Child’s creative expression through fine art by Supsakova Bozena

Child’s creative expression through ine art

ISBN 978-961-6525-56-5

BOŽENA ŠUPŠÁKOVÁ

Child’s creative expression through ine art

Božena Šupšáková

CHILD’S CREATIVE EXPRESSION THROUGH FINE ART

DEBORA Ljubljana 2009

Božena Šupšáková

CHILD’S CREATIVE EXPRESSION THROUGH FINE ART With support of the grant of Ministry of Education of SR VEGA 1/0158/08 Visual symbol, similarities and differences in visually pictorial expression of children and youth. Translations: Ariana Reviews: Prof. Dr. Tonka Tacol Doc. Jozef Trepáč © DEBORA 2009 Published: DEBORA, Publishing and Culture Promotion, Ltd, Ljubljana, Republic of Slovenia Designed: Linwe/KRAFT, s.r.o. The cover is illustrated by the children´s pictures at Elementary Art Education School, Stará Ľubovňa, Slovakia. Phototypesetted: DEBORA Printed: Printline, s.r.o. Bookstore on the web: www.debora.si All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 37.015.31:73/76 ŠUPŠÁKOVÁ, Božena Child's creative expression through ﬁne art/ Božena Šupšáková; [translations Ariana]. - Ljubljana: Debora, 2009. ISBN 978-961-6525-56-5 244281344

CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................ 9 1.

CHILD’S DRAWING AND RESEARCH ....................... 11 Artistic performance at an early age ........................................ 13 Drawing is a child’s play ........................................................... 13 Drawing reﬂects what a child knows ........................................ 14 Analysis of child’s drawing ....................................................... 15 Child’s drawing as a form of semiotic function ........................ 17 Children remake what they see ................................................ 20 Culture determines and inﬂuences child’s artistic performance ................................................................. 21 Interpretation of child’s artistic performance ........................... 25

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION ............................................. 29 From scribbles to intentional portraying .................................. 29 Initial picture ............................................................................. 31 From the drawing without content up to the figural drawing .......................................................... 33 Graphic code ............................................................................ 36 Individualized forms of living and non-living nature ................. 37 Discovering the figure .............................................................. 38 Drawing of animal, house, tree ................................................. 43 Child as a creator and receiver of information ......................... 46 Stories drawn by children ......................................................... 47 Unified style of child’s drawing ................................................ 50 Visual imitation ......................................................................... 59 Spontaneous development according to the genetic plan .................................................................... 60

DEVELOPMENT, REPERTOIRE AND INTERPRETATION OF VISUAL IMAGE .................... 65 Verbal and visual symbol ......................................................... 65 Graphic symbol and the way of portraying .............................. 68 Development and repertoire of graphic portraying .................. 68 Exploring the way of portraying ............................................... 70 Signs and graphic symbols ...................................................... 71 System of portraying ................................................................ 72 Graphic genres: Drawing .......................................................... 73 Graphic genres: Maps, diagrams ............................................. 75 Conceptualization and the way of recording the visual experience ................................................................ 75 Evolution of visual image speciﬁc interpretation ...................... 76

VISUAL PERCEPTION AND CHILD’S PICTURE REPERTOIRE .............................................. 79 The child’s artistic expression and inﬂuence of environment ................................................... 79 Visual media and imagination .................................................. 80 Virtual perception and experience ........................................... 82 Passivity of brain ...................................................................... 83 Visual picture and neurological perception .............................. 84 Problem of transmission, transfer ............................................ 85 The child’s artistic expression in the environment of picture media ....................................................................... 90 Exploration of signs and symbols ............................................ 90 The process of picture creation: Interior .................................. 93 The process of picture creation: Game, play and toys ............ 94 The process of picture creation: Main characters in child’s drawing ..................................................................... 96 The process of picture creation: Trees .................................... 98 The process of picture creation: Movement and space ........... 99 The process of picture creation: Play with shapes ................ 101 Colour in communication. Social and cultural inﬂuence ........ 104 Childs artistic performance is bound on the system of symbols ...................................................... 109

CONTENTS

ARTISTIC SYMBOLIC CODE, DETAILS AND DIFFERENCES IN ARTISTIC EXPRESSION ........... 111 Child`s artistic expression and art of prehistoric and nature nations .................................................................. 111 Child`s artistic expression - inspiration of titans of ﬁne art .................................................................. 115 Artistic-symbolic code ............................................................ 118 Thinking and schematism ...................................................... 120 Playfulness, spontaneity, sincerity, cleanliness, courage and desire for search ................................................ 121 Outer world versus inner world .............................................. 127 Violating the boundaries of traditional beauty ........................ 132 Magic space between writing and picture ............................. 134 Inﬂuencing children’s perceptions ......................................... 135 Child’s artistic expression transposed to artistic creation ................................................................... 137 Children as co-authors and co-creators ................................ 137 Artistic expression is comparative ......................................... 138

SUMMARY .................................................................. 139 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................ 143

INTRODUCTION

The issue of the child’s artistic expression is justifiably in the centre of attention of researchers, pedagogues, psychologists and other specialists on a long term basis. It is one of the first spontaneous expressions of the spiritual life of an individual. It is associated with the current mental state, with the structure of personality. It is a certain form of creative activity, but also a statement on the individual’s inner life, interests, feelings, experience, ideas and course of life. It serves the communication purpose, reveals the socio-cultural environment where the young person lives and creates. I am taking the initiative to work out this topic on theoretical and practical level. I draw from history but also from the most recent foreign researches on the child’s artistic expression. However, I implement them to the context and conditions of our realia and culture. As long as children do not have restraints to express themselves artistically, they are creative and spontaneous. Simultaneously, they are willing to supply with a great deal of information concerning themselves, their environment and their creation. On the basis of explorative research, I will try to search for causalities of their reasoning and thinking. From the point of raised ideas, interrelations and formulated notions, the book is drawn up monolithically whereas these freely blend in a number of chapters. The publication Child’s artistic expression has an ambition to shift the research in this field further, and to serve as a referential knowledge basis. The last but not the least, our intent is to address the teachers of art and culture at all grades of education, as well as the students of pedagogical faculties and others. Božena Šupšáková 9

CHILD AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION THROUGH FINE ART

Child’s drawing, as well as every other graphic expression or an expression through fine art is from the historical and ontogenetic point of view one of the first spontaneous expressions of individual’s spiritual life. It is bound to the actual mental state, on the structure of personality. It is a certain form of creative activity, but also an utterance about one’s inner life, interests, feelings, living, thoughts and life orientation. It serves for communication which is specific for a given state of a healthy, as well as mentally ill human being. It talks about the social environment the child lives in, about influence of up-bringing and culture, their whole life way. Drawing, shape and form are spatial projections of an experience, while colour is more or less an emotional projection of shape and form. Colour underlines the emotional side connected with experience, whereas drawing highlights the spatial perception and motive projection.

WHY DOES A CHILD DRAW? There are many answers, opinions and conjectures to the question why a child draws. František Čada (1903) perceives drawing as a picture language. Ladislav Švarc (In. J. Uždil, 1976) and Bohuslav Kováč (1972) state that children express themselves in a graphic way naturally, on their level and within their possibilities. Their small drawings are original and discovering, to which a modern artist is able to get only by strenuous and purposeful work. According to some other authors, children imitate the graphic activity of adults or self-stylization, which is making its own “ME” real, but out of own psyche. Jaromír Uždil (1964, 1976, 1988) is of the opinion that all of these conceptions of the ﬁne art activity sense contain the truth only partially. In his opinion, beginnings of drawing, similarly like beginnings of speech, are related to the ontogenetic development of child, to the development of personality. They form a natural expression 11

of child, an expression of need for self-actualization. However, it can not be denied that the reality is a source of inspiration for a child’s artistic expression, as direct contact with the environment directly inﬂuences child’s artistic expression, wakes visions and feelings to activity.

CHILD’S DRAWING AND RESEARCH Interest in child’s artistic performance and its development dates back to the end of 19th century. The first scientific study having mapped the child’s artistic development is the work of Italian art historian Corrado Ricci (1887) named Lárte dei bambini. A year later Bernard Perez published Lárt et poesie chez lénfant. At that time the artistic performance was examined from the psychological point of view and the notion “child’s development in art” is specifically connected with their development in drawing (A. B. Clark, 1897; G. Kerschensteiner, 1905; G. H. Luquet, 1913; J. Sully, 1895). J. Sully connects the first drawings with play and suggests importance of game principles in the whole human culture. He highlights the fact that among the first games and plays there are many which are of aesthetical value. In the field of child’s drawing study, the author restricts himself to linear, outline drawing of human figure, animals, mostly horses. Apart from some exceptions, he focuses his research on two to six-year-old children. The studies of J. Sully of year 1895 form the first attempt at continuous theoretical interpretation and examination of child’s soul, child’s inner world. Most researches in this field have been conducted by psychologists who focused their attention at the first years of child’s life. Although “the artistic development of a child” is quite a narrow specification of the artistic performance, it has been undoubted until today also due to the fact that the researches have not paid much attention to creative activities of children in other artistic media (J. Brittain, 1979; Golomb, 1974, 1992; A. M. Kindler, 1997). Eventually, it has been a reason to devote this work to the artistic performance of children, especially to development of child’s drawing. As the main effort of all researchers was to form a universal theory of development, they concentrated their attention to the development of child’s drawing, while the context it has been created in was mentioned only marginally. Only a few years ago, the artistic performance started to be researched also in social and cultural connections and some alternative models of development were proposed which re12

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garded the artistic performance in this context to be a further dimension in the picture repertoire.

ARTISTIC PERFORMANCE AT AN EARLY AGE Most researchers orientate their research towards the child’s artistic performance at an early age. (R. Arnheim, 1974; J. Berger and S. Szuman, 1969; W. L. Brittain, 1979; G. A. Clark,1987, 1997; M. Cox, 1981; N. H. Freeman, 1980; C. Colomb, 1974, 1981; R. Kellogg, 1969; G. Kerchensteiner, 1905; A. M. Kindler and B. Darras, 1994; A. M. Kindler, 1999; G. H. Luquet, 1913, 1927; V. Löwenfeld, 1943 and others). As there are only a few pieces of information from a systematic research of adults´ artistic creation (also due to the fact that the adults are not open enough to reveal their inner world through drawing), experts have focused on child’s artistic performance. The reason is simple. Children are not restricted in their artistic expression, they are creative, spontaneous and moreover, they are willing to provide a great amount of information about themselves, their surroundings and their production. A popular German theoretician and artistic pedagogue G. Britsch perceived the child’s artistic performance as an opportunity to express the spiritual unity of a human being and objectively existing world as early as at the beginning of this century. His theory has also signiﬁcantly inﬂuenced later formation of a system for the Arts teaching, namely Bauhaus, H. Read (1964, 1967) but also R. Arnheim (1974, 1922).

DRAWING IS A CHILD’S PLAY Famous psychologist Georg Henri Luquet perceives drawing as a child’s play which does not need a partner, occupies hands and sight and puts the child’s inner experiences in motion in a pleasant and simple way. His theory of intellectual and visual realism (1913, 1927) appears to be one of the most influential reflections and the most popular theories. Georg Henri Luquet created a classification scheme of children’s drawings on which he explains child’s development in drawing as a gradual improvement of the observed reality real re-creation skills. Based on his research, he classifies the respective stages following one another and provides his explanation to them: the first stage “random realism”, the second stage “misunderstood realism”, the third stage “intellectual realism”, the fourth 13

one “visual realism”. His classification stems from the knowledge that children up to eight to nine years draw what they know about themselves, about matters and things. However, older children draw what they can see. It can be observed that G. H. Luquet has thus definitely solved the opinion disagreement of two groups, whereas one group of psychologists claim that the first child’s drawings are realistic in their nature, they stick to real model and the drawings according to an idea appear a lot later. At that time the other group highlights that the first drawings make the reality more idealistic. Luquet´s theory was further developed by J. Piaget, and its elements also appeared in the works of Victor Löwenfeld, whose book Creative and Mental Growth (1943) became a significant resource for the Arts for a decade.

