Visual Culture and Art Theory · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact

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