Explore play therapy techniques, benefits for children, training for therapists, and how this approach fosters emotional healing and growth.
What is play therapy?
Play therapy is a therapeutic approach that acknowledges that play is the natural language of children. Through play, children are able to express themselves, work through conflicts, and resolve emotional and mental issues. It provides a safe and supportive environment for children to explore their feelings, thoughts, and experiences.
In play therapy, trained therapists utilize a range of toys and materials to engage children in various play activities. These activities allow children to communicate and process their emotions, build social skills, and develop coping mechanisms. Play therapy is particularly effective for children who may not have the language skills or emotional maturity to express themselves verbally.
The age range typically targeted for play therapy is between 3 to 12 years old, although it can be beneficial for older children and even adults in some cases. By engaging in play, children are able to symbolically represent their inner world and recreate scenarios that may be troubling or challenging for them. Through this process, they are able to gain insight, develop problem-solving skills, and build resilience.
Play therapy is grounded in the understanding that children's play has meaning and purpose. It provides a unique opportunity for children to explore and understand their thoughts and emotions in a safe and non-judgmental environment. When used effectively, play therapy can be a powerful tool for facilitating emotional growth and healing in children.
- Play therapy allows children to express themselves through their natural language, play.
- It provides a safe and supportive environment for children to work through conflicts and resolve emotional and mental issues.
- Play therapy is beneficial for children within the age range of 3 to 12, but can also be effective for older children and adults.
Theoretical Background of Play-Based Therapy
One of the key theoretical frameworks in play-based therapy is the child-centered approach. This approach, developed by Virginia Axline, emphasizes the importance of unconditional positive regard, empathy, and genuineness in the therapeutic relationship. The therapist creates a safe space for the child to freely express their thoughts and feelings through play, without judgment or interpretation.
The child is considered the expert in their own world, and the therapist acts as a facilitator, following the child's lead and supporting their exploration.
Another theoretical framework used in play-based therapy is the filial approach. In this approach, parents or caregivers are trained to become active participants in their children's therapy sessions. They learn techniques and strategies to engage in therapeutic play with their child, promoting healing and growth within the parent-child relationship. This approach recognizes the significant role that parents play in their child's development and emotional well-being.
The dyadic approach is another theoretical framework that focuses on the specific dynamics between the child and therapist. It emphasizes the importance of the therapeutic relationship in facilitating change and growth. The therapist actively engages with the child in play, building trust and attachment, and providing a nurturing and accepting environment.
To become a competent play therapist, appropriate education and training are essential. Practitioners need a solid understanding of child development, play theory, and the application of therapeutic techniques within a play-based context. They must also possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills, as building rapport and establishing a strong therapeutic alliance is crucial in play-based therapy.
In conclusion, the theoretical background of play-based therapy emphasizes the importance of play as a means of communication and healing for individuals, particularly children. The child-centered, filial, and dyadic approaches provide different frameworks for therapists to engage with their clients.
By understanding these theoretical foundations and acquiring the necessary skills through education and training, practitioners can effectively facilitate therapeutic change through play.
- Play-based therapy recognizes the importance of providing a safe and non-judgmental space for children to freely express themselves.
- The filial approach involves training parents or caregivers to actively participate in their child's therapy, fostering healing within the parent-child relationship.
- The dyadic approach highlights the significance of the therapeutic relationship between the child and therapist in promoting growth and change.
9 Benefits of Play Therapy
Play therapy is a highly effective therapeutic approach that harnesses the power of play to promote emotional healing and growth in children. By providing a safe and non-judgmental space, play therapy offers numerous benefits that help children develop coping strategies, self-respect, empathy, and social skills.
1. Coping Strategies: Through play, children can explore and express their emotions, thoughts, and experiences. This process allows them to develop effective coping strategies to manage challenging situations and regulate their emotions.
2. Self-Respect: Play therapy helps children develop a sense of self-worth and self-esteem. By engaging in play, they can make choices, take risks, and experience success, fostering a positive view of themselves.
3. Empathy: Play therapy encourages children to understand and empathize with the emotions and experiences of others. Through play, they learn to consider different perspectives, enhancing their ability to relate to and support others.
4. Social Skills: Play therapy provides a fertile ground for children to develop and practice social skills. They can learn to communicate, negotiate, take turns, and resolve conflicts in a safe and structured setting.
5. Emotional Expression: Play therapy allows children to express their emotions freely without fear of judgment. This process helps them release pent-up feelings and develop a better understanding of their emotional experiences.
6. Behavior Management: Play therapy addresses behavioral disorders by helping children identify and understand the underlying causes of their problematic behaviors. By exploring these issues in play, they can develop healthier ways of expressing themselves.
7. Learning Disabilities: Play therapy can support children with learning disabilities by providing a hands-on and engaging approach to acquiring new skills and knowledge. Through play, they can enhance their cognitive abilities, problem-solving skills, and academic performance.
8. Trauma Recovery: Play therapy is particularly effective in helping children recover from traumatic events. In play, they can safely revisit and process their traumatic experiences, gradually integrating them into their narrative and finding healing.
9. Building Relationships: Play therapy facilitates the development of secure and trusting relationships between the child and therapist. This bond provides a solid foundation for the child to develop healthy relationships with others outside the therapy setting.
Play therapy offers a wide range of benefits for children, including the development of coping strategies, self-respect, empathy, and social skills. It can also support children with behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, and trauma, offering a safe and healing space for emotional growth. Through play, children can find their voice, gain a better understanding of themselves and others, and ultimately thrive.
What are Play Therapists?
Play therapists are highly trained professionals who specialize in using play as a therapeutic tool to help children navigate their emotional and psychological challenges. These therapists have a deep understanding of child development, mental health, and the therapeutic power of play. Their role is to create a safe and nurturing environment where children can freely express themselves and work through their difficulties.
Play therapists undergo extensive training and education to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively work with children. Many play therapists have a background in psychology, counseling, or social work, and they often hold advanced degrees in these fields. They are also required to complete specialized training in play therapy techniques and theories.
Play therapists are responsible for assessing and diagnosing children's emotional and behavioral issues. Using observation, interviews, and various play techniques, they gain insights into the child's inner world and develop customized treatment plans. These therapists facilitate therapeutic play sessions, providing a wide range of play materials that allow children to explore and express themselves.
Career paths for individuals seeking to become play therapists vary depending on their level of training and experience. Some may start by obtaining a bachelor's degree in psychology or a related field, followed by a master's degree in counseling. Others may pursue a doctoral degree in counseling or psychology to gain a higher level of expertise and specialization in the field of play therapy.