DRAWING REFLECTS WHAT A CHILD KNOWS Victor Löwenfeld (1947) also gives the same significance to the intellectual, creative and artistic development in his works, although he highlights the expressive upbringing more. He determines several consequent stages: the first stage “scrawling”, the second stage “pre-operational” with which the first “vision” appears. It is an experimental period with a large amount of changing symbols that picture the world. Thus, children find their new “schemes”. V. Löwenfeld uses this notion to show a stabilized, individual way of picturing the objects at the age of seven to nine years and he describes the schematic stage as a child’s ability to formulate the definitive concept of human figure and environment (V. Löwenfeld, 1947, p. 395). The third stage “visual realism” and the fourth stage “crisis in child’s creative performance”. Löwenfeld´s theory of child’s drawing according to the stages resembles Luquet´s statements in many ways; he similarly tried to prove that child’s drawing reflects what the child knows. V. Löwenfeld also states that a large amount of details in drawing reflects the level of child’s realization of their environment. However, he gives special significance to physical, kinaesthetic experiences of children. In his opinion, omission or exaggeration of certain parts in the picture may reflect child’s current state and emotions. In general, he regards drawing as a proof of their emotional comfort. He claims that children at pre-school age, who always use the same graphic portraying, are “hiding behind the symbol” in certain age and consequently “in their further behaviour they have a tendency to hide behind the social stereo14

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types” (Löwenfeld, 1947, p. 131). On the other hand, V. Löwenfeld assumes that “a child who reacts to purposeful experiences in a sensitive way will show this emotional sensitivity in their artistic creation” (Löwenfeld, 1947, p. 131). Moreover, Löwenfeld distinguishes between two types of artistic creators. According to his opinion, those who belong to the so-called “visual type” use their eyes as “a main mediator of visual impressions” (Löwenfeld, 1947, p. 260) and they have a tendency to observe objects in their surroundings, analyze them gradually in detail and finally put them back to some integrated units. The second creative type is called “tactile”, where the kinaesthetic experiences, impressions from touch and alike serve as a basis for portraying the world in drawing. Löwenfeld´s reflections on the development procedure finish in adolescence period. He agrees with the opinion that “art of adolescents is generally being neglected” (Löwenfeld, 1947, p. 282). He rather examines appropriate topics and media in the artistic performance of adolescents. Although we frequently refer to Löwenfeld´s theory of child’s drawing development according to the stages in the art education – it has certainly contributed to understanding of some aspects of child’s drawing in early childhood, this theory of artistic development has also its weak sides. It is not only expressly focused on the first years of child’s life, but the interest is only in certain types of drawings which satisfy author’s understanding of child’s artistic performance. For example, the drawings which lack “creative” quality and which rely on the external graphic patterns are not taken into consideration in Löwenfeld´s theory. The author does not even deal with variety of pictures the little children and adolescents frequently and easily command. Although V. Löwenfeld differentiates between the visual and tactile type, his model still perceives the visual realism as a strong referential point when stating the artistic development. These and other shortcomings of the mentioned theories according to the stages have recently been pointed at by some researchers, to mention at least G. Golomb, 1992; D. Wolf and M. Perry, 1988; A. M. Kindler and B. Darras, 1994, 1997.

ANALYSIS OF CHILD’S DRAWING Researches of child’s drawing artistic development are almost exclusively focused on the survey of picture signs produced by children, 15

whereas only a little attention is paid to complex understanding of creation and context process in which the drawings were formed. A good example of such attitude is the work of Rhoty Kellogg (1969) that researches on and classifies a large amount of child’s drawings. It determines the sequence of basic scribbles, patterns, diagrams, combinations and units. It differentiates between five grades representing development of child’s artistic performance: the first grade “scribbles”, the second grade “schemes”, the third grade ”combinations”, the fourth grade “associations” and the fifth grade “figurations”. R. Kellogg has proposed the universal theory of artistic development based on the above stated sequence, and she claims that the scribbling experience necessarily precedes the whole picture creation at a later age. However, the follow-up research questions this claim and the formal description of graphic repertoire creation done by Kellogg is becoming a criticized issue. That is mostly because it is not sensitive enough to the significance the young makers give to their scribbles (e.g. G. Golomb, 1992). Kellogg´s interest in disposing the patterns is an example of one of the most common research subject matters in the artistic development: appearance and usage of shapes in the drawings. Next central field which might be found in the research of child’s artistic creation relates to the way and increasing of child’s abilities to picture the spatial relationships in their artistic creation (e.g. B. Darras, 1997, M. A. Hagen, 1986). Recent studies of John Willats (1997) reflect this interest, the example of which is significance and interpretation of drawings, “drawing systems”. J. Willats uses this notion to describe the strategies when depicting the space, e.g. perspective, leaning and right-angle projections. He claims that the artistic development may be explained in terms of changes in usage of these drawing systems, as well as in terms of sequence when using the sign systems: the way of using a silhouette, line and points at picture creation. Whereas Willats´s model offers an interesting analysis of child’s drawing in terms of usage the symbol strategies and drawing strategies, it may be claimed that these reflections do not use the whole richness of the factors which together affect the development of artistic creation. Willats´s work helps to better understand child’s dispositions and their ability to specify the shapes and deal with spatial disposition of things and objects in the drawing, but it leaves some unanswered questions concerning the development of picture repertoire. Highlighting the fact that the “things 16

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looked real” is included in Willats´s statement (1984, 1997) that the developmental changes in child’s drawings are stimulated by something he calls “a line of interactions between picture creation and picture perception” (Willats 1997, p. 318). Moreover, Willats claims that the child is satisﬁed at the beginning and is happy when their drawings appear to be “true”, also concerning the problem solving in drawing, but later they want their drawings also to “appear true”. For example, spatial picturing of a house will be acceptable for a small child, whereas it enables successful picturing of different sides of the house; however, according to the norms of older children and adults it does not “appear true”.

CHILD’S DRAWING AS A FORM OF SEMIOTIC FUNCTION Many researches, orientated towards the child’s creative development, mostly towards development of picture imagination, are done by psychologists. This group of researchers is represented mainly by Jean Piaget (1970), a French psychologist, Professor at Sorbonne University, representative of genetic psychology. According to J. Piaget, a child’s drawing is a form of semiotic function and it has its place in the development line between the symbolic play and picture imagination (i.e. inner imitation). The child expresses its effort to imitate reality through the picture imagination (J. Piaget, B. Inhelder, 1993). According to this theory, at the beginning there is a set of speciﬁc reactions and later conscious operations between a subject and the surrounding world. The sets, structures and units are not static, not given in advance, but they are in motion. So they undergo the process of development, in which intellect, as well as emotions are applied. According to J. Piaget, creation of structures is regulated by two basic tendencies: assimilation, which is integration of subjects into the usual way of thinking and acting and accommodation, which is adaptation of the sense organs and mind to the outer conditions, but not supporting each other. The following applies for research of child’s drawing and its relation to reality: 1. Children create certain structures, stereotypes of graphic formations which are adapted to their perceptive and motive skills, way of perception, thinking and understanding. These stereotypes are to be treated as the formations created in an assimilation way. 17

2. Differentiation, segmentation and new conﬁguration of graphic formations are to be then understood as a result of interaction between these formations and reality of the surrounding world. Formations in this process are being accommodated, adapted to outer conditions and are becoming more complicated in order to cover the new understanding of relationships. According to J. Piaget, “not even in its initial shapes a drawing does assimilate anything and is closer, similarly like the picture idea, to the imitative accommodation. Drawing is on one hand the preparation; on the other hand it is a result of this imitative accommodation. There are a lot of interactions between a graphic picture and a picture idea (Luquet´s “inner model”), as both of them stem directly from imitation” (J. Piaget and B. Inhelder, 1993, p. 59). Jean Piaget studies development of thinking and at the same time observes the aspect of logical operation genesis creation. He stresses the primacy of personality structure. He aims at concept of relationships. Developmental segmentation of child’s artistic performance into individual stages may be, in his opinion, put in relation with the characteristics of segmented development of thinking. He determines nature, developmental stages of child’s artistic performance in the following way: 1. Sensomotoric period (up to child’s 2 years of age) when behavioural schemes and models of certain activities are created; thus, how to behave in the space and manipulate with objects. The ﬁrst encounter with environment leaves traces in perception and attitudes of individuals. 2. Period of pre-operational thinking (from 2 to 7 or 8 years of child’s age), for which egocentric thinking is typical, non-sensible thinking (inability to think through senses) and development of language. Child acts on the basis of impulses. As the time notion is unknown to them, it is necessary, according to Piaget, to expose them to direct experience based on experimentation, using the method of trial and error. From the ontogenetic point of view it is necessary to differentiate between the periods: a) development of imagination, symbolic marking (2 to 4 years), b) visual thinking (from 4 to 7 or 8 years of child’s age). 3. Period of concrete operations (from 7 or 8 to 11 or 12 years of child’s age), for which the operations with a concrete activity and with objects are typical, as well as coming to new situations. Children are able to 18

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conduct these operations also in their imagination. Those are first evident steps of abstract thinking. 4. Period of formal operations (from 11 or 12 to 14 or 15 years of child’s age) is typical for development of abstract thinking, ability to conduct abstract operations, independent of concrete manipulation. In relation to Piaget´s four stages of thinking development, thus four stages of child’s drawing development period might be distinguished: 1. Period of scribbles (up to child’s 2 years of age). Some authors call this period the period of insubstantial scribbles and they limit it by the age of 3. 2. Period of a spontaneous content child’s drawing (from 2 to 7 or 8 years of child’s age), called also a period of child’s naive realism, from 3 to 9 or 10 years of child’s age. 3. Turnabout to imitate optical image, in older expert literature mentioned as visual realism (from 7 or 8 to 11 or 12 years of child’s age). 4. Period of interest loss in artistic performance (from 11 or 12 years of child’s age). Period of semiotic relationships of constructive thinking, which is at the same time the golden age of child’s drawing, starts at the end of child’s second year of age. It is a phase of first abilities to imagine something through something else, which serves only for this vision. Sign and symbol are characteristic for this period. Usually children first draw what they know about themselves or about an object, in later periods they picture what they can see on the given fact. Drawings come closer and closer to description of reality and scenic portraying. Pure imitation is an eloquent sign of inhibition as a result of anxiety or tiredness. Differentiation of schematic figures (human figures, trees, plants, houses) is developed in a parallel way with intelligence maturing and has been used to reflect the school readiness for a long time. Replacement of symbols by real schemes usually starts at the time when a child turns to reality, i.e. approximately at the age of 8 up to 10. Gradually, they give significance to proportions and details. Period between 12 and 15 years of age is less characteristic. Development of abilities and graphic skills is formed up to 13th year of age. Thinking and detailed observation develops more during this period. We talk about gradual development of differential synthetic and global type of reality percep19

tion, together with the beginning of the own, special way of expression, handwriting.

CHILDREN REMAKE WHAT THEY SEE A special place in theory belongs to Rudolf Arnheim (1974, 1992) and his shape psychology aimed at knowing. The significant American professor of Art Psychology at the Harvard University clarifies the function of thinking in connection with perception. He enormously appreciates discovering and inventiveness of children thanks to which they remake what they can see. He perceives a picture, symbol and sign as a function of portraying. Under these terms he does not see different ways of portraying, but three functions. Portraying contains all functions at the same time; the triangle may mean danger, may represent a mountain, but also a sequence, hierarchy (R. Arnheim, 1974, p. 134). Development of drawing is closely connected with the symbol itself, which enables children to picture the world like they see it with their eyes. According to his opinion, seeing includes always more information and sensations than is enabled by optics and physiology of the eye. In terms of optics, a picture on the retina in every moment is not more than a simple look. Even if the message is passed by the optical nerve to the brain project centres, its singularity persists. Vision is like a kaleidoscopic stream of ever changing pictures. Unless we deal with what is going on in the optical apparatus and we will move to what is going on in human brain, we are forced, according to R. Arnheim, to state that vision is nothing more than a mechanical recording of physical impulses. In his opinion, vision is being developed as a means of orientation in the environment. To fulfil this function, it may not be limited only to mechanical recording, but it must be inseparably connected with further mental functions of the mind and with the process of the world visions creation. R. Arnheim defines the child’s artistic development in drawing as acquisition of the ability to use the graphical language. However, graphical operations are for him of higher significance. In his opinion, children have to perceive not only the structural basis of what they want to draw, but they have to think, try to find the way how to make it concrete, pass this vision to a certain medium. In his theory he clarifies and highlights the function of thinking in connection with perception. He starts with perception as the cognitive process itself and reminds that creation of pictures requires 20

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invention and imagination. According to R. Arnheim, the sight itself in a function of intelligence and perception is a cognitive process. Interpretation and meaning are inseparable parts of seeing. The base of good and effective seeing is the sensual world, something we may experience. According to it, children try to give a form to what they experience from the very beginning. R. Arnheim is of the opinion that children draw what they can see. However, he understands seeing as a whole series of actions chosen by eye from many visual sensations creating a picture. The selection is a mental process and therefore two people who watch the same picture, do “not see” it in the same way. What each of them sees is significantly influenced by subjective experience. In connection with abstraction, he mentions a very important term “visual intelligence”. According to him, “no visual experience shows the identification with reality as clearly as the one which is connected with a piece of art”. To learn how to experience art means to experience everything always again. First everybody helplessly wanders in the picture and then suddenly finds a key, a way how to and what exactly to look at in the piece of art so as to be meaningful. What they saw before as a senseless pile of some elements has its explanation and meaning. Such experiences show and concurrently document that at first there is a clearer shaping of our visions, and even after that a certain order occurs in our visions. And that is the point in the whole scope of vision” (R. Arnheim, 1974, p.55).

