Self Portraits of Children
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Miranda Sweeney September 25, 2012 Self Portraits of Children: A Study of Youth Created Art
The Study: Self Portraits of Children A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Artists have been creating representations of themselves for centuries. In this study there is a focus on the self-portraits of children between the ages of 5 and 16. The images were borrowed from the Illinois State University Milner Library’s International Collection of Child Art, which houses a collection of 72 designated self-portraits from various countries and regions. Through analyzing the images found in this collection three things became apparent. First, it is evident in the images studied that the children were given specific instructions either about the title, position of the figure, and/or things to be included in the image. The instructor influenced the style of the portrait based on his/her instruction, which reflects the instructors own aesthetic. Secondly, each of the self-portraits created have specific qualities that may or may not fit into the developmental stages proposed by classic developmental models, making the more contemporary views of creative development more applicable. Last, the study of these images brings into question, “When is art?” as these images were created by children, but are held in a museum alongside classical pieces of fine art. Influenced and Individuality According to Eisner (1978), “One of education’s longstanding aims has been to enable children to think for themselves, to become intellectually independent…” (p. 7). With the understanding that children learn to make decisions through the creation process, educators should take a step back from too much instruction that would influence a child’s decision. In this collection of self-portraits, one can easily determine which artists were in the same class or led by the same instructor. For instance, there are two profile self-portrait images, created in 1960; a boy, age 12, created one image. A 13-year-old girl created the other image. Both these images were created with similar materials and in a similar style. As suggested in Wilson’s (2005) article, educators must continually ask themselves, “ How am I controlling my students?” (p. 324). How do educators avoid influencing the aesthetic preferences of students? How do they