Monatsmeinung

I'm going to take this in hand!

Angelika Lonnemann

Our early ancestors adopted an upright posture in the course of development and were one day able to walk on two legs. Their eyes could suddenly perceive more from this new perspective. Was this the beginning of the age of homo pictor? The French palaeontologist André Leroi-Gourhan proposed a most interesting theory in the 1960s. In his book Gesture and Speech he explains how homo pictor emerged at some point in human development. At It was not imitation that stood at the beginning of figurative design (wall paintings, sculptures made of bone or stone) but abstraction. Leroi-Gourhan analyses the way of life of earlier humans, examining the function, intention and significance of the objects that they used (in a sense as an extension of their hands). Thus he explores how the activity of the hands of early humans reflected their thinking.

When through the many artistic and craft subjects Waldorf teachers succeed in developing a wide range of abilities in children in the course of their school life, this is an asset that opens up many future possibilities for the pupils. 

In our language, too, the connection between hand and understanding as well as doing is visible in words and metaphors: handling, grasping, lend a hand, underhand, be a dab hand, get a handle on something. It's fun to think about this special relationship.

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