CULTURE DETERMINES AND INFLUENCES CHILD’S ARTISTIC PERFORMANCE Culture and its influence on child’s artistic performance became a subject of research in the second half of 20th century. Mostly Nelson Goodman (1968) highlights the task and significance of the culture which determines and influences child’s creative development to a great extent. This approach was clearly expressed also by Brent and Marjory Wilsons (e.g. B. Wilson and M. Wilson, 1977, 1982, 1985; B. Wilson, 1997), who claimed that children’s drawings originate from graphical pictures which relate to certain culture. Mostly at an early age, thanks to innate dispositions, the creative performance may be compared with the drawing conventions that children observe in their environment. These models include the pictures which are created by other children, as well as graphic mo21

dels of adults who the children meet in their lives. According to this theory, children’s drawings have to do more with acquisition of graphic language than inclusion of the active composition of picture language, a way which was proposed by R. Arnheim (1974) and C. Golomb (1992). Whereas these two streams propose quite different mechanisms of the creative development, in fact they are quite compatible. A model of creative development, which is proposed by Bernard Darras and Anna M. Kindler (B. Darras and A. M. Kindler, 1993; 1997; A. M. Kindler and B. Darras, 1997, 1997a, 1998) regards the creative art development as a semiotic process embedded in the ontogenetic base, which reacts to the social and cultural context and is formed thereby. A group of research scientists are of the opinion that children’s drawings are a lot richer for learning the graphic language and at the same time they are not only results of the active creation of the graphic language, as mentioned by R. Arnheim or C. Golomb (1992). One of the most important progresses in the current research of child’s development is reassessment of this process understanding as a development of picture repertoire (e.g. D. Pariser, 1997; D. Wolf, 1994; D. Wolf and M. Perry, 1988; A. M. Kindler and B. Darras, 1994, 1997, 1998; A. M. Kindler, 1999). As mentioned by D. Wolf and M. Perry (1988), a child is often able to create and use a scale of visual pictures within the time frame of one “stage”. Similar ideas were presented by J. Bremmer and S. Moore (1984). The model of picture production development, which is proposed by B. Darras and A. M. Kindler, requires the research that would map the graphic repertoire. Authors explain its necessity from the viewpoint of greater ambitions, aims of portraying children and meaning, which children connect with visual and notional characteristics of pictured objects. An advantage of the new creative development understanding lies in the possibility that this model would interpret the variety of the picture production produced by a small child, an adolescent and an adult and its reduced dependency on Western’s centration on visual realism as a point of reference for determination of development in art. Philosophical theory their model originates from is looking for explanation of the phenomena which participate in creation of pictures in terms of their rational reasons. It is the most important moment of their thinking and is different from the usual attitude which perceives the graphic production of pictures as the ﬁnal result of the reached development stages. The authors regard the origin and development of imagination to 22

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be a really dynamic process where the general cognitive readiness reacts together with concrete aims and efforts which stem from the changes in intellectual intentions and the activities realized within graphic media. They suppose that the origin of picture production is embedded in what they have called the picture teleology, which results from identification of similarities and differences between gestures in an early childhood. In terms of Peirce´s semiotics, gestures are regarded as symbolic signs of movement perceived through their similarity with some chosen aspects of movement done at their origination. Then it is possible to talk about icons (pictures) of gestures like about “the first observable behaviour in the field of portraying, and consequently regard them as a deviation in the development of picture repertoire” (A. M. Kindler and B. Darras, 1999, p. 151). Concentrating on the role of changes in the semiotic characteristics and noting the different aspects of behaviour during picture production, the authors proposed a scheme which introduced the doctrines (of teleology). Early teleology of portraying, which leads to icons of traces (e.g. fingerprints which a child leaves in the sand, or traces of movement which are visible on a hazy mirror, etc.), demonstrates a shift of attention from movement to graphic sign. Teleology of organization explains the rhythm icons where the signs are repeated and where their dynamic origin (repeated movement of arm and hand) leads to a wider variety and complexity of the picture. Nature of this teleology is evident in both positions: in teleology of portraying, as it stems from movement, but also in teleology of shaping, which highlights importance of graphic sign. Teleology of arrangement provides a base for development of the next couple of different types of teleology: teleology of narration and teleology of autonomy. The former one eventuates in icons of activity, pictures (they form basic signs of a narrative act) which may look like “scribbles” if we concentrate only on their graphic image and do not look at importance of time and continuity dimensions. The latter one, teleology of autonomy, leads to formation of shape icons for which regularity and closeness is typical and supports the origination of drawing teleology. New icons of object are created here on the basis of cognitive abstracts. It is important to note that the cultural models play a significant role in the development of these icons, also in the context of description and narration teleology (which prefers production of pictures where time dimension is suppressed and attention is paid to descriptive detail), as well as teleology of narration and description (where narrative dimension plays 23

primary role and concentrates on running a story at the expense of description of individual aspects of narration). Model A. M. Kindler and B. Darras distinguish also between “initial pictures”, thus a system of portraying, including simple but fixed schemes, which satisfy basic needs of portraying. It is symptomatic for this system that it is created in childhood, but persists in picture production of adolescents and adults, mostly those who did not have the formal, specialized training or art education. Initial production of pictures is a system of portraying which overlaps the cultural borders through its basic features and is marked by simplicity and economy of the means at creation of meaning. Initial pictures depict the spirit of the things more than details, and in this sense they offer “a generic” picture alternative. However, it is important to remember that the initial production of pictures does not frequently work in isolation from other forms of expression, like words or gestures, which might bring there a refined level of complexity and particularity. The mentioned model stems not only from the development of child’s drawing, but the authors have paid great attention also to the process of picture production. Number of relevant information allowed them to question the thesis that the art development is a process that relates to the system of portraying, is included in the system of portraying and relies on the only form of expression. Whereas many researches had noticed before (e.g. Colbert, 1984; C. Golomb, 1992; D. Korzenik, 1977; K. Lansing, 1976) that small children use language or gestures to supplement their picture creation at their early age. A. M. Kindler and B. Darras confirm this knowledge and further argue that the forms of expression are in fact bound with one another. This idea is in harmony with observation of children’s perception and motive activities done by Matthew (1983) and with attempts at portraying, which were integrated in what he called “recording an activity”. Based on the facts stated above, it is obvious that in an early stage of picture production development, there is a process of portraying through several media, including vocalization, verbalization, gestures and signs. The model of art development, briefly described above, presupposes the existence of more paths rather than one, which the development of child’s creation may use and which it eventually uses. It also specifies the meaning of behavioural intentions at picture development, at formation and selection of the picture repertoire. The authors are aware of the 24

CHILD AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION THROUGH FINE ART

fact that their model is not full, nor it includes everything and that this new theoretical frame will require further study and research. For the future it is necessary to clearly detach different picture repertoires which would support the given objectives and needs of current visual culture. Only after that it will be possible to elaborate the pedagogical strategies which would enable children to better understand and use various picture systems. Several valuable works (e.g. D. Wolf and M. Perry, 1998; D. Wolf, 1994; A. M. Kindler, 1999) have been created in this ﬁeld; however, further theoretical research is necessary.

INTERPRETATION OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC PERFORMANCE At the beginning of 19th century a child’s drawing was mostly characterized as a primitive attempt at portraying, therefore almost no attention was paid to it. As late as at the end of the century, more profound study of child’s drawing content in different age periods brought the researchers to look for the similar and the different, as well as the strange in child’s drawing. Eventually, it confirms their knowledge that a child’s drawing as a means of learning and communication provides a critical view of the child’s development. On one hand, psychologists perceive it as a ”window” to the child’s soul and on the other hand as an ability to get to know the child. F. Goodenough (1926) uses a child’s drawing to measure intelligence, for J. Piaget (1970, 1993) it means a reflection in child’s imagination, N. L. Freeman (1980) and J. Goodman (1968) use it to examine the cognitive process. So, for example the cephalopods, “tadpole” drawings of human figures are perceived as a picture of more global than differentiated conception of human personality (J. Piaget, 1970, 1993) or as a proof of a weak memory (N. L. Freeman, 1980). Lack of details in the drawing is a signal of lower intelligence (F. Goodenough, 1926), transparency supports the statement that children can draw only what they know, not what they see (J. Piaget, B. Inhelder, 1993). Only rarely is a child’s artistic performance interesting for its own expression, aesthetic feeling of children, and the system of symbols or portraying a situation. In this sense, the researches notify us of the fact that children’s drawings appear to us to be strange not because children lack some adults´ skills but because their intentions are significantly different from those of adults. Children are lured by simplicity, exactness and vi25

sual logic more than by the aim of the realistic portraying (R. Arnheim, 1974, C. Golomb, 1992). From this point of view, children’s drawings show us what we can learn from children about the master knowledge of rules and principles in art creation. When talking about art development, it is necessary to realize that this concept is a cultural artefact in itself to a great extent. From the focus on drawing as a central category for discussion about the art development up to the elaboration of criteria and norms which define the notion of progress in the field of pictures, it is obvious that understanding of art development is based on values and ideas adopted within a specific cultural context. A good example of this phenomenon is a recent survey conducted with the aim to reassess the model of art development in the environment of particular cultures, described by the U-shaped curve. According to the original protocol, in the studies which adopted the U-shaped curve model, D. Pariser and van den Berg (1997) were not able to apply and reply to the U-shaped curve model in the study which dealt with Chinese and Canadian artists and connoisseurs. These researchers claimed that the dependency of the U-shaped curve model on the aesthetic values of western Modernists resulted in its inadequacy in terms of several cultures. Their “initial doubts” were confirmed in a study realized in Taiwan (A. M. Kindler, 2000) where the development model defined by Chinese experts in art performance again differed from the model stated in the studies carried out in the United States of America, which supported the U-shaped curve model (B. Davis, 1991; 1997, 1997a). Apart from that, Kindler’s study also showed some interesting development differences in understanding of the art performance by children, adolescents and adults, signalizing that this concept has a rich semantic design, even within the specific cultural context. Apparent inseparability of the art development concept and aesthetical opinions that might be determined by culture makes it more complicated to develop some proofs for a universal model of the linear type closed development. However, the complicated development processes in the art production may be caught through several objectives and through examination of more complicated models, which explain the existence of different aesthetical categories, picture privileges, efforts, intentions and possibilities. It is evident that the child’s artistic performance, similarly like art in the whole history, is interpreted in different ways, even sometimes it becomes the conflict of interests and ways of interpretation. A group of researchers 26

CHILD AND CREATIVE EXPRESSION THROUGH FINE ART

interprets the child’s artistic performance from the psychological point of view. Another group perceives it in the social and cultural context. In each case these interpretations provide a picture about a child, the motives the child is directed by in the cognitive and ontogenetic process. A group of scientists perceive child’s artistic performance as the child’s art and compare it with different styles in the ﬁne arts or with aesthetic concepts. A speciﬁc form of the child’s artistic performance interpretation leads to understanding of the social functions of concrete art symbol, to understanding of their communicative application and to creation of real relationship of these symbols with the interpreted fact.

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Codiﬁcation of signs in child’s artistic expression is closely connected with the patterns of child’s personality mental development, mostly with development of intelligence. The already mentioned Concept of intelligence development by Piaget uses the notions like mental image, picture image (J. Piaget, B. Inhelder, 1993, p. 65), which appear quite late and are formed on the basis of inner imitation. “They only create a system of symbols which with bigger or smaller accuracy, but generally with delay, express the preoperational and later the operational level of child’s understanding.” (J. Piaget, B. Inhelder, 1993, p. 72.)