Possible career paths for play therapists include working in private practice, schools, hospitals, community mental health centers, and non-profit organizations. They may also choose to specialize in specific areas, such as trauma-focused play therapy, play therapy for children with autism, or family-based play therapy.
Overall, play therapists play a crucial role in helping children heal, grow, and develop resilience through the power of play. Their training, credentials, and expertise make them uniquely qualified to support children in their emotional and psychological well-being.
- Play therapists undergo extensive training and education in child development and mental health.
- They create a safe and nurturing environment for children to express themselves through play.
10 Different Play Therapy Approaches: From Jungian to Gestalt
Play therapy is a versatile and dynamic field that encompasses a wide range of therapeutic approaches. Each approach brings its own unique features and techniques to help children address various psychological and emotional issues. Let's explore ten different play therapy approaches, from Jungian to Gestalt, and discover what sets each one apart.
1. Jungian Play Therapy: This approach draws on Carl Jung's theories of the collective unconscious and symbolic imagery. Therapists use play materials, such as miniatures and sand, to encourage children to explore their unconscious thoughts and emotions.
2. Gestalt Play Therapy: Rooted in the Gestalt therapy tradition, this approach focuses on the present moment and encourages children to fully experience their emotions. Therapists may use guided imagery, role-play, or art techniques to help children gain insight and integrate their thoughts and feelings.
3. Filial Therapy: In this approach, parents are actively involved in the play therapy process. Therapists guide parents in conducting play sessions with their children to strengthen the parent-child relationship, enhance communication, and promote emotional growth.
4. Cognitive-Behavioral Play Therapy: Building on cognitive-behavioral principles, this approach helps children identify and challenge negative thoughts and behaviors. Therapists may use games, puppets, or structured activities to teach problem-solving skills and promote positive changes.
5. Narrative Play Therapy: This approach uses storytelling and metaphorical play to help children create and narrate their own stories. Therapists encourage children to express their feelings, explore alternative perspectives, and develop resilience through the power of storytelling.
6. Expressive Arts Play Therapy: This approach combines various art modalities, such as painting, drawing, and sculpture, with play therapy techniques. Children can express themselves non-verbally and explore their emotions through the creative process.
7. Adlerian Play Therapy: Derived from Alfred Adler's theories, this approach focuses on helping children develop a sense of belonging and significance. Therapists use play to explore the child's mistaken beliefs and encourage the development of healthier thoughts and behaviors.
8. Ecosystemic Play Therapy: Within this approach, therapists consider the child's environment and relationships as vital components of the therapeutic process. By addressing systemic factors, such as family dynamics and community support, therapists aim to promote holistic healing.
9. Art Therapy: While not exclusively a play therapy approach, art therapy uses the creative process to promote personal growth and healing. Through exploration and expression in art-making, children can communicate, process emotions, and find self-discovery.
10. Sensorimotor Play Therapy: This approach incorporates sensory and motor activities to help children regulate their nervous systems and develop adaptive coping strategies. Therapists may use movement, touch, or sensory tools to promote self-regulation and emotional well-being.
Each play therapy approach offers unique tools and techniques to address children's psychological and emotional challenges. By tailoring the therapeutic process to each child's needs, play therapists can create a safe and nurturing space for healing and growth.
- Jungian Play Therapy encourages exploration of the unconscious through symbolic play materials.
- Filial Therapy involves active parental involvement in the play therapy process.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Play Therapy helps children challenge negative thoughts and behaviors through structured activities.
Sand Play Therapy
Sand play therapy offers a unique and powerful approach to play therapy sessions, providing children with a safe and non-threatening space to express their thoughts and emotions through the medium of sand.
This therapeutic technique involves the use of a tray filled with sand and an array of objects, allowing children to freely create and manipulate their own worlds within the sand.
In the sand play therapy process, children are encouraged to explore and interact with the sand using various tools and objects, such as miniature figurines, building blocks, and natural materials. They can construct landscapes, create stories, and rearrange the sand in any way that they wish. This process allows them to externalize their internal world and bring to light their deepest thoughts, fears, desires, and conflicts.
One of the key benefits of sand play therapy is its ability to promote emotional healing and growth in children. Through the act of playing in the sand, children are able to access and process unconscious material, helping them to develop a deeper understanding of their own emotions and experiences.
Sand play therapy provides a symbolic and non-verbal language for expressing and working through complex feelings and situations.
- Sand play therapy offers a unique and powerful approach to play therapy sessions, allowing children to express their thoughts and emotions through the medium of sand.
- By providing a safe and non-threatening space for children to create and manipulate their own worlds within the sand, sand play therapy allows them to explore their deepest thoughts and conflicts.
- Sand play therapy promotes emotional healing and growth in children by helping them access and process unconscious material, leading to a deeper understanding of their own emotions and experiences.
Play Therapy for Special Needs
Play therapy is a therapeutic approach that holds immense potential in supporting children with special needs. These children often face unique challenges, and play therapy offers an effective means of addressing their specific needs and fostering their overall development.
By creating a safe and supportive environment, play therapy allows children to express themselves, explore their emotions, and develop essential social and emotional skills.
Children with conditions such as autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder can greatly benefit from play therapy. This approach provides them with a non-threatening space to engage in self-expression and promote their emotional well-being.
Through play, children can learn to regulate their emotions, develop problem-solving skills, and enhance their social interactions.
Play therapy for special needs encompasses various techniques, including directive play therapy and non-directive play therapy. In directive play therapy, the therapist takes an active role in guiding the child's play, providing structure and specific interventions to address targeted goals.
On the other hand, non-directive play therapy encourages the child to lead the play and express themselves freely, allowing for self-discovery and personal growth.
- Play therapy is a valuable tool for supporting children with special needs, creating a safe space for self-expression and skills development.
- Conditions like autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder can be effectively addressed through play therapy.
- Directive play therapy and non-directive play therapy are commonly used techniques in play therapy for special needs.
In conclusion, play therapy offers a unique and effective approach for supporting children with special needs. By providing a safe and engaging environment, play therapy helps children express themselves, build essential skills, and promote their overall emotional well-being.
Whether utilizing directive or non-directive techniques, play therapy can be a valuable tool in enhancing the lives of children with conditions such as autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Who are the Play Therapy Association?
The Play Therapy Association plays a pivotal role in the field of play therapy by providing support, resources, and a sense of community for professionals working in this specialized area.
As an organization, it aims to promote the effectiveness and ethical use of play therapy in helping children overcome various challenges and achieve positive outcomes.
Accreditation requirements set by the Play Therapy Association ensure that play therapists possess the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively engage in this therapeutic approach.
