»All pedagogisk konst är dålig konst – och all god konst är pedagogisk«

Lennart Hellsing i Skolradion

Abstract

»All Pedagogical Art is Bad Art – and All Good Art is Pedagogical.« Lennart Hellsing and Swedish School Broadcasting

Lennart Hellsing has often been regarded as one of the modernists of Swedish children’s literature. He distanced himself from art that primarily was didactic: »All pedagogical art is bad art – and all good art is pedagogical,« as he once declared in a famous statement. All the same he made a lot of pedagogical works of art himself: in the 1950s he wrote eleven programs for the Swedish School Broadcasting. This article tries to explain how this was possible – and it will also discuss the result: can his pedagogical programs really be regarded as »bad art« in Hellsing’s meaning of the word? One of his programs, We are building a house, a »musical fairy tale« from 1953, written in cooperation with the composer Lille Bror Söderlundh, is chosen as an example. This program does not only teach the pupils in Swedish schools how to build a house, it also mirrors (and supports) the modernization of Swedish society. One of its intertexts appears to be a song play by Paul Hindemith, one of the most famous composers of the German »neue Sachlichkeit« in the 1920s. However, Hellsing did not only want to teach, it is obvious that he also tried to create what he called »good art,« art that stimulated children’s imagination and made them feel happy. His program is full of (in some cases very modernistic) aesthetic devices, activating the listening children at the same time giving them aesthetic experiences. The reports from the schools also show that the pupils were fascinated by the program: it made them happy and full of joy – just as Hellsing thought »good art« should work. Hellsing should therefore perhaps revise his aphorism; We are building a house seems to show that also pedagogical art can be good art – and that it is possible to combine learning with pleasure.