FROM SCRIBBLES TO INTENTIONAL PORTRAYING Scribbles, still without content, represent the ability to match the individual parts of a situation to the structural whole (Picture 1). A movement shown from the beginning belongs through its neural and motive nature to the wide area of practical movements. It results in improvement of motorics and ability of movement inhibition with the feedback on child’s psyche when there is a moment of satisfaction, attention and enjoyment of graphic movement. It is necessary to add that these scribbles are similar to the play, and in contrast with others they leave a relatively permanent trace: a point, a line, a spot or a shape. Gradually those scribbles which are of oval shape and have been created by circular motion with hand are Picture 1: Monika, 1 year old. Scribble selected. without content. 29

Picture 2: Vierka, 2 years old. Summer is coming. Typical scribble and typical colouring: yellow, green, orange, red. Lukáš, 2 and half years old. Car. The scribble of bold lines accompanied with rumbling noise. Spontaneous drawing ﬁnishes with the words: “The car goes, goes, bang”. Typical scribble and typical colouring: yellow, red, brown, violet.

According to the research conducted by H. Baker and R. Kellogg (1967), one-year-old child may draw some signs on the paper. It is a natural activity of a normally developing child. However, their scribbles – if they leave a trace by pencil on the paper at all, because the child draws also out of the paper and in the air – are not changing and developing in any way. The child gets to these beginnings approximately in 16th to 22nd month of age. There is no succession there; it is only functional motive game. From the motive point of view, the straighter lines – horizontal and vertical – represent a certain level of cooperation between extensor and flexor muscle of fingers. They are formed much later than the irregular oval and crooked line. A new element, coordination of eye and hand comes to play a few months later and at that time we can talk about beginnings of child’s drawing. Scribbles are starting to be methodical groping which overcomes the chaos of shapelessness and organizes the first forms (Picture 2). Approximately in the second year of child’s age, the associations which cause more accurate images of the things and objects are arisen. There is a connection between a drawing and an image and resulting thereof is stimulus for their name or completion. The child already gets to know and that is the first level of conscious portraying that is demonstrated in additional interpretation. They spontaneously put their image in the scribbles which started to originate as a scribble with content. On the basis of the arisen associations, it reminds them of a figure, a concrete thing or an object. 30

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

INITIAL PICTURE Jean Piaget (1993) differentiates between the period of transfer from the scribbling phase to the phase of the initial picture (from 2 up to 4 years of age) and the period of graphic type creation as the development of drawing skills (from 4 up to 7 or 8 years of age). Based on this classification, the transfer from the phase of the scribble without content to the initial picture phase should be perceived as the transfer from the sensory-motive phase to the phase of symbolic marking. It is fluent and does not occur suddenly. In the development of motive symbolism there are some graphic signs which are expressly orientated towards visual image. A dominant sign occurs which is connected with a concrete object in the image and concurrently with an amount of further similar objects. A shape is formed, which is kept in imagination. The child is able to draw it once again, so for example an oval might resemble a head, body, apple, pond or house in different situations. A two-year old child with mature neuromuscular coordination is able to draw even twenty basic shapes in the scribble. H. Baker and R. Kellogg (1967) called them “the neuromuscular happenings”, while the basic graphic shapes are used by children either in isolated way or also in communication. However, our research has acknowledged that there are certain combinations of shapes preferred in child’s drawings. What is important is only the time and sequence in which they learn them. The inner dependency between drawing and ontogenetic development gradually forces the child to border their drawings in the way their body is bordered. Physical disposition and differences in the existing environment are added to the effects which have the basic physical and psychical rhythms, but also movement activity of body on the child. A circular movement emerges from a source point, where the child starts drawing, which in its effort to absorb the other chaos takes the other arbitrary movements. It eventually borders the whole drawing (scribble) in an incomplete or complete circular form, repeated frequently. Drawing contains some curves, irregular spirals, spots and short thick scribbles, which form interesting child’s artistic compositions. This progress results from better, more mature coordination of hand and eye. It is necessary to mention that the child in their first artistic attempts does not intend to give similarity, e.g. of people, animals, things to the shape; as late as the scribble strokes start to cross horizontally and vertically, we 31

can talk about a significant progress in the development of child’s creation. A quick and circular movement is getting slow and the child tries to create an oval using one continuous line, to close this oval, to compare it meaningfully to a human head, thing or object. Simple drawing of circular closed shapes and different sizes proves the more perfect perception and motive coordination. Simple lines, whose direction and parameters are well thought of and controlled, provide the shapes with meaning which is bound to child’s life and cultural world. Within certain time children have quite mastered some graphic types, i.e. images which they created for particular things and humans of their world. In the development process they adapt the formed way of portraying to a new stimulus and add some new signs, concrete details. Usually the choice of elements is influenced by strong emotional colouring, the form by similarity irrespective of optical image. Schematic phase is halfsymbolic in its nature. The basic principle of the schematic thinking is a shift from a stereotype symbol and its usage. It is accompanied by classification of graphic shapes, whereas these are differentiated according to meaning, for example in the proportions. Children express themselves without obstructions, honestly, they do not pretend, do not copy the reality, but they provide only their own commentary and explanation – naive, full of subjective assessment and portraying (that is why we call it the naive realism). They portray only what is important from their point of view and prefer the themes which are close and interesting concerning the sentiment. They frequently replenish their creation with verbal commentary, the content and quality of which depend on vocabulary and level of child’s language development. A three-year-old child uses diagrams that are formed from the basic shapes in the period of child’s performance with context. There are six of them – circle or oval, square or rectangular, triangle, simple shape, Greek cross and diagonal cross. They use them spontaneously, do not realise them and do not focus on them. They do not try to divide and repeat them; they create them totally at random through kinetic game. The first projections of child’s images into the still unspecified, most general forms are in the form of vague geometric shapes. Children are able to draw the first separate spiral and circular shapes in their scribbles. When they start to involuntarily repeat them, they spot the visibility of the circular shape in the remaining amorphous tangle of lines, which reminds them, for example, of the shape of a ball, an apple or the sun or a friend 32

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 3: Miška, 3 years old. A carnival. Reduction of vague geometrical forms. The ﬁrst pre-shape emerges from a labyrinth of scribbles. Miško, 3 years old. A carnival. Reduction of vague geometrical forms. The ﬁrst pre-shape emerges from a labyrinth of scribbles.

– and at that time the drawing may represent a graphic code, a bearer of certain information (Picture 3). The spiral is an unclosed dynamic shape which symbolizes action in a child’s artistic performance. Gradually stronger and imperative tendency to bind the scribble chaos by a spiral movement until they are bordered by a circle causes eventually the fact that the spiral and the circle will start to be noticeably dominant in the tangle of other lines and the child will separate them as the ﬁrst independent shapes (Picture 4). Spiral embodies the principle of organic growth and its symmetrical unity, whereas the other shape – circle – symbolizes self-awareness as a closed spiritual and organic unit full of tension and movement.

FROM THE DRAWING WITHOUT CONTENT UP TO THE FIGURAL DRAWING Giving the first shapes – circular and spiral – independence means a decisive step out of the labyrinth of the shapeless forms. The child starts to be influenced by the first and basic principle of human creativity: the principle of symmetry. As from the perception of a living unity of their organism, they create the first shapes, through these – through discovering of circular and spiral shapes – it enables them to add the feeling of physi33

Picture 4: Lenka, 3 years old. First projection of images Potatoes and Children in Kindergarten. The spiral and circle in the tangle of other lines are markedly dominant and are separated as the ﬁrst individual shapes. Peter, 3 years old. A snowman. The spiral and circle in the tangle of other lines are markedly dominant and are separated as the ﬁrst individual shapes:1. A snowman, 2. A truck.

cal symmetry to the original reﬂection of physical and psychical rhythms, motive activity and unity of body, which would lead the child to spontaneously create the symmetrical shapes. Still bordering their scribbles from the feeling of their “Me” closeness, the child who is already led by the sense of central and axial symmetry soon replaces the circle by a square which has a static impact and expresses earthly connotations. The square or other polygons, whose angularity represents a harder and stricter grip. The child likes to draw the thick walls of the house in which they live and which surround them on a daily basis. Its life space is eventually limited by every material obstacle, a fence or a banister (Picture 5). By separating the square from their scribbles, children discover another shape with the archetype meaning, symbolizing mass, weight and resistance against pressure. The child who is led by the same unintentional feeling will create and built another polygonal shape against such meaning of the square. It is a triangle with the spiritual meaning of aggression against the Picture 5: Lukáš, 3 years old. Our house. mass, and that is with an intention Discovering square, triangle or other to break through its grip embodied polygon and making the shapes in the ﬁghting angles of the triangle. independent. 34

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 6: Janko, 3 years old. Bus drive. Separation and repetition of shapes. Tomáško, 3 years old. Bus drive. Separation and repetition of shapes: 1. Bus, 2. Little house, 3. Little snails, 4. Little clouds, 5. Little mushrooms.

The child draws these shapes or decorates them by scribbles. Possible combinations of basic scribbles and six diagrams are endless: some are not used at all, others very frequently. If the child connects two diagrams, a combination is formed. Combinations are either clear, but the child adds more scribbles to them. Three combined diagrams are marked as a composition. Mostly after the third year of age, the child tries and has their favoured compositions. Possible combinations of diagrams are endless, but one child prefers them and draws them more frequently than the others. A small art master separates the arch as an unfinished circle, angle as a part of the polygon (Picture 6). During such play with separation and modification of shapes, the child starts to slowly feel the proportional relations and is thus influenced by the second basic principle of human creativity – the principle of proportionality. Through perception of the proportional relationships, he asks the perception of functional proportionality of its organism for help. As this feeling is getting complete and universally human, the drawings are more and more communicative. The world of forms drawn by a child may be connected to form the mutual meaningful relationships, even if they are still non-figural and meaningless. We have mentioned that a three-year-old child has rich experience with scribbles, diagrams, combinations and compositions. If further led by the sense of symmetry and proportionality, s/he discovers the first orna35

mental shapes, which is the third principle of the artistic creation – the principle of rhythm (Picture 7). The principle of rhythm forces the child to draw using imagination and reason. S/he places the ideograms and particular schemes next to each other and thus includes intentional life in their drawings. Gradually they move from the meaningless Picture 7: Marcelka, 5 years old. Our village. The principle of rhythm. drawing to the figural drawing as an imaginative game, where there are Maroš, 9 years old. Life of ants. real human beings and objects reThe principle of rhythm. placed by portraying similar individualized forms. According to B. Kováč (1972), a four-year-old child starts to decipher the meaning of their drawings as early as in the process of creation. In his opinion, as much as 40 percent of children “read” their drawings concurrently with their creation, only 10 percent after they are finished. At the same time, the effort to reduce vagueness and generality of geometric shapes is rising so that they get closer and adapt to real images more. Random graphic pictures of the world represent concrete stories or scenes, so adults can also see human figures, houses, trees and animals.

GRAPHIC CODE Development of child’s drawing continues with similar admirable logic until it is ﬁnished. When child’s drawing is inﬂuenced by all three basic principles of creation, it changes the world of ambiguous, vague forms to 36

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 8: Lukáš, 4 years old. Playing the aeroplanes and cars. A composition created from the individualized forms. Peter, 3 and half years old. A game with means of transport. A composition created from the individualized forms.

a more definite graphic code with individual shapes. As we have mentioned before, the child’s drawing can be “read” not only by its small art master, but also anybody else. The sense of line and central rhythm is strengthened by repetition and confirmation of the same or combined geometrical forms in symmetric contrasts, and this becomes a basis for composition abilities: it enables to create the abstract, meaningless, flat compositions and according to them to create one’s own artistic images of the given reality. At that time the child’s drawing becomes an intentional realization of the before given spiritual image, which is developed or changed in the drawing process. The child unintentionally discovers two marginal possibilities of art: on one hand it is a pole of abstraction, on the other hand the pole of individualization (Picture 8). According to B. Kováč (1972), the boom and break-up of artistic styles happens only through their mutual effect – approaching and moving off one another. One of such styles is a significantly united style of child’s drawings. The child comes to it in the next period of drawing, in the phase of isolated images. This style corresponds with child’s world; it develops and gets older together with them, starts to break up at the beginning of puberty.

INDIVIDUALIZED FORMS OF LIVING AND NON-LIVING NATURE We have mentioned above that the content of child’s drawing may be expressed either by geometric shapes (circle, square, triangle and other 37

polygons), or by non-geometric shapes (ﬁgure, house, tree, concrete scene), which express a concrete value representation. The shift from simple pre-shapes to the more complex images of the real world can not be done at the same time. First the child creates a cephalopod, an image of human “little being” to pet with it, and even after that they draw animals, objects and things.

