Bilderbuch für Kinder – Picture Book for Children

Organizer

Croatian School Museum, Trg Republike Hrvatske 4, 10000 Zagreb www.hsmuzej.hr

On the Behalf of the Organizer

Branka Manin

Author of the Exhibition

Kristina Gverić

Visual Design of the Exhibition

Lana Krpina

Marketing

Marijana Bračić

Educational Programme

Ivana Dumbović Žužić, Kristina Gverić

Technical associate

Fredy Fijačko

The exhibition and catalogue were financed by the City Office for Education, Culture and Sport and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

 From March 7, 2016 to October 22, 2016

When looking upon a picture encyclopaedia for children, created at the turn of the 18th into 19th century, from today's point of view, we comprehend the world as constant, and at the same time very changeable. Amongst people there was always a wish and a need for searching, researching, exploring of the near and far surroundings. There is also the need for knowledge and its dissemination as well as the pedagogical awareness. The adjustment and the convergence of the acquired knowledge, the adult world to children, is the basic idea of Friedrich Justin Bertuch, the creator of picture encyclopaedia for children Bilderbuch für Kinder – Picture Book for Children.

Bertuch's encyclopaedia originated in Weimar – German and European cultural centre of the time – from 1790 to 1830. In that encirclement in which Goethe, Schiller and Herder act and create, Bertuch, at the same time patron of the art  and a businessman, makes necessary preconditions that enabled and influenced publishing of the, from many experts point of view today, first picture encyclopaedia for children. Bertuch, the so called father of the picture book, was one of the founders of the art school whose professors and pupils created illustrations for the future Picture Book. Furthermore, he published literary-critical papers, newspapers, fashion magazines in which illustrations had a very important role, and in which he published Picture Book contents monthly. Also, Bertuch founded the artificial flower factory and employed exclusively middle class girls to help them maintain their existence. One of them was Christiana Vulpius, later Goethe's spouse.

Bertuch managed his business empire, including all mentioned activities, under the title Regional Industry Repository and employed 10% of the entire Weimar population.

Besides his business empire, Bertuch created a true visual realm – an encyclopaedia for children in 12 volumes, comprising 1185 pages and 6000 illustrations, published in approximately 3000 copies. Also the issues were published at other important European centres, such as Prague and Vienna.

Bertuch always offers to his reader a pictorial display on the left side and the facts on the shown on the right side, as did Komensky in the Orbis Sensualium Pictus. The precedence of the picture in the reader’s perception is a clear sign that hands-on approach is the author’s basic pedagogical principle. He furthermore accentuates on illustrations to be nice and neat, not complicated at all so they would not baffle child’s imagination. Texts should be concise, clearly conceived and adapted to children. The world that picture book introduces to a child is weird, unknown, far and alien. A child cannot see that world in his or her surroundings, a child does not participate or act in that world. Picture book is the guide. It reveals the world to a child and only then the child acts as an active participant succeeding in learning – which is the ultimate goal. That is the goal the Croatian School Museum wishes to achieve with the exhibition Bertuch’s Visual Realm – Discover the Secrets of the Picture Encyclopaedia. Celebrating its 115th birthday the Museum displays the holdings donated in the first year of its existence. A way back in 1901 the Museum accepted a valuable donation from Andrija Filković, teacher and headmaster at Lower Elementary School in Rakovac.

Today we put on display seven volumes (almost entirely preserved for 115 years) of the Bertuch’s picture encyclopaedia for children, published in Vienna at the A. Pichlers Witwe & Sohn publishing company in the first decade of the 19th century. The Croatian School Museum is the only one to have these holdings in the mentioned state and volume. The exhibition’s aim is to inform / acquaint Croatian public, pedagogical public and our visitors, children and pupils, with this valuable accomplishment of an interesting enthusiast, erudite, European intellectual that lived on the turn from 18th to 19th century.

Although, at first glance all of the 636 displayed museum objects seem cheerful, playful and fun to the visitor – which, of course, they are – the exhibition is exceptionally valuable and the result of a serious work. Everybody who ever worked with children knows them to be the most candid and the most critical public. That was the main reason for the exhibition to be the outcome of a serious pedagogical and curatorial work – my own and as well of my associates and predecessors who tended for the holdings for the past 115 years.

We wish to remind that the Croatian School Museum is the only institution that collects, keeps and displays the holdings related to the history of education. It is the institution that preserves the stories of our schools, pupils and teachers.

The author finds the detail on the holdings origin the most fascinating one. The awareness of a teacher – an “ordinary” man – of the need to preserve the heritage, which can be noticed today when working with colleagues and co-workers on everyday basis, enabled the representation of the holdings donated by a teacher and head master from Lower Elementary School in Rakovac in 1901 the celebration of the Museum’s  115th birthday.

Bertuch with his Picture Book for Children did what the Croatian School Museum does throughout the entire 115 years of its existence – educates, records, determines and  saves the world around to preserve it for the future generations.