These requirements may include completion of specific training programs, supervised practice hours, and adherence to a code of ethics. By meeting these standards, play therapists can demonstrate their competence and commitment to providing high-quality care for their clients.
The Play Therapy Association also offers different credentials to recognize and distinguish individuals who have achieved advanced levels of proficiency in play therapy. These credentials, such as Registered Play Therapist (RPT) or Registered Play Therapist-Supervisor (RPT-S), not only recognize the expertise of the play therapist but also provide assurance to clients and other professionals about their qualifications.
- The Play Therapy Association supports professionals in the field of play therapy, promoting its effectiveness and ethical use.
- Accreditation requirements ensure that play therapists possess the necessary skills and knowledge for effective practice.
- Play therapists can attain various credentials, recognizing their expertise and commitment to high-quality care.
10 Real-Life Success Stories
Play therapy has been proven to be an effective therapeutic approach in addressing a variety of issues, including trauma, anxiety, behavioral difficulties, and communication skills. Through real-life success stories, we can see how play therapy has made a positive impact on the lives of individuals, regardless of their age.
Case 1: A young child who experienced a traumatic event found it difficult to express their emotions verbally. Through play therapy, they were able to use toys and art materials to communicate their feelings, facilitating the healing process and reducing anxiety levels.
Case 2: An adolescent struggling with behavioral difficulties and anger management benefited from play therapy sessions. By engaging in play, they learned coping strategies, problem-solving skills, and healthy ways to express their emotions, resulting in improved behavior and social interactions.
Case 3: A young adult with anxiety found relief through play therapy. Through the use of guided play activities, they were able to explore their anxieties, develop relaxation techniques, and build resilience, leading to a reduction in anxiety symptoms and improved daily functioning.
Case 4: A child with communication difficulties made significant progress in their social skills through play therapy. By engaging in pretend play scenarios and interactive games, they developed language and social communication skills, leading to improved relationships with peers and family members.
Case 5: An individual struggling with trauma and PTSD found healing through play therapy. By engaging in sensory play activities, such as sandplay therapy, they were able to process and release traumatic memories, resulting in reduced distress and improved emotional well-being.
Case 6: A child with autism spectrum disorder experienced significant improvements in their social interactions and communication skills through play therapy. By engaging in play-based interventions specifically tailored to their needs, they developed foundational skills necessary for positive interactions and relationships.
Case 7: A child with severe anxiety and phobias made progress through play therapy. By engaging in exposure-based play activities, they gradually confronted their fears in a safe and controlled environment, leading to a reduction in anxiety symptoms and an increase in their ability to cope with fear-inducing situations.
Case 8: A child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) improved their self-regulation and focus through play therapy sessions. By engaging in structured play activities and games that targeted their specific needs, they developed skills to manage their impulses and improve their attention span.
Case 9: A child struggling with emotional regulation and self-esteem issues found healing through play therapy. By engaging in creative and expressive play activities, such as art therapy, they developed a sense of self-worth and learned healthy ways to express and manage their emotions.
Case 10: An adult with a history of trauma and anxiety found solace and healing through play therapy. By engaging in guided play activities, they were able to explore and process their past experiences in a safe and non-judgmental environment, resulting in increased emotional resilience and improved overall well-being.
7 Publications into the Effectiveness of Play Therapy
Due to the narrow word limit, it is not possible to provide detailed summaries of each publication. However, I will briefly mention seven publications that provide evidence of the effectiveness of play therapy:
1. Bratton et al. (2005) conducted a meta-analytic review of 93 research studies and found that play therapy was effective in reducing behavioral disorders, improving social skills, and enhancing overall psychosocial functioning in children.
2. Ray et al. (2020) examined the use of play therapy as an intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder. The study found that play therapy led to improvements in social communication skills, adaptive behavior, and overall well-being.
3. Landreth (2012) explored the effectiveness of child-centered play therapy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) children. The study concluded that play therapy interventions resulted in reductions in ADHD-related symptoms and improved emotional regulation.
4. Lin et al. (2019) investigated the effectiveness of play therapy in children with emotional and behavioral difficulties. The study found that play therapy was associated with significant improvements in emotional development, interpersonal relationships, and overall psychosocial functioning.
5. Schaefer et al. (2010) conducted a meta-analysis of play therapy interventions for children with trauma-related symptoms. The findings indicated that play therapy was effective in reducing traumatic stress and improving coping strategies in children who experienced traumatic events.
6. Tseng et al. (2017) examined the use of play therapy for children with anxiety disorders. The study found that play therapy reduced anxiety symptoms and improved adaptive behaviors in children of different age groups.
7. Webb et al. (2019) explored the effectiveness of play therapy with children experiencing grief and loss. The study found that play therapy interventions facilitated the expression of emotions, reduced grief-related symptoms, and promoted healthy grieving processes.
These publications provide evidence that play therapy is an effective intervention for various psychological difficulties in children, including behavioral disorders, anxiety, trauma, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and grief and loss.


Values education is the process by which people give moral values to each other. According to powney j cullen m-a shlapp u. johnstonei love wikipedia. It can be an activity that can take place in any human organisation. During which people are assisted by others, who may be older, in a condition experienced to make explicit our ethics in order to assess the effectiveness of these values and associated behaviour for their own and others' long term well-being, and to reflect on and acquire other values and behaviour which they recognise as being more effective for long term well-being of self and others. There is a difference between literacy and education.
There has been very little reliable research on the results of values education classes, but there are some encouraging preliminary results.
One definition refers to it as the process that gives young people an initiation into values, giving knowledge of the rules needed to function in this mode of relating to other people and to seek the development in the student a grasp of certain underlying principles, together with the ability to apply these rules intelligently, and to have the settled disposition to do so Some researchers use the concept values education as an umbrella of concepts that include moral education and citizenship education instead. Values education topics can address to varying degrees are character, moral development, Religious Education, Spiritual development, citizenship education, personal development, social development and cultural development.
- explicit values education is associated with those different pedagogies, methods or programmes that teachers or educators use in order to create learning experiences for students when it comes to value questions.
Another definition of value education is "learning about self and wisdom of life" in a self-exploratory, systematic and scientific way through formal education. According to C.V.Good'value education is the aggregate of all the process by means of which a person develops abilities and other forms of behaviour of the positive values in the society in which he lives.
Commonality in many "educations"
- Moral education
Morals as socio-legal-religious norms are supposed to help people behave responsibly. However, not all morals lead to responsible behaviour. Values education can show which morals are "bad" morals and which are "good". The change in behaviour comes from confusing questions about right and wrong.
American psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg who specialized in research on moral education and reasoning, and was best known for his theory of stages of moral development, believed children needed to be in an environment that allowed for open and public discussion of day-to-day conflicts and problems to develop their moral reasoning ability.
- Teacher education
Cross has made a start at documenting some teacher training attempts.
Multinational school-based values education schemes
Living Values Education Programme
This project of worldwide proportions inspired by the new religious movement called the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University incorporates twelve values (unity, peace, happiness, hope, humility, simplicity, trust, freedom, co-operation, honesty, courage, love), and has formed the basis of the whole-school ethos approach in schools such as West Kidlington Primary School, Kidlington whose head master Neil Hawkes and Values education coordinators Linda Heppenstall used the work and other programmes to help them form a values-based school. The Living Values Education Programme website lists 54 countries where values education projects are undertaken.
Human Values Foundation
The Human Values Foundation was established in 1995 to make available worldwide, a comprehensive values-themed programme for children from 4 to 12 years entitled "Education in Human Values". Its fully resourced lesson plans utilise familiar teaching techniques of discussion, story-telling, quotations, group singing, activities to reinforce learning and times of quiet reflection. Following the success of "EHV", a second programme was published – Social and Emotional Education ("SEE"), primarily for ages 12 to 14+ but it has also proved constructive for older children identified as likely to benefit from help getting their lives 'back on track. The programmes enable children and young people to explore and put into practice a wide spectrum of values with the potential to enrich their lives. Through experiential learning, over time participants develop a well-considered personal morality, all the while gaining invaluable emotional and social skills to help them lead happy, fulfilled, successful lives.
Character education is an umbrella term generally used to describe the teaching of children in a manner that will help them develop as personal and social beings. However, this definition requires research to explain what is meant by "personal and social being". Concepts that fall under this term include social and emotional learning, moral reasoning/cognitive development, life skills education, health education; violence prevention, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and conflict resolution and mediation. Lickona (1996) mentions eleven principles of successful character education. It seems to have been applied in the UK and the United States
Science of Living
Science of Living (Jeevan Vigyan; Jeevan = Life and Vigyan = Science) is a detailed program that complements the current educational approach with spiritual and value-based learning. While both mental and physical development is needed for a student's growth, Jeevan Vigyan adds a third pillar – that of emotional intelligence and morality (or values) – to education in schools and colleges. A combination of theory and practice, Jeevan Vigyan draws on the findings of various life sciences as well as nutritional sciences. Our parasympathetic nervous system and endocrinal system are known to be the drivers of our emotions and our behaviour. These biological centres can be influenced the Science of Living through a system of yogic exercises, breathing exercises, meditation and contemplation. Science of Living's source of inspiration is Jain Acharya Ganadhipati Shri Tulsi (1914–1997). His thoughts were further developed and expanded by Acharya Shri Mahapragya (1920–2010). Currently, Muni Shri Kishan Lal Ji, under the leadership of Acharya Shri Mahashraman, is the Principal of SOL.
Examples of values education from around the world
Taylor gives a thorough overview of values education in 26 European countries.
The Australian Government currently funds Values education in its schools, with its own publications and funding of school forums on values education at all levels of education. It also helps in becoming a better person. A conference on "Moral Education and Australian Values" was held in 2007 at Monash University.
The Indian Government currently promote Values education in its schools. The Ministry of Human Resource Development has taken a strong step to introduce values among schools and teachers training centres.
Elementary school and middle school students from first to ninth grades will be taught the importance of life, to listen to others with different opinions, to be fair, respect their country and learn about foreign cultures.
Teacher training institutions in Singapore all have curricular for learning to teach civics and moral education programmes – but students do not take these as seriously as they should due to lack of assessment. The reason has been said to be the lack of innovative teaching approaches such as discourse pedagogy.
There is an obligatory school subject that includes the aspect of values education and Citizenship Culture and Ethics. It is taught in 7th or 8th grade of primary school. Besides this, there are two elective subjects that partly deal with values education: Religions and Ethics (for 7th, 8th, and 9th grade) and Philosophy for children (Critical thinking, Ethical exploring, Me and the other; for 7th, 8th, and 9th grade). The Slovenian educational system does not require special training in the field of values education for teachers that teach mentioned subjects.
Values education is a part of Swedish schools. Whereas the formal curricula are about educating students to be competent democratic citizens by practising student participation, qualitative studies have shown that in everyday school life, values education and school democracy often appeared to be reduced to traditional disciplining with a high focus on rules and regulations. This in turn evokes some critiques among students. Most research on values education in Sweden is done by qualitative methods, especially ethnographic or field studies as well as a focus group and interview studies. Some studies have been conducted by survey and other quantitative methods. In addition, theoretical work with roots in Dewey and Habermas has been done on deliberative democracy and deliberative conversations in schools.
In Thailand, values have traditionally been taught within the context of Buddhist religious education. Since 1982 there has been a revival of applied values as an extracurricular activity suitable for Buddhist, Moslem and Christian students alike to prepare Thai students for the effects of globalization.
Since 1988 the British government, although not recognising or calling it values education, has promoted and respected values in the guise of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSCD) leaving the initiative to individual schools to decide how values education standards should be met. It is not clear whether there are standards of values education.
The Government and state school systems have never called it "values education". Values education courses in Britain may be implemented in the form of government-supported campaigns such as Social & Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL, but are more often provided by local experts in the form of Living Values Education Programme.
One headteacher in Cornwall has achieved national recognition for his work on character development and "virtues", at Kehelland Village School, based on Baha'i teachings. He was asked to develop the primary section of the University of Birmingham's Character Education pack for use with the national curriculum.
- Democratic education
- Educational psychology
- Emotional and behavioral disorders
- Holistic education
- Moral psychology
- Political philosophy
- Social psychology
- Society for Values in Higher Education
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Natural language generation (NLG) is a software process that produces natural language output. A widely-cited survey of NLG methods describes NLG as "the subfield of artificial intelligence and computational linguistics that is concerned with the construction of computer systems than can produce understandable texts in English or other human languages from some underlying non-linguistic representation of information".
While it is widely agreed that the output of any NLG process is text, there is some disagreement about whether the inputs of an NLG system need to be non-linguistic. Common applications of NLG methods include the production of various reports, for example weather  and patient reports; image captions; and chatbots.
Automated NLG can be compared to the process humans use when they turn ideas into writing or speech. Psycholinguists prefer the term language production for this process, which can also be described in mathematical terms, or modeled in a computer for psychological research. NLG systems can also be compared to translators of artificial computer languages, such as decompilers or transpilers, which also produce human-readable code generated from an intermediate representation. Human languages tend to be considerably more complex and allow for much more ambiguity and variety of expression than programming languages, which makes NLG more challenging.