DISCOVERING THE FIGURE The cephalopod is represented by a simple scheme with a bigger or smaller circular shape and several prolonged lines. H. Baker and R. Kellogg (1967) try to explain the uniformity of the human ﬁgure development from the aggregate called mandala. It represents a magic circle in the Sanskrit. Eventually, each circle which is divided into four or eight parts by the lines crossing the middle may be called like this. Most often it is combined with a cross or a sloping cross. A child older than three and half years attempts to portray it. Human ﬁgure is usually created by the basic shape of circle with scribbles. S/he uses vertical line for legs, the horizontal line for arms, an imperfect circle for face; a mouth may be the third one of the basic shapes (Picture 9).

Picture 9: Basic shapes of a children´s drawing I. In: Pogády, J.: Detská kresba v diagnostike a v liečbe. Bratislava 1993. Basic shapes of a children´s drawing II. In: Pogády, J.: Detská kresba v diagnostike a v liečbe. Bratislava 1993. Basic shapes of a human ﬁgure drawing. In: Butina, M.: O slikarstvu. Ljubljana, DEBORA 1997.

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 10: Basic version of the human ﬁgure drawing.

This phase of drawing is only a gradual reproduction of individual forms of living and non-living nature; it is called the phase of isolated images. Human figure – an irregular circle, representing head, to which a curved line is drawn as a symbol of the remaining body. The little human being already stands on his legs – the first and basic version of the legendary “cephalopod” is formed. Gradually, the child draws the most important details of human face: first eyes, then mouth and nose to the enlarged circle. These details are not well placed at the beginning: eyes may be next to the head, nose above the eyes, horizontal line as a symbol of mouth is in the form of dots or small circles representing eyes. The child is most satisfied if s/he draws with certainty the triple of the vital organs of communication with the external environment: the most important organ of sense perception, the organ of food and air ingestion. Not the total imaginativeness, but vital meaning of these organs cause that the specific signs of human figure appear as the first ones in child’s drawing. When the child learns how to place them well, when s/he already puts nose between the eyes and a bit lower the mouth, certain heads – kites originate, or the heads of ghosts without an appropriate body. A wavy line is re39

placed by two broad and straight lines, which are curved to create a little arch or right angle in the part below. This figure is something like an art abbreviation, including the basic features of a human organism, the ability to perceive the world through senses, ingest food, express oneself using language, breathe, and move freely (Picture 10). After distinguishing the chest from the legs and addition of an arm – either from the chest or even from the excessively enlarged head – a new, more complex version of cephalopod (manikin) is formed and this is gradually improved in symmetrical and proportional way. In case of need, the child adds more, now less important details: the whole set of fingers, indications of clothes, mostly a vertical line of buttons on the circular of square chest, the teeth in a rectangular or moon mouth, etc. Thus, the child is coming to the first complete scheme of human figure from its vague, nonspecific pre-shape (Picture 11). Through repetitive drawing of the cephalopod, the child gradually acquires the sense of wholeness of the outer shape of human body: the chest is of circular, oval, triangular or square shape. Head is directly connected with the chest. Legs are far from each other, they frequently match the chest outline. The proportions are not in harmony. The scheme of a little human is changed to a compact puppet, drawn as if only by one draw. Around the fifth year of child’s age, a transition to the twodimensional drawing is visible, so the drawing of a figure in the “en face” position is gradually changed; the child portrays it in profile. (They normally draw a human figure en Picture 11: Nikola, 4 years and 11 months of face, but the animal is portrayed age. A letter to friends from kinderfrom the side, emphasising its garten in Hrabské: “Hello, Ms. Teacher and children. Nikolka is writchest). In the sixth year of age, ing to you. Come to visit us. We have some details are added: ears and some new toys in our kindergarten. hair which the child draws only on Also some new books”: 1. This is our kindergarten, 2. Ms. Teacher from head’s perimeter. Sometimes s/he Hrabské, 3. Children from Hrabské, adds a hat, frequently above the 4. Here I am writing them to come. 40

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 12: Ivka, 5 and half years old. Mother, uncle, sister and me. Human figure drawing. Peter, 6 years old. Friends of mine. Human figure drawing. Michaela, 6 years old. Mother, uncle, sister and me. Human figure drawing. Milada, 6 years old. Mother, uncle, sister and me. Human figure drawing.

head because there is the head outline. Indications of clothing are portrayed in a linear way and therefore the figure is usually “transparent”. Female figures typically have the two-part clothing separated on waist. Thus, the schematic drawing of a human is replaced by the outline one. The outline drawing enables differentiation of human figures according to sex, age and clothing (Picture 12). We have mentioned that children gradually improve their drawing; the schemes are made more objective and adapted more and more to the portrayed world of reality. A man is drawn using an oval or square shape, with long legs and a hat, and a woman is drawn using a circular or trian41

Picture 13 a:

Mária, 7 years old. In the housing estate. Human ﬁgure drawing. En face drawing, partial or complete proﬁle.

gular shape with long hair (Picture 13 a, b). In the seventh year of age the human ﬁgure drawing is more accurate concerning the proportions. Legs 42

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

are closer to each other, hands on the level of arms. An indication of neck appears which does not connect the head or chest line. Hairstyle and clothing is getting better. In the human figure drawing of an eightyear-old child there is a partial or total profile. Arms come from the front line of the chest. In case they come from the back one, there is a line, so called the front line, drawn through the arms. Most frequently only one arm is portrayed like that. The legs are connected. Drawings of figures of a mixed type appear Picture 13 b: Mária, 13 years old. There are evident differences at this age. At around between drawings by girls and boys. nine years of age the child tries to portray movement. There are evident differences between drawings by girls and boys. Details appear in the drawings: a sleeve, neck opening, belt or pockets. There is a typical indication of walking, hand activity, carrying the bag. Children are limited by nature of the fixed images and earlier elaborated graphic types. In tenth to twelfth year of age, there are in fact only the profiles.

DRAWING OF ANIMAL, HOUSE, TREE In the phase of the isolated images, the small art master creates certain storage of basic art symbols. S/he forms an elementary scheme that portrays an animal quite simply: s/he turns the cephalopod from vertical to 43

Picture 14: Basic version of a house drawing. Basic version of a tree drawing. Basic version of an animal drawing.

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

horizontal position and draws an optional characteristic sign. The obvious connection with the human scheme is lost when the child tries to draw animal heads in profile (Picture 14). It is similar with drawing of a tree or a house. Shape, location and way of portraying the window are Picture 15: Lenka, 4 and half years old. Little geese. “I have seen them at my grandma’s.” Graphic competence. changed because the child is usually inspired Viktorka, 5 years old. Little geese. Reproduction. The child takes over the theme, symbols. They try by their own house. to stylize the symbols in such shape as originally Not always does the created. child discover the new individualization shapes, but they simply imitate schemes of another child or take adult’s advice and then repeat the stereotypes. We talk about reproduction. The basis of symbol matching is a rhythm of lining. The inner concept of drawings is portrayed through animal figures lined up in a horizontal line, which is emphasized. Through graphic portraying of rhythm, the child learns to think about the world. They learn to match the things, compare and draw rational conclusions (Picture 15). Discovery of the first individualized form in child’s drawings is to be considered, according to Piaget´s theory, as a result of the rational concept. Children draw their little humans according to information they have, the level and content of drawing are connected with mental maturity. The child does not analyse what s/he can see, does not copy an image but creates human images synthetically, s/he assembles their shape according to learnt details. Piaget´s words that there is something like a visual intelligence, eyes and hands of the child are important for development of the whole intelligence, are confirmed. To develop the intellect only through simple work with notions is practically impossible. Symbol of circle is an expression of integrity, visuality and intelligence because it is concurrently the most frequent shape included in the world of senses, and at the same time it is the most important abstract shape. Uninten45

tional visual processes (Kellogg calls them imaginative fantasy) play a dominant role in the child’s development, mostly nowadays when a child’s artistic performance is quite inﬂuenced by television pictures, computer signs, comic strips or advertising posters.

CHILD AS A CREATOR AND RECEIVER OF INFORMATION According to B. Kováč (1972), it is possible to deduce the first and basic principle of child’s expression of individualized forms with spiritual content: principle of conceptual realism. On contrary with the sensual realism, which unconditionally relies on the data from the eye, the conceptual realism – characteristic not only for child’s creation, but for each culture, behind which there is the prologic or archaic thinking, simply describes in its drawings what appears to be the most important and interesting for the artist on a given thing: instead of optical portraying, certain notional drawing occurs because a picture of certain thing records its idea existing in the human spirit as a result of knowledge and separated from the thing itself. Principle of conceptual realism exactly corresponds with child’s mentality, its instinctive narcism (interest in and admiration for oneself), aimed at the world of own images and ideas about reality. There is a remarkable disproportional relationship between a simple artistic record and devoted “reading” by its creator. Sometimes children read their pictures as a kind of secret writing. The second principle of child’s creation of individual forms results from this finishing and enriching of the drawing: the principle of their negative redundancy. In the portrayed forms it enables the child to associate complete and complicated forms or real things, as well as relationships between them with allusive portraying in the drawing, and at the same time it corresponds with child’s spiritual attitude to the outer world. Children themselves are creators and consumers of the drawing – they draw for themselves- they are senders and receivers of information through a drawn code at the same time. Principle of negative redundancy of the portrayed forms causes that the child’s drawing does not develop towards the realistic portraying of reality, as a part of researchers who do not respect individuality of the child’s spiritual world claim. A simplified or allusive portraying of the given reality is enough for a child. Its understanding of reality and a sense for artistic game require it. It results from three conditions that keep the principle of negative redundancy always valid. 46

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

First: the fact that children must manage with their still weak knowledge of things and objects, because they draw them synthetically, based on a memory, and do not copy a model. It means that not even a 7-year-old pupil has to note that this or that object which he is drawing at the time has disappeared from the still life (in front of him). Copying the models does not correspond with their egocentrism; their children’s world interferes with the outer surroundings, which is above the inner spiritual life. Second: children do not use their knowledge and skills enough; their drawing is economic, falls under the principle of the least effort. Number of details in the drawing is reduced to leave the most important. From the adult’s perspective, the child may keep and highlight the totally insigniﬁcant details; however, according to the peculiar child’s logic and their momentary interests, exactly those are very important. (Grandpa smokes from a nice pipe, even decorated with ornaments. He does not need both hands for this activity and therefore, in child’s opinion, one hand is enough to hold the pipe.) Third: children do not clearly differentiate the world “me” from the world “not me”, they are close to the belief in almighty opinion, word and imagination. They need magic if their childhood is not to be ruined in advance: demonstration of child’s magic is conjuring, managing the outer world through drawing which, however, has to keep the principle of replacement the whole by the parts. It must replace complexity and elaborateness of the outer world forms by the simpliﬁed art symbols. Otherwise there would be a strict dictation of the outer reality forms in child’s drawings, not a free spiritual play appropriate for the instinctive development of the child.

STORIES DRAWN BY CHILDREN Children try to project their images not only to the separate geometric shapes, but also to other amorphous parts of the drawing: the sense for shape is replenished by sense for colour which enables to regard every shapeless spot as an object, mostly if this spot is differentiated by colour. An adult viewer can only see a few circles, broken lines, simple ﬁgures, sometimes also unclear scribbles, but child’s fantasy plays the whole fairy stories. The child creates signs and symbols of things, people, animals, among which there is a connection, one plot and one story. The scattered objects, the ﬁgures on the sheet are linked with a real action or 47

story, which is running in child’s head, their images, their thinking. Drawing is getting more and more individual; it is humorous, satiric and typical for its author. The child who draws individually and spontaneously, experiments. S/he does not come to the last stage of drawing based on a simple mind chaining of their schemes so Picture 16: Lucka, 6 years old. This house is as to create a certain life situation. mine. Composition. S/he comes to portraying the situaAnna, 5 and half years old. Summer. tion, thus to situation drawing that Composition. develops the subject-matter and Milena, 7 and half years old. scenic relationships thanks to the In the castle. Composition. composition ability, improved by drawing of abstract, subject-less compositions consisting of linear and surface shapes. S/he gradually puts also the individualized forms to the abstract compositions, mostly figures of people and thus creates composition relationships. These are the ones to encourage the child to project also the first subject-matter and scenic relationships to their drawings and start to illustrate them intentionally by the composition drawing, portraying some concrete situations (Picture 16). Child’s drawing comes to life and becomes a fairy tale. The child tells the whole events through drawing, and as the phase of scribbles reflected the baby talk to a certain extent and the phase of isolated images reflected the first grammatically and syntactically disorganized words, the situa48

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

tion drawing reflects the sentence expression: certain pictograms, picture writings grow from the artistic expression of these sentences. Telling the situations and events requires solving the problem of the talk room in the drawing: for the first time the little artist starts to think about the question how to Picture 17: Radka, 6 years old. Wheel, wheel of the mill. Projection portraying. put the three-dimensional world of stories from human and animal life on the paper, how to portray depth of the room on the material surface which s/he works with. Before, during the period of scribbles and the first isolated images, the paper was only a wall on which the child drew some shapeless pictures at first and then the first individualized forms without placing them somehow in the space. Projection portraying (placing every figure correctly, the child turns the paper while drawing, as a host s/he must go around the table when distributing the chairs) will still be a typical sign of child’s drawings (Picture 17). From a simple outline of the ground plan the child moves to creation of continuous talk stripes, which sometimes divide the drawing into the whole series of pictures which talk about the same topic. However, the child alone, without influence of school, does not come to the perspective drawing because it is out of child’s drawing development – moreover, it destroys the charm of child’s visions of reality, changes the drawing to become an imperfect technical outline. After having solved the question of the talk room, all specific and typical signs of the child’s artistic performance are being completed and this naturally results from the individual structure of the child in a certain period. Together they form a unified style of child’s drawings.

