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The Jigsaw Puzzle
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Avid fans of Enid
Blyton would have grown up on the romance of the jigsaw, tackled
by the Famous Five or the Secret Seven on a cold wintry
evening.
Many adults are also hooked to the challenges of the jigsaw.
Catering to the varied needs, toy manufacturers have come up
with simple eight piece jigsaws, more complicated ones and the
challenging five thousand or ten thousand piece puzzles.
The jigsaw made its first appearance in London, in the 1760s,
when a cartographer (mapmaker) and engraver, John Spilsbury,
suddenly struck upon the idea of making a learning-aid for
children that would also be fun. |
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It was around this
time when books specially meant for children had just begun to
be more accessible.
Spilsbury pasted copies of maps on blocks of wood. He then cut the
blocks into pieces. As the next step, he put the cut pieces into
special wood boxes. And the jigsaw was ready. All that the children
had to do was fit the separate pieces together and complete the
map.
In those times, it was considered a revolution, as it was a novel
way of teaching children. Remember those were the times when
five-year-olds from comfortable homes were put through the grind of
learning languages like Latin and Greek, while children from the
lower strata were sent to work by age seven. After all,
entertainment and games were luxuries, that these children could not
afford. And the specialty of Spilsbury’s creation struck a balance
between the two. |
A jigsaw puzzle |
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The idea of the jigsaw soon caught on in the West, mainly in America
and Europe and innovations began to surface and improvisations were
made.
Ideas for subject matter were aplenty. Some came up with lists of
rulers, yet others came up with multiplication tables or simply the
twenty-six alphabets of the English language and so on.
There were myriad creations, which by now came to be called
‘dissected puzzle’. Soon the idea of consciously teaching or
educating children took a back seat and the puzzle became a thing of
pure joy.
The themes used were nursery rhymes of pleasing sceneries or
pleasing poetry. As time went on, the dissected puzzles came to be
made on cardboard sheets.
It was not until the nineteenth century that the Spilsbury’s puzzle
got the name it is known by today. Researchers say that the jigsaw
got its name from the early practice of cutting the first block of
wood on which the map was stuck into pieces, before being polished.
The jigsaw continues to be a popular pastime with both children and
adults alike. This game can be enjoyed by people of ages. It
continues to fascinate and stimulate generations of people. Today’s
jigsaws for children have varied themes like fairy tales and maps of
places.
China’s contribution to this field has been the Chinese Tangram,
which has been around since about 1800. In this unique puzzle, seven
regular geometric pieces cut from a single square are used to form
various shapes, depending on how creative the user is.
Puzzles have their uses. In the seventeenth century, trick-locks or
puzzle-locks were incorporated into hidden keyholes. Their purpose
was to thwart thieves. Native American women, in order to guard
their money, used decorated puzzle purses with hidden compartments.
There are puzzle jugs and mugs too. Drinking from them without
spilling the contents involves a lot of ingenuity. The way to do
this is to locate and use built-in tubes that circumvent the holes!
Ingenuity and innovation indeed have no limit. |
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