NLG may be viewed as complementary to natural-language understanding (NLU): whereas in natural-language understanding, the system needs to disambiguate the input sentence to produce the machine representation language, in NLG the system needs to make decisions about how to put a representation into words. The practical considerations in building NLU vs. NLG systems are not symmetrical. NLU needs to deal with ambiguous or erroneous user input, whereas the ideas the system wants to express through NLG are generally known precisely. NLG needs to choose a specific, self-consistent textual representation from many potential representations, whereas NLU generally tries to produce a single, normalized representation of the idea expressed.
NLG has existed since ELIZA was developed in the mid 1960s, but the methods were first used commercially in the 1990s. NLG techniques range from simple template-based systems like a mail merge that generates form letters, to systems that have a complex understanding of human grammar. NLG can also be accomplished by training a statistical model using machine learning, typically on a large corpus of human-written texts.
The Pollen Forecast for Scotland system is a simple example of a simple NLG system that could essentially be a template. This system takes as input six numbers, which give predicted pollen levels in different parts of Scotland. From these numbers, the system generates a short textual summary of pollen levels as its output.
For example, using the historical data for July 1, 2005, the software produces:
Grass pollen levels for Friday have increased from the moderate to high levels of yesterday with values of around 6 to 7 across most parts of the country. However, in Northern areas, pollen levels will be moderate with values of 4.
In contrast, the actual forecast (written by a human meteorologist) from this data was:
Pollen counts are expected to remain high at level 6 over most of Scotland, and even level 7 in the south east. The only relief is in the Northern Isles and far northeast of mainland Scotland with medium levels of pollen count.
Comparing these two illustrates some of the choices that NLG systems must make; these are further discussed below.
The process to generate text can be as simple as keeping a list of canned text that is copied and pasted, possibly linked with some glue text. The results may be satisfactory in simple domains such as horoscope machines or generators of personalised business letters. However, a sophisticated NLG system needs to include stages of planning and merging of information to enable the generation of text that looks natural and does not become repetitive. The typical stages of natural-language generation, as proposed by Dale and Reiter, are:
Content determination: Deciding what information to mention in the text. For instance, in the pollen example above, deciding whether to explicitly mention that pollen level is 7 in the south east.
Document structuring: Overall organisation of the information to convey. For example, deciding to describe the areas with high pollen levels first, instead of the areas with low pollen levels.
Aggregation: Merging of similar sentences to improve readability and naturalness. For instance, merging the two following sentences:
- Grass pollen levels for Friday have increased from the moderate to high levels of yesterday and
- Grass pollen levels will be around 6 to 7 across most parts of the country
into the following single sentence:
- Grass pollen levels for Friday have increased from the moderate to high levels of yesterday with values of around 6 to 7 across most parts of the country.
Lexical choice: Putting words to the concepts. For example, deciding whether medium or moderate should be used when describing a pollen level of 4.
Referring expression generation: Creating referring expressions that identify objects and regions. For example, deciding to use in the Northern Isles and far northeast of mainland Scotland to refer to a certain region in Scotland. This task also includes making decisions about pronouns and other types of anaphora.
An alternative approach to NLG is to use "end-to-end" machine learning to build a system, without having separate stages as above. In other words, we build an NLG system by training a machine learning algorithm (often an LSTM) on a large data set of input data and corresponding (human-written) output texts. The end-to-end approach has perhaps been most successful in image captioning, that is automatically generating a textual caption for an image.
Automatic report generation
From a commercial perspective, the most successful NLG applications have been data-to-text systems which generate textual summaries of databases and data sets; these systems usually perform data analysis as well as text generation. Research has shown that textual summaries can be more effective than graphs and other visuals for decision support, and that computer-generated texts can be superior (from the reader's perspective) to human-written texts.
The first commercial data-to-text systems produced weather forecasts from weather data. The earliest such system to be deployed was FoG, which was used by Environment Canada to generate weather forecasts in French and English in the early 1990s. The success of FoG triggered other work, both research and commercial. Recent applications include the UK Met Office's text-enhanced forecast.
Data-to-text systems have since been applied in a range of settings. Following the minor earthquake near Beverly Hills, California on March 17, 2014, The Los Angeles Times reported details about the time, location and strength of the quake within 3 minutes of the event. This report was automatically generated by a 'robo-journalist', which converted the incoming data into text via a preset template. Currently there is considerable commercial interest in using NLG to summarise financial and business data. Indeed, Gartner has said that NLG will become a standard feature of 90% of modern BI and analytics platforms. NLG is also being used commercially in automated journalism, chatbots, generating product descriptions for e-commerce sites, summarising medical records, and enhancing accessibility (for example by describing graphs and data sets to blind people).
An example of an interactive use of NLG is the WYSIWYM framework. It stands for What you see is what you meant and allows users to see and manipulate the continuously rendered view (NLG output) of an underlying formal language document (NLG input), thereby editing the formal language without learning it.
Looking ahead, the current progress in data-to-text generation paves the way for tailoring texts to specific audiences. For example, data from babies in neonatal care can be converted into text differently in a clinical setting, with different levels of technical detail and explanatory language, depending on intended recipient of the text (doctor, nurse, patient). The same idea can be applied in a sports setting, with different reports generated for fans of specific teams.
Over the past few years, there has been an increased interest in automatically generating captions for images, as part of a broader endeavor to investigate the interface between vision and language. A case of data-to-text generation, the algorithm of image captioning (or automatic image description) involves taking an image, analyzing its visual content, and generating a textual description (typically a sentence) that verbalizes the most prominent aspects of the image.
An image captioning system involves two sub-tasks. In Image Analysis, features and attributes of an image are detected and labelled, before mapping these outputs to linguistic structures. Recent research utilizes deep learning approaches through features from a pre-trained convolutional neural network such as AlexNet, VGG or Caffe, where caption generators use an activation layer from the pre-trained network as their input features. Text Generation, the second task, is performed using a wide range of techniques. For example, in the Midge system, input images are represented as triples consisting of object/stuff detections, action/pose detections and spatial relations. These are subsequently mapped to <noun, verb, preposition> triples and realized using a tree substitution grammar.
Despite advancements, challenges and opportunities remain in image capturing research. Notwithstanding the recent introduction of Flickr30K, MS COCO and other large datasets have enabled the training of more complex models such as neural networks, it has been argued that research in image captioning could benefit from larger and diversified datasets. Designing automatic measures that can mimic human judgments in evaluating the suitability of image descriptions is another need in the area. Other open challenges include visual question-answering (VQA), as well as the construction and evaluation multilingual repositories for image description.