UNIFIED STYLE OF CHILD’S DRAWING Number of concrete things, objects, figures, buildings and concurrently some characteristic signs, typical for child’s artistic expression approximately from 3 to 11 years of age appear in child’s artistic performance. They form a unified style of child’s drawing which relates to the ontogenesis of a child, is determined ontogenetically and on the other hand it is comparable with phylogenesis of the fine arts (more details in Chapter 5). It is formed mostly by linearity, wholeness and closeness, whereas the line drawn is more and more definitive (Picture 13 and others). A drawn (drawing) cluster (Picture 8) appears in the child’s artistic expression at that time when the child does not respect the placement of things and objects. S/he tries to draw as many elements as possible or several most significant situation actions on one surface. From more time periods, without any logical sequence, s/he draws, for example, one figure across another and does not mind that one of the figures stands upside down. Children create certain way how to portray individual things and people; they create graphic types and schemes. They usually repeat them and return to them. Creation of a new type requires certain psychical effort from the child. Every change is difficult for them but is of a great significance for the next development of the artistic expression. The old and the new graphic types coexist for certain time, whereas another, a higher level of development is getting ready. The new graphic type arises mostly from inner needs: to express the relationship between a man and his environment, to show relationships and connections, to highlight conduct of people and characterise their spiritual world. Eventually, the overcome phase may return, and thus a cephalopod may appear next to a Picture 18: Petra, 3 years old. My friends. Graphic types. figure in the drawing. (Picture 18). 50

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 19: Janko, 6 years old. Summer. Anthropomorphism, personiﬁcation. Anežka, 9 years old. Carnival. Anthropomorphism, personiﬁcation.

Children try to portray the objects carefully one next to another and without overlapping (Picture 13, 18 and others). They strive to reach their most possible visualization and avoid overlapping of elements (hat cannot cover the hair, princess has a beautiful haircut and the crown above it “flies” a bit, the oval representing the face is not disturbed by hair). Children transfer the signs from one image to another and use them at time and place when graphic perception of the new image is not finished. Personification or a so-called anthropomorphism in the child’s artistic expression represents revival of the non-living objects. It means transfer of the human signs to animals, or things, for example drawing of the two-leg animals, an animal with a human head, humanizing the Sun, the Moon (Picture 19). Children are able to see through the matter. Transparent, translucent (röntgen) vision appears at that time when the child portrays also the objects and their parts which are in fact covered (Picture 20). Such portraying is not based on real vision, but on information. It reflect the child’s ability to synthesize Picture 20: Marek, 5 and half years old. In grandma’s house. knowledge on the porTransparency. 51

Picture 21: Janko, 3 years old. Stroll in the forest. Basic line. Dominika, 6 years old. Stroll in the forest. Basic line. Dominika, 6 years old. Here I live. Basic line. Veronika, 6 years old. Good old friends. Basic line.

trayed element (a wall in the house is “glassy”, the chassis of car is also transparent, a carrot in the ground is visible). Between 5 to 6 years of age the children extend their repertoire and the way of graphic portraying. They start to be governed by the rules which are tightly connected with portraying the space among objects on the axis from left to right and from back to front. They create and learn how to use the basic rules, how to portray distance, how to cross the objects and at the same time how to portray perspective. Quite early they understand the meaning of the drawing edge as “the ground”, where they direct their portraying, which is at the beginning scattered in the whole drawing. The further edge represents “the skies”. Later they supplement the drawing edge by a line. The appeared basic 52

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 22: Janko, 4 and half years old. Crop collection. Artistic talk. Marek, 6 years old. New life. Artistic talk.

line means the start of space portraying. If learning of the basic line lasts too long, it could be an obstacle and mistake in further artistic development of the child who would get used to drawing only at the bottom edge of the drawing. If the length of the basic line is not sufﬁcient for the required portraying, the child prolongs it along the other sides of the drawing. If the habit to draw the basic line is not steady, after some time s/he will add another line, parallel with the basic one (so-called intellectual horizon). This line is actually the next basic line. The child puts the portrayed action in the strips, one above another or next to each other, and creates a picture scene. S/he frequently puts it to several strips above each other (next to each other), as if building a classical relief (Pictures 19, 20, 21). Artistic talk, or a so-called fourth dimension of the child’s drawing which the child tries to portray is the time. The child does not portray only one moment of a complicated plot, but presents the whole series of episodes going on one after another, which are placed on one surface (Pictures 8, 21, 22). The episodes may be freely distributed on the drawing and may cross each other or be lined up in the horizontal strip, in the plans lined up above each other or in a circle form. Artistic talk is frequently accompanied by child’s verbal talk about the course of action. Rounding off, graphotism means leaning of the drawing in the direction of a written letter and rounding off the sharp and right angles as 53

an implication of staying on the previous circle form (Picture 23). Graphotism is thus displayed by leaning the vertical lines in the direction of a written letter. What is common for both signs is the transfer from one “scribal” shape to another one. The habit to draw the ﬁgures and things upright on the horizontal line leads to the fact that the child draws also on the leaning lines. For example, people who are walking up the hill are drawn perpendicular to the outline of the hill; a chimney is perpendicular to the leaning roof. The principle of perpendicular, i.e. R-principle is more or less an expression of the interest to differentiate both basic directions (Picture 23). Picture 23: Sandra, 5 years old. Summer is coming. Rounding off, graphotism.

An effort to portray the plot on the surface is, according to psychologists´ opinion, the ontogenetic issue and implication of the nonvisual perception of space. Portraying the space is frequently complicated in child’s drawing. More views at a time or a mixed proﬁle (Picture 24) allow seeing the things of one scene simultaneously from more views. In such case, the child never draws more complicated objects in terms of one spot view,

Picture 24: Monika, 4 years and 10 months old. Our house. More views. “This is our house. The sun is shining from behind the clouds on our house. Me, Jarko and Kamilko are playing with cubes at home. Grandpa and Grandma are sitting and watching TV at home. Mummy and Daddy are sitting at our godmother’s. They did not take us because we had been sleeping”:1. This is me, Nikolka, My brother Janko, my brother Kamilko, 2. Grandpa and Grandma, 3. Daddy and Mummy.

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 25: Martina, 6 years old. At the hockey match. Folding, rolling over. Martina, 6 years old. Dancers. Folding, rolling over.

but s/he connects the views from more sides: ground plan, design, side drawing (the house has both side walls). The non-visual perception of the space is supported by autoplastic feelings. Similarly, folding and rolling over has its place in child’s drawing. The child puts the things which are above child’s horizon or reflect in one another on the eye level to the ground plan or to the most striking profile so as to see a scene or an object concurrently from bird’s and frog’s perspective (Picture 25). It is a non-visual perception of space. Thus, a pond appears in the child’s drawing around which there are some trees scattered in a feathery way, a playground or a garden fence. Some elements of perspective portraying appear in some child’s works in early child’s age, e.g. in drawing of the opened windows (a possibility of influence cannot be excluded!). Children start to understand that the things which are further from them are smaller and therefore they make them smaller in the depth of the drawn space. We can observe also a completely contradictory portraying. In the bottom part, which is closest to us, there are figures and small things and the further ones are bigger and higher (Picture 26). This phenomenon reflects understanding of the children who feel themselves to the portrayed space as one of the action participants and at that time what they draw as the biggest is what is “the closest to them”. The child likes making compelling things, people and animals in the drawing bigger and superior, so as to give them the feeling of signifi55

Picture 26: Vaclav, 6 years and 8 months old. Dance. Reverse perspective. MIlan, 6 years and 8 months old. A Dancing. Reverse perspective. Kristínka, 6 years old. View from the window. Reverse perspective. Veronica, 6 years old. In the Forest. Reverse perspective.

cance, which is identical with their experience (Picture 19 and 27). Frequent deformations, disproportions result from functionality: artistic simplifications are of “abbreviated” nature. If the child is interested in a certain image sign, s/he exaggerates this interest (big handle on the door, big buttons on the coat, a figure bigger than the house, figure head is bigger because the expression is concentrated therein, longer arm is the one which is in action or movement). Reality of the empty space (Picture 28) appears mostly in the drawings done by older children. They rather put stripes, dots or curved lines to the space. The portraying automatism is also not an exception (Picture 29). The 56

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Picture 28: Danka, 6 years old. In the yard. Reality of the empty space.

child multiplies some elements so many times that they contradict the reality (there are windows drawn on the whole house, ﬁngers on the hand, buttons). The automatism which lasts for a long time obstructs further development of artistic expression and partially forms a base of the false ornament. A false, decorated ornament may represent an expression of joy over managing certain type of line or a small element: clothes, ground, skies and house. The creation with Picture 27: Martin, 6 years old. Story of the Little too many ornaments is usually Red Riding Hood. Deformations, poor and stiff as far as content is disproportions, artistic exaggeration concerned. The child strives to hide and Transparency. certain gaps in imagination and Betka, 6 years old. In the shop. thinking. The false ornament apDeformations, disproportions, artistic pears also at that time when the exaggeration. child is not able to observe the complicated shape or does not understand its function and construction. Rhythm, repetition and symmetry are not always shown in the ornament but rather in structuring the surface (Picture 7, 30). They form a base of child’s composition abilities (placement of the main motive on the axis, ranking of objects in regular intervals in the stripe). 57

Basics of composition sense are inborn, they have their nature in physiology: rhythm of pulse and breath, symmetry of human figure and alike. Their presence in drawing is supportive and proves that the artistic performance forms the integrity of the physical Picture 29: Petra, 6 years old. Our house. Portraying automatism. and the spiritual. Sensitivity (Picture 21, 26, 29). Things to which children are emotionally attached they use also on places where it is illogical and unusual. For example, the Sun, the Moon and stars next to each other, hearts and alike. Colourfulness is shown through a subjective preference of Picture 30: Rasťo, 8 years old. Colourful changes II. Rhythm, certain colours. Chilrepetition. dren typically prefer the intensive, rich, clear tones. They use more frequently red, yellow and violet colour; grey, black and orange colours are used less. Sense for colours is naturally changing; it depends on the child’s psychical state, mood and emotional experience. An individual colourful palette or a colorful exaggeration which lasts for certain time span is typical for a child. We can find many characteristic signs in the child’s artistic expression. As we get persuaded by demonstrations in this brochure, we can even discover several of such signs in one picture which are typical for further artistic creations, but also for other children. They form a unified style of child’s drawings. 58

ONTOGENESIS OF CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Children form the structured model of poetics approximately from the 4th year of age and at the beginning of puberty this model starts to decompose. However, the first indications of its decomposition, i.e. obsolescence of the unified style of the artistic expression – this, like every artistic style reaches its point and then it has to descend – occur as early as in the pre-puberty age. The child draws from the already finished, fabricates the already discovered schemes. S/he is a consumer of the previous discoveries and does not experiment further: s/he becomes a mannerist. End of the child’s drawing spontaneous development indicates that the child’s artistic performance does not develop towards the so-called realistic portraying of reality at all. In certain age – after 7th to 8th year of age – s/he expresses most adequately their children’s world through original signs and then it falls down. As if the child needed, after finishing of “the second childhood” when the period of dreaming “about a child’s prince” is falling down, to replace it by verbal art and written record. Every child goes from the phase of intuitive thinking to the phase of analytical, cognitive thinking with their more demanding ideological procedures. The record made by drawn pictures does not correspond with such procedures. Drawing as a record of spiritual life content does not suit them any more and starts to be suppressed by writing. At this time children keep the first private diaries, write the first poems.

