Priscila Lena Farias / Anna Calvera Marcos da Costa ... - Blucher

Teaching arts and crafts or the technology transfer: Ernest Bower and textile design practice in Brazil
er words, science and technology. In spite of this, in the schools
inside the workers´ village
the children sit at low tables, of which the tops are divided into
squares for making designs for weaving. The children learn the
use of colours with blocks which they fit in the squares and
accustom themselves from an early age to designs of woven
patterns. (Pearse 1922: 42)
With regard to graphic design in particular, which is destined to
the printshop, Pearse’s report (1922: 30) provides an opportunity
to revise our ideas about the existence of some kind of formal
technical instruction with industry.
In one of the mills which has a large printing department, special
art classes were held, besides ordinary educational classes.
Some excellent original work had been done by these young
students who were qualifying as designers.
It is unlikely that either Bowers or his compatriots had played a
purely pedagogical role, because he did not state in any report
where the teaching work in itself would be carried out. However,
it is certain that teaching was one of his goals:
In Brazil part of his work involved teaching. His job was to oversee
and teach; he was not confined to the engraving shop. This was
no doubt a part of the appeal. He had wanted to be a teacher and
teaching would have suited him. His younger daughter, Joan,
recalls that he taught her more about painting, the colour wheel
and perspective, than she learnt at school. However, Ernest did
not have the opprtunity to train as a teacher. His family probably
needed his income, an income that would have been delayed by
teacher-training (Wain 2003: 44)
It is believed that the transmission of his knowledge was probably
restricted to teaching the workman-apprentice the “skills
training manual [...] reinforced by observation and continual
practice” which, according to Flexor (2002: 190) does not allow
any “scientific concern of any kind or rationalization of activities”
or in other words, simply perpetuates the imitation of procedures,
which was common in the period.
The use of references and the practice of duplicating designs
raised by Pearse (1922) serve to confirm that in this teachinglearning
system, there is obviously an idea that creativity does
not form a part of the process. However, Clark (1910) made it
very clear that drawing and designing are taught which clearly
Figure 7. Bower´s sketchbook.
presupposes that the design was adapted to the limitations of
the production equipment.
This practice was the main problem of the learning process in
the manufacturing sector (Flexor 2002). There was never a case
of an artist who had a grounding in observation and the continuous
practice of an apprentice, because there was never any
chance of offering ideas or plans that could modify the existing
processes given the fact that the operations were standardized.
This explains why all the reports consulted suggest that in Brazil
the manufacturers duplicated the foreign designs.
5. Conclusion
When the extensive visual documentation and the oral evidence
verified by Sarah Wain is examined, it is evident that there were
learning practices, simply because they could be repeated, without
any implication that there was a transfer of technology. As a
result, it will be necessary (by employing the scientific concepts
of the work of the designer/engraver) not only to move technology
from one place to another but also to ensure its use and acceptance
at its final destination. Moreover, it can be believed that
in the case of textile design, what was being dealt with was the
teaching of crafts as a part of a teaching process concerned with
practical and technical areas.
In theory, the inadequate utilization of foreign knowledge,
at times also arises from the fact that we ignore design as a
competitive strategy. If at that time “the commercial success
of printed cotton depended almost entirely on the appeal of its
decorative motifs” (Forty 2007: 65) and this fact was already
known in England, here the design of fabrics has still not been
exploited to any extent. This suggests that we are experiencing
a problem that concerns not only technological backwardness
that prevents us from producing equivalent fabrics, but also
affects our mentality with regard to the benefits of design and
the role of education in this context. Hence one must agree with
Markert (1993) who states that for a transfer of technology to
have positive results, it must also have been developed at the
end of the transfer process with the final conditions of its use in
mind. Without doubt, the creation of printed patterns in England
accompanied this reasoning because art and technique have
walked hand-in-hand, while in Brazil, obsolete reflections have
led to a model of reproduced designs being imported, a problem
that is still very prevalent today.
References
Clark, W. 1910. Cotton goods in Latin America. Washington: Government
Printing Office.
Flexor, M. 2002. Ofícios, manufaturas e comércio. In:Szmrecsányi, T.
História econômica do período colonial. São Paulo: Edusp/IOESP/Hucitec.
Forty, A. 2007. Objetos do desejo. São Paulo: Cosac & Naify.
Design Frontiers: Territiories, Concepts, Technologies 105