Another area where NLG has been widely applied is automated dialogue systems, frequently in the form of chatbots. A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. While natural language processing (NLP) techniques are applied in deciphering human input, NLG informs the output part of the chatbot algorithms in facilitating real-time dialogues.
Early chatbot systems, including Cleverbot created by Rollo Carpenter in 1988 and published in 1997, reply to questions by identifying how a human has responded to the same question in a conversation database using information retrieval (IR) techniques. Modern chatbot systems predominantly rely on machine learning (ML) models, such as sequence-to-sequence learning and reinforcement learning to generate natural language output. Hybrid models have also been explored. For example, the Alibaba shopping assistant first uses an IR approach to retrieve the best candidates from the knowledge base, then uses the ML-driven seq2seq model re-rank the candidate responses and generate the answer.
Creative writing and computational humor
Creative language generation by NLG has been hypothesized since the field's origins. A recent pioneer in the area is Phillip Parker, who has developed an arsenal of algorithms capable of automatically generating textbooks, crossword puzzles, poems and books on topics ranging from bookbinding to cataracts. The advent of large pretrained transformer-based language models such as GPT-3 has also enabled breakthroughs, with such models demonstrating recognizable ability for creating-writing tasks.
A related area of NLG application is computational humor production. JAPE (Joke Analysis and Production Engine) is one of the earliest large, automated humor production systems that uses a hand-coded template-based approach to create punning riddles for children. HAHAcronym creates humorous reinterpretations of any given acronym, as well as proposing new fitting acronyms given some keywords.
Despite progresses, many challenges remain in producing automated creative and humorous content that rival human output. In an experiment for generating satirical headlines, outputs of their best BERT-based model were perceived as funny 9.4% of the time (while real Onion headlines were 38.4%) and a GPT-2 model fine-tuned on satirical headlines achieved 6.9%. It has been pointed out that two main issues with humor-generation systems are the lack of annotated data sets and the lack of formal evaluation methods, which could be applicable to other creative content generation. Some have argued relative to other applications, there has been a lack of attention to creative aspects of language production within NLG. NLG researchers stand to benefit from insights into what constitutes creative language production, as well as structural features of narrative that have the potential to improve NLG output even in data-to-text systems.
As in other scientific fields, NLG researchers need to test how well their systems, modules, and algorithms work. This is called evaluation. There are three basic techniques for evaluating NLG systems:
- Task-based (extrinsic) evaluation: give the generated text to a person, and assess how well it helps them perform a task (or otherwise achieves its communicative goal). For example, a system which generates summaries of medical data can be evaluated by giving these summaries to doctors, and assessing whether the summaries help doctors make better decisions.
- Human ratings: give the generated text to a person, and ask them to rate the quality and usefulness of the text.
- Metrics: compare generated texts to texts written by people from the same input data, using an automatic metric such as BLEU, METEOR, ROUGE and LEPOR.
An ultimate goal is how useful NLG systems are at helping people, which is the first of the above techniques. However, task-based evaluations are time-consuming and expensive, and can be difficult to carry out (especially if they require subjects with specialised expertise, such as doctors). Hence (as in other areas of NLP) task-based evaluations are the exception, not the norm.
Recently researchers are assessing how well human-ratings and metrics correlate with (predict) task-based evaluations. Work is being conducted in the context of Generation Challenges shared-task events. Initial results suggest that human ratings are much better than metrics in this regard. In other words, human ratings usually do predict task-effectiveness at least to some degree (although there are exceptions), while ratings produced by metrics often do not predict task-effectiveness well. These results are preliminary. In any case, human ratings are the most popular evaluation technique in NLG; this is contrast to machine translation, where metrics are widely used.
An AI can be graded on faithfulness to its training data or, alternatively, on factuality. A response that reflects the training data but not reality is faithful but not factual. A confident but unfaithful response is a hallucination. In Natural Language Processing, a hallucination is often defined as "generated content that is nonsensical or unfaithful to the provided source content".
- Automated journalism
- Automated paraphrasing
- Markov text generators
- Meaning-text theory
- Generative art § Literature
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- Dale, Robert; Reiter, Ehud (2000). Building natural language generation systems. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-02451-8.
- Ehud Reiter (2021-03-21). History of NLG. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
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- Generation Challenges 2009
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Romanesque styles originated in Normandy and became widespread in northwestern Europe, particularly in England. Norman architecture is a style of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the lands under their dominion during the 11th and 12th centuries.
The Normans were descended from Norse raiders and pirates from Denmark, Iceland, and Norway, who in the 10th and 11th centuries gave their name to Normandy, a region in France. The Norman dynasty had a major political, cultural, and military impact on medieval Europe. In particular, the term “Norman architecture” is traditionally used to refer to English Romanesque architecture. The Normans introduced large numbers of castles and fortifications, including keeps, monasteries, abbeys, churches, and cathedrals. These structures were constructed in a style characterized by Romanesque rounded arches (particularly over windows and doorways) and massive proportions compared to other regional variations of the style.
The Normans descended from Norse raiders from Denmark, Iceland, and Norway. The distinct cultural and ethnic identity of the Normans emerged in the first half of the 10th century and continued to evolve over the succeeding centuries. Norman invaders arrived at the mouth of the river Seine in 911. Over the next century, Norman Barons built timber castles on earthen mounds, beginning the development of motte-and-bailey castles; they also produced great stone churches in the Romanesque style of the Franks. By 950 they were building stone keeps.
The Normans were among the most travelled peoples of Europe and thus exposed to a wide variety of cultural influences, including those from the Near East, some of which were incorporated into their art and architecture. They elaborated on the Early Christian basilica plan, making it longitudinal with side aisles, an apse, and a western facade with two towers. This elaboration can be seen in the Abbey of Saint-Étienne at Caen, begun in 1063, which formed a model for the larger English cathedrals whose construction began twenty years later.
The Church of Saint-Pierre is another prime example of Norman architecture. This Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Peter is situated on the Place Saint Pierre in the center of Caen in Normandy. The construction of the present building took place between the early 13th and 16th centuries. The spire was destroyed in 1944 and has since been rebuilt. The eastern apse of the church was built by Hector Sohier between 1518 and 1545. The interior choir and the exterior apse display an architecture that embodies the transition from Gothic to Renaissance. Balustrades of Gothic letters, which read as part of the Magnificat, run along the top. Its west portal, the decoration of the tower spire, and the stained glass are among the features which make it one of the finest churches of the Rouen diocese.
