The criticism of illustrations based on their effect on reader’s imagination took two opposing forms during the nineteenth century: illustrations were criticized because they limit the imagination and because they excessively stimulate the imagination.
Writing for The Quarterly Journal of Education in 1834, Barwell discusses the pedagogical risks of inciting too much imagination in children. Discussing this excess of imagination, he posits that such excess is often the product of illustrations:
Such minds delight in improbabilities and tales of wonder: the marvellous to them is more attractive than truth, and if they be not checked, the judgment is sacrificed, and the reasoning powers almost destroyed. Nothing tends to the fostering of this quality of the mind more than ordinary prints. An excess of imagination is either the cause or effect (most probably the former) of mental indolence; and where it prevails, the child will prefer gazing on a print to informing itself of the reality of the subject which the print illustrates. In an inquiring mind, an engraving will create a desire to know more, and when the facts are acquired, the defects or improbabilities of the illustration will be detected. An imaginative mind takes all upon trust, it does not wish to inquire, it believes. Good engravings, by which term we mean correct representations, judiciously employed, are of great assistance in education; but children’s books often contain illustrations which absolutely contradict the impression that the words convey, and create incorrect ideas and associations which it is impossible wholly to eradicate.
(293–4; original emphasis)
Barwell’s critique of illustrations based on their effect on the imagination partially overlaps with other critical arguments, namely that illustrations contradict the text and that illustrations undermine intellectual pursuits. Moreover, in the discussion of the effect of illustrations on children’s imagination, the essay takes up thoughts that had been discussed earlier–though with somewhat different implications. For instance, in their essay “Toys” (1798), Maria and R. L. Edgeworth discuss the positive effects of illustrations on the imagination. They argue that illustrations “teach accuracy of sight, […] engage the attention, and employ the imagination” (11). However, emphasizing the importance of the accuracy of the representations, the authors caution that prints “should be chosen with great care,” as they can often produce false ideas and fill the imagination “with chimeras” (13).
The common prints of animals must give children false ideas. The mouse and the elephant are nearly of the same size; and the salmon and whale fill the same space in the page.
(13)
To an extent, Maria and R. L. Edgeworth thus already anticipate Barwell’s critique of illustrations.
Over the long run, the notion that illustrations produce an excess of the imagination seems to recede. In the course of the nineteenth century, the discourse appears to center increasingly on idea that illustrations limit the imagination.
Works Cited
Barwell. “Early Education.” The Quarterly Journal of Education, Vol. VII, no. 14, January-April, 1834, pp. 281–96.
Edgeworth, Maria and R. L. Edgeworth. Essays on Practical Education. London: J. Johnson and Co., 1798.