Crystals - the Source of Inspiration
| Crystals, crystalline and polycrystalline
substances are the „daily bread“ of crystallographers’ investigations, theoretical
and practical interpretations. They deal with the natural and synthetic material by
different physical and chemical experimental methods, study their structure, texture,
orientation, composition, faults, qualities etc. Are you interested how the children, attending the Artistic Studio Vyšehrad rendered the subject - crystal? In April 1998 a new subject - crystal was submitted for the creative work of children of age from 3 to 15 years. The children begun to find out what kind of feelings the crystals evoke in them. They looked at the crystal as if it was a man whom they see for the first time and they want to know his character and secret. They put the emphasis on visual sensations and they draw inspiration from the external look of crystal. They observed its shade of colours, richness of natural plane faces, symmetry, gloss, hardness, softness, splitting and brittleness. The crystal became the source of inspiration for fantasy and new questions for all children. For the youngest the world of crystals became the part of the fairy tales world. The older ones searched for the world of crystals in the books, text-books and crystallographic atlas. They attentively listened to the teacher of natural science who told with them and answered their questions. The children wanted to know how and when the Earth and crystals occurred. They imagined themselves to be a hot lava transforming into the solid state which fixes and holds up this moment of transformation for ages. They tried to think about the processes inside the Earth, where the hot matter animated, coloured, moves, dances till the malicious power - the big pressures - turns them into immobile crystals. They wanted to know why the crystal of particular compound crystallises only in the same definite crystal lattice, but in different greatness. |
The crystal is the mystery of the Earth, the crystal is the memory and history of Earth written in stone, the crystal is the jewellery of the Earth, the crystal is the stone in flower, the crystal is the puzzling adventure. The conception and connection of crystals and cubism was easy to understand for them: a sorcerer came one day, said magic formula and everything turn into the crystal’s geometric form. Maybe, that also the small cook in ‘’Sleeping Beauty’’ fairy tale had cubic shapes. After some time the children used the painting techniques (drawing, graphic art, linocut, tempera, painting ), their combinations, and also the special, three dimensional work to express feelings and emotions which world of crystals evoked in them. Paintings presented on the occasion of 18th ECM are the first results of art -meeting of children from the Artistic Studio Vyšehrad and crystals. As the children are interested in the world and life of crystals and want to know more about it, we will continue in dealing with this subject for further artistic rendering. For younger children through the crystal fairy tales. We will try to show to the older ones how to look into an inside structure of crystals to foster their inquisitiveness and also for our common crystallographic future.
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K. Šilhánová1, L. Dobiášová2
1 Artistic Studio Vyšehrad, Vladislavova 13, Praha
2 Faculty of Math. and Physics, Charles University, Praha