Norman Architecture in England
In England, Norman nobles and bishops had influence even before the Norman Conquest of 1066, and Norman influences affected late Anglo-Saxon architecture. Edward the Confessor was raised in Normandy, and in 1042 he brought masons to work on Westminster Abbey, the first Romanesque building in England. In 1051 he brought in Norman knights who built motte (raised earthwork) castles as a defence against the Welsh. Following the Norman invasion of England, Normans rapidly constructed more motte-and-bailey castles, and in a burst of building activity constructed churches, abbeys, and more elaborate fortifications such as Norman stone keeps.
The buildings show massive proportions in simple geometries. The masonry is decorated only with small bands of sculpture, perhaps used as blind arcading. The restrained decoration is seen in concentrated spaces of capitals and round doorways and in the tympanum under an arch. The Norman arch is round, in contrast to the pointed Gothic arch. Norman mouldings are carved or incised with geometric ornaments, such as chevron patterns (frequently termed “zig-zag mouldings”) around arches. The cruciform churches often have deep chancels and a square crossing tower, which has remained a feature of English ecclesiastical architecture. Hundreds of parish churches were built, and the great English cathedrals were founded during a period from about 1083.
After a fire damaged Canterbury Cathedral in 1174, Norman masons introduced the new Gothic architecture. Around 1191, Wells Cathedral and Lincoln Cathedral brought in the English Gothic style, and Norman architecture became an increasingly modest style seen only in provincial buildings.
Norman Art Forms
Norman painting, like other Romanesque painting of its time, is best demonstrated by illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings, and stained glass.
In the visual arts, the Normans did not have the rich and distinctive traditions of the cultures they conquered. However, in the early 11th century, the dukes began a program of church reform, encouraging the Cluniac reform of monasteries and patronizing intellectual pursuits, especially the proliferation of scriptoria and the compilation of lost . The chief monasteries taking part in this “renaissance” of Norman art and scholarship were Mont-Saint-Michel, Fécamp, Jumièges, Bec, Saint-Ouen, Saint-Evroul, and Saint-Wandrille. These centers were in contact with the Winchester school, which channelled a pure Carolingian artistic tradition to Normandy. From roughly 1090-1110, Normandy experienced a brief golden age of illustrated manuscripts; however, the major scriptoria of Normandy ceased to function after the midpoint of the 12th century.
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia), and miniature illustrations. Romanesque illuminations focused on the Bible and the Psalter. Each book of the Bible was prefaced by a large historiated initial; major initials were similarly illuminated in the Psalter. In both cases, more lavish examples had cycles of scenes in fully illuminated pages, sometimes with several scenes per page in compartments. The Bibles, in particular, often had very large pages and were sometimes bound into more than one volume.
The large wall surfaces and plain, curving vaults of the Romanesque period lent themselves well to mural decoration in Normandy and other Norman lands. Unfortunately, many of these early wall paintings have been destroyed by dampness over the years, or the walls themselves have been re-plastered and painted over. In Normandy, such pictures were systematically destroyed or whitewashed in bouts of during the Reformation.
A classic scheme for the painted decoration of a church had, as its focal point in the semi-dome of the apse, Christ in Majesty or Christ the Redeemer enthroned within a and framed by the four-winged beasts (symbols of the Four Evangelists). If the Virgin Mary was the dedicatee of the church, she might replace Christ here. On the apse walls below were saints and apostles, often including narrative scenes. On the sanctuary arch were figures of apostles, prophets, or the 24 “elders of the Apocalypse”, looking in towards a bust of Christ or his symbol, the Lamb, at the top of the arch. The north wall of the nave contained narrative scenes from the Old Testament, while the south wall contained scenes from the New Testament. On the rear west wall was the Last Judgment with an enthroned and judging Christ at the top.
One of the most intact schemes in existence is at Saint-Savin-Sur-Gartempe in France. The long barrel vault of the nave provides an excellent surface for and is decorated with scenes of the Old Testament. One of these shows a lively depiction of Noah’s Ark, complete with a fearsome figurehead and numerous windows through which Noah and his family can be seen on the upper deck, birds on the middle deck, and pairs of animals on the lower deck. Another scene shows the swamping of Pharaoh’s army by the Red Sea. The scene extends to other parts of the church, with the martyrdom of the local saints shown in the crypt, the Apocalypse in the , and Christ in Majesty. The range of colours is limited to light blue-green, yellow ochre, reddish-brown, and black.
Norman Stained Glass
Stained glass was a significant art form from the Norman empire throughout both France and Norman-controlled England. At Le Mans, Saint-Denis, and Chartres Cathedrals in France as well as Canterbury Cathedral in England, a number of panels of the 12th century have survived. Most of the magnificent stained glass of France, however, including the famous windows of Chartres, dates from the 13th century. Far fewer large windows remain intact from the 12th century.
Glass craftsmen were slower than architects to change their style, and much Norman stained glass from the first part of the 13th century can be considered Romanesque. Especially fine are large figures from around the year 1200 from Strasbourg Cathedral and Saint Kunibert’s Church, both in France. Glass was both expensive and fairly flexible (in that it could be added to or rearranged) and was often reused when churches were rebuilt in the Gothic style.
Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, is a medieval Catholic cathedral of the Latin Church located in Chartres, France. The current cathedral was mostly constructed between 1194 and 1250. The cathedral is in an exceptional state of preservation, and the majority of the original stained glass windows survive intact. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Chartres Cathedral is the extent to which its architectural structure has been adapted to meet the needs of stained glass. The use of three-part elevation with external buttressing allowed for far larger windows than did earlier designs, particularly at the clerestory level. Most cathedrals of the period had a mixture of windows containing plain or grisaille glass and windows containing dense stained glass panels; the brightness of the former tended to diminish the impact and legibility of the latter. At Chartres, nearly all 176 windows were filled with equally dense stained glass, creating a relatively dark but richly coloured interior in which the light filtering through the myriad narrative and symbolic windows was the main source of illumination.
The majority of the windows now visible at Chartres were made and installed between 1205 and 1240; however, four lancets preserve panels of Romanesque glass from the 12th century that survived the fire of 1195. Perhaps the most famous 12th-century window at Chartres is the so-called Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verrière, found in the first bay of the choir after the south transept. This window is actually a composite; the upper part, showing the Virgin and child surrounded by adoring angels, dates from around 1180 and was probably positioned at the center of the apse in the earlier building. The Virgin is depicted wearing a blue robe and sitting in a frontal pose on a throne, with the Christ Child seated on her lap raising his hand in blessing. This composition, known as the Sedes sapientia (“Throne of Wisdom”), is based on the famous cult figure kept in the crypt. The lower part of the window showing scenes from the Infancy of Christ dates from the main glazing campaign around 1225.