VISUAL IMITATION Children differentiate the world “Me” from the world “Not me” to a great extent, their instinctive ego-pantheism is getting weak. They come to a difficult but useful trial period of the harsh and conflicting pre-puberty ethics. Some changes occur in the artistic performance which resulted from changes in the structure of child’s thinking. A change towards imitating optical image occurs, even when the child does not work under the immediate influence of reality, as a painter or drawer according to a model. They are limited by character of the fixed images and character of elaborated graphic shapes. Operational activity is bound to the concrete content and visual image. Thinking in concrete operations is shown, for example, in figural drawing, through an effort to create a more suggestive situation, new configurations, selection and movement. Random spontaneity and activity disappear. It is a period of intellectual realism (portraying the notion characteristic according to a model), which gradually moves to the visual realism. 59

Period of visual realism is characterized Emotionality mostly as the period of concrete and logical thinking (Picture 31). The causal concept of the world is formed, the basics of their scientific knowledge and child’s creative activity Sensomotoric descends. PsycholoThinking gists call this phase a phase of correct anPicture 31: Development of sensomotorics, emotionality, thinking. swers. Development of perception, mostly visual, continues significantly. According to J. Kuric (1986), accurate perception of space, surface and time occurs. The child is already able to estimate the amount and mass of an object. They are able to differentiate nuances of visual, nasal and hearing sensations. They are able to observe reality more consciously and the artistic portraying is getting more and more similar to the objective reality. This is also documented by the development of human figure. Ability to imitate the optical images dominates approximately up to 13th year of child’s age, when the ability to analyse real or imaginary situations is developing to a great extent. Thus, the relationship with the surrounding environment is more differentiated, clearer and more critical. Development

3–6 years old

10 – 13 – 16

Maturing

SPONTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT ACCORDING TO THE GENETIC PLAN Origin and sound development of child’s drawing may scarcely be explained differently than using a hypothesis about the phylogenetic origin of child’s drawing. It seems that children in the early stages of drawing, which we called the methodical groping, instinctively stick to a certain “program” which is in them and helps them to move ahead. It seems that the spontaneous development of child’s drawing is somehow genetically planned. It is proved by the extraordinary logical consequence of particular phases, which, according to advocates of the developmental psychology, as if presupposed one another. However, not only this: even as 60

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if the higher phase determined the lower one and vice versa. The period of shapeless scribbles seems as an obligatory exercise before the own thematic drawing, during which the child is led by the strict logic that starts with chaos of the scattered lines to the circular, spiral and oval forms and from there to further geometric pictures, which will become a basic source for future figural and subject-matter drawings. We have mentioned that if the child’s drawing starts to be influenced by all three basic principles of creation, the world of ambiguous, vague forms is changing to become a more uniform graphic code with individual shapes, so not only its small artist is able to “read” the drawing, but also anybody else. Through repetition of the same or combined geometric forms in the symmetrical opposites, the sense for line and centre rhythm, which becomes basis for composition abilities, is strengthened. It enables to create abstract, surface compositions without content and according to them also to create their own artistic imaginations of the given reality. At that time the child’s drawing becomes an intentional and conscious realization of the spiritual image given in advance, only developed or changed in the drawing process. At that time the child unintentionally discovers two marginal ways of art: on one hand there is the abstraction pole and on the other hand the individualization pole. Only through their mutual activity – getting closer and further – the boom and decay of artistic styles occur. One of such styles, which according to B. Kováč has not been named by art historians so far, is the already mentioned unified style of child’s drawings. The child reaches this style in the next period of drawing, in the phase of isolated images. This style corresponds with the children’s world, develops and grows older together with them and starts to decompose at the beginning of puberty. From the ontogenetic point of view, at the age around 11 to 12 years of age there is a certain progress in the child’s development. Sufficient vocabulary is created and the individual is able to apply it in a creative way. There is a shift from concrete notions and convergent thinking to the abstract notions, abstract and divergent thinking. There is a shift from deduction and analysis to induction, synthesis and new formations (restructuring, flexibility, originality) and development of thinking (reflection, opinion, criticism, alternative, elaboration). Many art pedagogues perceive the period of formal operations from the point of artistic expression as a period of “crisis” of child’s artistic performance. In our opinion, this statement is true only to a certain extent: 61

child’s crisis is related to the development of abstract thinking, criticism and self-criticism, to disproportions between assimilation and accommodation, to irregularity of child’s personality individual element development. The artistic expression seems to be arid, is descriptive and at the same time imperfect according to visual similarity and real requirements. The child attempts to do shadowing, shaping, grasping the volume and plasticity, expressing the space and perspective, which are improved in further years. Portraying the space is non-artistic; it is based on unsuccessful application of the descriptive elements. Retracing, insensitive adoption of models from professional artists appears. The artistic expression of maturing youth contains more and more personality features which enable to judge the interests and living the environment in which the individual lives and moves. In comparison with the objective reality and artistic imitation, they discover their shortcomings and stop enjoying artistic creation. They undergo depressions from their own non-art, they are shy and sensitive to critical assessment of their creations and therefore they do not like to publish them. At the age of 12 or 13 to 15 or 16 years, the physiological and physical maturity does not also presuppose the spiritual maturity. Spiritual maturity only starts in the puberty and finishes in the period of adolescence. Visible changes occur also in psychical development and there is intensive development of abstraction and generalization in thinking of an individual. Ability to learn objectively and assess the reality is developing. Individual interests and ability to concentrate on physical or psychical activities are sharpened. Influence of rational thinking is also evident in the artistic creation, which is shown in precise observation of reality, but also in ability to apply more accurate analysis and synthesis. The creator observes not only outer signs but tries to penetrate into the spirit of reality. S/he is able to accurately perceive the surface, space and time. Images gradually lose the random elements; differentiation occurs and development of images moves either to schematism or keeps its concrete, individual and nearly total concurrence with the subject-matter. The period of 15th or 16th year of age to 20 or 22 years of age (period of adolescence – maturing) is the period of settling and finishing the ontogenetic development; the organism gets mature and complete. Intellectual activity is typical for psychical development. The individual expresses his critical viewpoint and own opinions on the new information. He likes to reassess, verify, classify and 62

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disputes with adults. Choice of topics and subjects is getting more decisive, stems from the subjective interests, individual experiences and aims. What an adolescent likes portraying the most is something s/he is attached to by personal experience, in what s/he can see sense and aim of their work. Content of the artistic expression gains meditative character and the individual tries to present their standpoint to sociologic, politic, ethical or cultural values through artistic expression. There is an effort to create a certain artistic object, a concrete art-utility object which fulfils the social function. Thus, the source of inspiration are not fairy tales, illustrations and plot scenes any more, their interest is more or less shifted to the field of spatial and utility creation, computer graphics and artistic design. With gradual development of the observation abilities and visual perception, the abstract thinking, the signs of the child’s naive realism are vanishing from the artistic expression. There is a tendency to rely more on the visible reality, to imitate production of art masters, to take over the artistic techniques and technological processes of current fine arts. Under burden of these factors, many teachers become sceptical. They frequently rank children to the development levels mechanically, even though the period of “crisis” may come differently with different children. It is formally manifested in two ways: the child is willing to continue in art creation, but their performance lacks outer and inner certainty. S/he is not able to discover and create anything without help and s/he does copies. Second: the child is not willing to artistically work any longer, s/he is forced to it and their inner expression is either passive or defiant. Artistic results are in fact faint and the individual usually oscillates between an indifferent and caricaturist’s expression. In both cases the motive force – fantasy stops working, which is very important category in child’s artistic creation. Result of the artistic influence is problematic, without clear and permanent effect on individual’s next life. There is a period when the child tries to grasp reality according to outer and concrete signs. H. Gardner and E. Winner (In: A. M. Kindler, 1999) even compare the artistic development to the shape of letter “U”. (Five-year-old children represent one top of the letter “U” and the professional artists represent the other top, a lot higher in terms of development, whereas compatibility of both tops is in the usage of very similar graphic symbols.) According to them, the greatest interest in child’s artistic expression and development of artistic skills and abilities is in the pe63

riod from 7 to 8 years of age. According to J. Davis (In: A. M. Kindler, 1999), majority of older children then stop to (creatively) draw and the development curved line, being in the shape of letter “U”, is changed to the curved line “L”. According to their opinion, only children who are artistically gifted are being developed artistically, they are more persistent and, in J. Davis’s opinion, only thanks to them the curved line turns towards the other part of letter “U”. It is evident therefrom that the linear, simpliﬁed, direct and non-differentiated concept of development focuses its attention only to one category of picture creation and does not take account of other child’s activities. It does not include diversity, or plurality of knowledge in the conditions of multimedia or multicultural communication.

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Rudolf Arnheim very often emphasised in his work that the ability to understand the fine art is not a privilege of the chosen ones. It belongs to everyone who was endowed with eyes by the nature. He expressly refuses the statements that the children do not draw what they see but they draw what they know about the given subject. According to this statement, an artistic child’s expression would only be a sort of picturing of abstract notions and symbols. If it seems that children use generalisations, according to him, the reason is that they draw from the sphere of perception and not from the cognitive abstractions. He explains seeing as a complex series of actions which were used by the eye to select from many visual sensations forming the picture. Selection is a mental process. Thus, the two people watching the same object ”do not see” it in the same way. What each of them sees, is distinctly influenced by their subjective experience. Based on this knowledge, it is possible to state that if a child draws a figure, the figure is not less schematic than the figure painted by Rubens. It only is a bit less differentiated. The child explores but does not look for logic in the picture being perceived. What the eyes encounter with is processed as a complex impression. According to R. Arnheim (1974), we can already speak about a veritable discovery.

VERBAL AND VISUAL SYMBOL Pedagogical practice and many researches persuade us that younger children get smart and resourceful users of the signs, symbols and their combinations; gestures, pictures, spoken and written words included. They are involved in a socio-dramatic game, which is implemented primarily. Namely, in our experiment, we have chosen an episode from a fairy story by L. Dedinská. In the background of this story the children in65

tegrate all senses, abilities and imagination to process the story in the visual artistic language. The episode from the fairy story is developed from the emotional, intuitive and cognitive point of view with active participation of all senses and by means of the graphic language. In this way, they develop the world of imagination and fantasy. Simultaneously, at the same time and in the same space they are taking part in a logical and creative game – they are drawing a map of treasure and simultaneously they are becoming the treasure hunters. There are treasures encoded in the map by means of various symbols and signs. The children draw various objects in which there are treasures hidden. To be able to draw these different caches, the children have to be resourceful and have sufficient imagination, as well as distinct drawing skills. For example, one of the authors - a boy early discovers the link between the semantic sign as the means (of expressing the content) and the semantic signs of his experience. He discovers a certain aim which is to be pictured graphically. He draws some refracted lines in the form of stairs and then he studies them. At that moment he is transferring his experience from walking on the stairs to a symbolic graphic expression. The new possibility for drawing the lines and curves is getting familiar and it has firm outlines (Picture 32). Like adults around them, children express such forms as movement, sounds, personification and lines in a given unit. With a certain meaning they start to use the movement (dynamics), sounds, game, lines and curves to picture or symbolize people, objects and events which form their world. This ability to organize, express the inner feelings and experiences through verbal and visual symbols, gestures included, represents a part of child’s human heritage: it signifies some natural needs, such as eating and sleeping. As long as children express themselves in the stories, some significant emotional experiences are reflected in their child`s play to express and interpret them, to give them external form of their internal world. Children are the so-called masters of the game. We share a similar experience with Fein (B. Šupšáková, 1998/99), who observed 15 preschoolers. Significant emotional experiences are marked with the quality of sound, movement and pace. Children use these qualities to develop stories in which there are characters who shout or are pleasant, who move or relax, who are worried or content. The game expressed in this way represents a “canvas” in which a little child is able to symbolize their ideas and feelings by gestures, speech and graphic language. 66

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Picture 32: Natálka, 6 years old. An episode from the fairy story by L. Dedinská; The world of imagination and fantasy. Natália, 6 years old. An episode from the fairy story by L. Dedinská; The world of imagination and fantasy. Miška, 6 years old. An episode from the fairy story by L. Dedinská; The world of imagination and fantasy. Veronika, 6 years old. An episode from the fairy story by L. Dedinská; (The world of imagination and fantasy)

The games of children are then coordinated and developed in four directions – from the emotional point of view the game can be developed as dramatisation by means of personiﬁcation and objectivization; with the active use of senses it can be developed into the graphic language. From the intuitive point of view, the game can be developed using dance and music through rhythmic exercises. From the point of cognitive processes, the game can be developed like skills. This way, we covered four areas – dramatisation, drawing, dance with music and skills, which correspond to four elementary mental functions of an individual. They form a foursome in which there is the elementary educational system naturally dissociated, yet these components simultaneously form integrity of the developing personality. 67

GRAPHIC SYMBOL AND THE WAY OF PORTRAYING Verbal language has its system of symbols – the words, in music there are notes but the graphic symbols (pictures) comprise also something extra. Child`s artistic expression as a system of different symbols and the way of expressing – it is a set of rules and principles which determine how to portray the three-dimensional, moving colourful world of topical visual experience and how to reﬂect it in a set of signs on the surface. Any way of portraying the given situation, at least by implication, comprises at least two principles, two rules: 1. a rule specifying the kind of information which is to be portrayed (size, position), 2. a rule determining which aspects of individual’s behaviour (signs, movements, speech) are bearers of meaning.