Each bay of the aisles and the choir ambulatory contains a large lancet window roughly 8.1 meters high by 2.2 meters wide. The windows were made between 1205 and 1235 and depict stories from the Old and New Testament and the Lives of the Saints as well as typological cycles and symbolic images such as the signs of the zodiac and labours of the months. Most windows are made up of 25–30 individual panels showing distinct episodes within the narrative; only Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verrière includes a larger image made up of multiple panels.
Because of their greater distance from the viewer, the windows in the clerestory generally adopt simpler, bolder designs. Most feature the standing figure of a saint or Apostle in the upper two-thirds, often with one or two simplified narrative scenes in the lower part. Unlike the lower windows in the nave arcades and the ambulatory that consist of one simple lancet per bay, the clerestory windows are each made up of a pair of lancets with a plate-traceried rose window above. The nave and transept clerestory windows mainly depict saints and Old Testament prophets. Those in the choir depict the kings of France and Castille and members of the local nobility in the straight bays, while the windows in the apse hemicycle show those Old Testament prophets who foresaw the virgin birth, flanking scenes of the Annunciation, Visitation, and Nativity in the axial window. The cathedral also has three large rose windows: the western rose, the north transept rose, and the south transept rose.
Le Mans Cathedral
Le Mans Cathedral is a Catholic cathedral situated in Le Mans, France. Its construction dates from the 6th through the 14th century, and though the cathedral itself features many French Gothic elements, it has a notable collection of Romanesque stained glass. The nave at Le Mans retains around 20 stained glass windows from Bishop Guillaume’s mid-12th century rebuilding, though all but one have been moved from their original locations. All were extensively restored in the 19th century. The great western window, depicting scenes from the Life of St Julian of Le Mans, dates from around 1155. The Ascension window toward the western end of the south aisle of the nave has been dated to 1120, making it one of the oldest extant stained glass windows in France.
Unlike the earlier Romanesque windows, the 13th-century glazing program in the upper parts of the choir is largely intact. It presents a diverse range of scenes from the Old and New Testaments, the Lives of Saints, and various miracles of the Virgin. These windows are notable for their variety of artistic styles and their lack of coherent program (there is no obvious pattern in the distribution of subjects, and some episodes, such as the story of Theophilus or the miracle of the Jewish boy of Bourges, are repeated in different windows). The windows in the radiating chapels have fared less well over time, and most of the surviving panels have been reassembled out of context in the axial chapel.
The Bayeux Tapestry
The Bayeux tapestry is the best-known example of Romanesque architecture. This embroidered cloth is nearly 70 meters (230 feet) long and 50 centimetres (20 inches) tall and depicts the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England. Images in the cloth include depictions of William, Duke of Normandy; the coronation and death of the English King Harold; the Battle of Hastings; and even Halley’s Comet.
The tapestry consists of some 50 scenes with Latin tituli, or inscriptions, embroidered on linen with coloured woollen yarns. It was likely commissioned by Bishop Odo, the half-brother to Duke William of Normandy, and made in England—not Bayeux—in the 1070s. The hanging was rediscovered in 1729 by scholars at a time when it was being displayed annually in Bayeux Cathedral. The tapestry is now exhibited at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, Normandy, France.
The designs on the Bayeux Tapestry are embroidered rather than woven, so it’s not technically considered a tapestry. The tapestry can be seen as the final and best-known work of Anglo-Saxon art, and though it was made after the Norman Conquest of England, historians accept that it was created firmly in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Such tapestries adorned both churches and wealthy houses in England, though the Bayeux tapestry is exceptionally large.
The tapestry is embroidered in crewel (wool yarn) on a tabby-woven linen ground using two methods of stitching: outline or stem stitch for lettering and the outlines of figures and couching or laid work for figure interior. Nine linen panels between 14 and 3 meters in length were embroidered and sewn together, and the joins disguised with subsequent embroidery. The design involves a broad central zone with narrow decorative borders top and bottom. Later generations patched the hanging in numerous places, and some of the embroidery (especially in the final scene) has been reworked.
The main yarn colours are terracotta or russet, blue-green, dull gold, olive green, and blue, with small amounts of dark blue, black, and sage green. Later repairs are worked in light yellow, orange, and light greens. The tapestry’s central zone contains most of the action, which sometimes overflows into the borders either for dramatic effect or to allow extra space for depictions. Events are each depicted in a long series of scenes separated by stylized trees. The trees are not placed consistently, however, and the greatest scene shift (between Harold’s audience with Edward after his return to England and Edward’s burial scene) is not marked.
The tituli are normally located in the central zone but occasionally use the top border. The borders are otherwise decorated with birds, beasts, and fish, as well as scenes from fables, agriculture, and hunting. These don’t necessarily complement the action in the central panels. The picture of Halley’s Comet, which appears in the upper border (scene 32), is the first known depiction of this comet.
The Opus Anglicanum
Opus Anglicanum, Latin for “the English work” refers to the elaborate needlework produced in England during the Middle Ages. Embroidered pieces were used in religious and secular settings on vestments, clothing for the wealthy, and heraldic tapestries. England gained a reputation for needlework as early as the Anglo-Saxon period prior to the Norman conquest; however, it was in the 13th and 14th centuries that the Opus Anglicanum really flourished.
This work combined silk and gold or silver-gilt threads worked on linen and later velvet. The motifs used in needlework followed the trends in other art forms of the time, such as illuminated manuscripts and architecture; some motifs included the use of scrolls, spirals, and foliage. Embroidered pieces also depicted figures of kings and saints as well as the Gothic arches popular in European architecture.
London was the primary center of production for Opus Anglicanum. While often associated with certain convents, a professional group of male craftsmen produced a great deal of the work. The Worshipful Company of Broderers was a craft guild incorporated in 1561 to represent these workers. There is some evidence that the group first incorporated as early as 1515, but those records were lost.
Opus Anglicanum consisted primarily of popular luxury items that spread across Europe. Pope Martin IV, for example, ordered custom pieces after admiring the vestments of English Priests. As the 14th century progressed, however, demand for luxury goods decreased as funds were redirected toward military expenditures. As a result, the style of the work was scaled back, and much of the richness and storytelling of these pieces were lost. The needlework was relegated to small applique pieces that could be added to clothing or tapestries.
Few pieces have survived due to the delicate nature of the work. Some were repurposed as they aged and others were buried with their owners. One surviving piece is a cope, or a type of vestment, owned by the Butler-Bowdon family. Thought to have been made in 1330-1350, the Butler-Bowdon Cope is an example of a piece that was cut up for reuse, as it was reconstructed in the 19th century.