DEVELOPMENT AND REPERTOIRE OF GRAPHIC PORTRAYING The children were advised to portray graphically what they can see when looking out of the second ﬂoor. They started to think how to portray architecture, whether to use the three-dimensional perspective or the panorama from various angels, similar like the futurists used to do. The children made the decisions on preference in terms of numerous visual inputs and graphic portraying. A part of them inclined to the expressive artistic portraying, perhaps to pure stylization. Another, signiﬁcantly smaller group has drawn a map of streets and landmarks. The artistic pictures but also the maps record what children can see and intuitively feel (Picture 33). The given example illustrates that the child’s artistic expression, characterized as gradual acquisition of abilities and skills, still closely resembles earlier descriptions: a sequence of increasingly “more perfect” system of depicting the information about the three-dimensional world in two-dimensional signs. The fact is that each of these graphic portraying systems is not only a sort of a pre-stage to realistic portraying; it rather represents the system with various motives and various strengths. According to Wolf and Perry (1998), the principles and regularities of a 68

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Picture 33: Veronika, 6 years old. A view from the window - pressive artistic portraying; a house, cars and people. Riško, 6 years old. A view from the window a map of streets and landmarks. A theatre: 1. tree where the treasure is buried. 2. An escape route. 3. A rocket saving people. 4. Here we live. 5. Here is the treasure. 6. Arrows Peter, 6 years old. Transport. Rasťo, 6 years old. Transport.

child’s artistic production are better understood when we distinguish two different changes: 1. continuous evolution of each system, 2. vocabulary linked to child’s graphic expression If we solely focus on the artistic performance as a product of visual perception, we barely realize that the final result provides us with a very narrow description of graphic symbolization. We do not notice that drawing as a specific and simultaneously symbolic activity is defined also in the 69

context of the graphic portraying forms, such as map or diagram drawing. In terms of the graphic skills developing, there is another, for us an unusual way of expression, which is viewed only as a preparatory one. It does not represent an alternative, but always efﬁcient and used form of portraying. Drawings containing signs of various conceptualizations of the graphic competence illustrate that the child is not experienced only in portraying the given graphic symbol. On the contrary, the child manages several at the same time; they even know which one to choose and use at the moment. It is apparent that development of child’s artistic performance does not only represent the development of one type of graphic portraying. A repertoire of visual signs is concerned, as well as the ability to distinguish which sign to use and when to use it. Picture 18 illustrates that children are exposed to various possibilities of graphic portraying and concurrently to numerous possibilities of interpretations and answers. Thus, it is essential to explore how people acquire the graphic language, the set of visual signs, importance of potential selection, as well as power of each of them. From this point of view, we have to understand the development of graphic portraying as a symbiosis of three elements: 1. beginning of portraying which starts by exploring the way of drawing, 2. distinguishing between the graphic genres: drawing, map, diagram, 3. evolution of speciﬁc interpretation of the visual image.

EXPLORING THE WAY OF PORTRAYING Drawings of children up to three years of age are typical scribbles, “aimless wandering of the pencil”. The “overgrown” exploration of symbolization is visible, especially the visual and spatial one. Children are able to read the visual signs on quite a good level. Even in the picture or photo they are able to distinguish the real or imaginary portrayed objects. The study and extensive research of a child’s artistic performance aimed at objective portraying conﬁrms that the graphical competence appears only with the child’s ability to produce simple and similar shapes. Two intersecting loops and a bounded line resemble the sun, an apple or a cephalopod. Geometric shapes and a linear way of portraying – the outlines, the whole or a part, exterior or interior, as well as their artistic level, which is fundamentally very good, are the results of perception and at the same time of chance. 70

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SIGNS AND GRAPHIC SYMBOLS In a child’s artistic performance we can discover a lot of geometric shapes regarded as signs and symbols. The simplest symbol is a point which represents cessation, concentration; it symbolizes the centre and present permanence. One, two, three and up to a countless number of spots clustered to diverse patterns have various meaning. From the semiotic point of view, circle represents the eternal cycle of nature; it indicates perpetual flow of events in human life. Its shape symbolizes the sun as a source of heat and light. The point in the middle of the sun is a symbol of two poles. The circle itself as a bearer of dynamism (circulation, events) comprises the second pole, the one of opposite meaning. It means firmness, certainty, stability, invariability but also concentration necessary for restoration of strengths. Children very often draw also other geometric shapes into the circle, and this way they determine its more concrete meaning. A square, rectangle, triangle and a cross stabilize the circle; on the other hand, a sigma and diagonal make it more dynamic. From the psychological point of view, the horizontal division reflects bipolarity of the universe in a way that the upper half represents the transcendental world. The vertical division into two halves – right and left – relates to diversity of the functions between the two brain hemispheres. The horizontal line is an expression of peace, smoothness, lunar space powers (passive female principle).To the horizontal line the child usually portrays a figurative expression of the action which is played out at the time sequence and is recorded in an important time fraction. The vertical line is an expression of movement, excitement but it also indicates permanent tendencies of human being towards transcendence. Both contrasting strokes are present not only in scribbling but also in the surface layout. This is when the child’s artistic expression already has its elementary but very important meaning: the horizontal line as the ground with the vertical line symbolize for example a figure or a tree. Both of them represent an active approach to life. The downward line is an expression of the fact that the vertical line can be connected to human’s ignorance and the dark powers of soul. The horizontal and the vertical lines which reciprocally intersect form a cross. From the symbolic point of view, joining of the lines is an expression of dynamics. The isosceles cross is a symbol of balance and the harmonic approach to life. The cross composed of the vertical and dia71

gonal line is a symbol of mental activity. The cross in the shape of “X” with its active expression contrasts with peace and passivity of the cross in the shape of “+”. Children very often compose their pictures to squares as segmental schemes. Then the square as a shape is not concerned; it is the square compositional layout itself. The motive of such behaviour can be the inner desire for stability, composure and material balance. The square is an expression of four elements: water, air, ﬁre and earth. Four identical sides of the square can symbolise individual seasons or different cardinal points. As far as the square is located on one of its tops, its shape is “activated” and it relates also to the change of meaning symbolised by the square. If the two shapes of the square are joined together (the basic shape of the square and the square based on its top), it is an expression of the contrary and contrast: the passive and active. The square divided by the diagonals is a symbol of the terrestrial and the celestial. Labyrinth as a symbol, which appears in cultures around the whole world, is linked to magic, secrecy and has various forms. The archetype of wandering, complicatedness and simultaneously meaningfulness has diverse forms. It sometimes resembles a spiral, circle; another time it has a right-angled shape. Children like portraying the labyrinth, namely with various monsters, beasts. The monster, usually an unreal character, is formed by fantasizing and is closely connected to human psyche.

SYSTEM OF PORTRAYING A two-year-old child adds coordinates to the points and lines, pictures the quantity and distance, and this way s/he receives a map of the underground. At the age of around three years, the system of graphic portraying improves. A three and a half year old child indicates irregular oval shapes, adds simple lines which are to symbolize the interior of a family house and living (Picture 34). A six-year-old child tends to portray a colourful ball, and then s/he adds a number of layers of colour saying that it is making the ball “fatter”. As a comparison, Braque in his artistic production deliberately used layers and overlapping to delete the conventional boundaries between the two-dimensional and three-dimensional portraying. Child uses a gesture or a line to portray for example a “roaring“ that is coming out of the exhaust pipes of the racing cars. The evolution continues further and that is why a seven to eight-year-old child 72

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Picture 34: Peter, 3 and half years old. A living- (the way of portraying: 1. Petra’s room. 2. A mother’s room. 3. A toothbrush. 4. A bed. 5. A lot of clothes. 6. A table. 7. A wardrobe. 8. A garage for the car. 9. A staircase. 9. A door. 10. Petra wrote the explanation Nikola, 4 years and 10 months old. A living - the way of portraying: 1. Dadd. 2. Jarko. 3. Kamilko. 4. Mum. 5. My bed is empty because I went to the kindergarten. 6. A sailing ship. 7. A shelf on which there is a ship. 8. A door. 9. Dino, the dog is outside.

chooses from many signs and symbols. The broader repertoire serves the purpose of expressing the meaning in different forms such as cartoons or paintings of the impressionists. Thus, we can state that the way of portraying is gradually developing.

GRAPHIC GENRES: DRAWING The children who prefer expressive artistic portraying, which means they prefer drawing to map, tend to choose also the way of drawing, which is usually the front look. They are able to choose from their rich repertoire to portray their visual experience. Their pictures represent the evidence of revision of the conventional opinions on developing the graphic language, emphasising some sort of linear type of evolution from the “purposeless pencil scribbling” to the illusionist lines of drawing. What children develop and how they do it comprises a repertoire of various approaches, styles of graphic portraying and initial knowledge of how each of them is impressive. From this point, the graphic competence cannot be defined in a different way than the ability to acquire the systems of symbols. Much more essential is a choice of composition, momentarily suitable for the creator. The similar way has been chosen by the fine artists, such as Cézanne or Picasso, to give the figures, jars and tables their 73

unique expression. That is why they were choosing between the realistic and cubist way of portraying. In previous chapter we stated that Henri Mattise in his masterpiece called Still life on a green sideboard (1928) also combined more ways of expression: the delta jug is portrayed realistically; the green sideboard is partially flat to show the front part and the top; the peaches are scattered on the checkerboard cloth and portrayed (painted) as flat, bounded shapes. After having observed the process of still life art creation by five up to six-year-old children, we can state that there is certain similarity. At the very beginning, the little creators identify five objects of composition unaware of the setting, nor the mutual position of the objects. Above all, one child portrays their compositional idea, setting of individual symbols of the perceived objects which not at all correspond to the real still life. They use the traditional symbols: an apple is symbolised by a circle with a short line of the circle`s upper outline. It is drawn perpendicularly to the bottom edge of the paper (a stem with two leaves). In the opposite setting, they set a small black circle or several short lines onto the circle shape. This is to express the stability of the apple because the child’s experience suggests that in this position the apple is usually “still” and it is not rolling. A banana is symbolized by a very narrow, mildly curved oval. A pear is symbolised as a shape which is wider in the lower part. Child draws a stem and two leaves in the upper part of the fruit, similarly like the apple. The linear drawing gives stability to the whole fruit. It is strange that the pear literally lays on the table cloth in this still life. Usually, except of one five-year-old child, it is portrayed vertically. It is not easy for children to portray a mug. Majority of them chooses an oval, to which they

Picture 35: Henri Mattise. Still life on a green sideboard (1928) Katka, 4 years old. Still life with fruit

DEVELOPMENT, REPERTOIRE AND INTERPRETATION OF VISUAL IMAGE

add an arc in the shape of the letter “C”, symbolising a handle. They colour the outlined area using different colours, even when they do not match the reality (Picture 35, 51). Only two six-year-old children portray the rectangular table cloth and they place the objects onto the table cloth. In the remaining cases, the children thoroughly place a rectangle, symbolising the table cloth, next to the apple, pear, banana and mug without overlapping. It is then portrayed from the bird`s eye view. The children compose all objects on one plane or on two parallel lines. There is only one case when the child chooses the circle shaped composition.

GRAPHIC GENRES: MAPS, DIAGRAMS So far we have written about the beginnings of portraying which are preceded by exploration of the way of drawing. We have drawn the attention mainly to drawing and the way of portraying. However, we indicated that it is necessary to distinguish between the graphic genres and therefore let us go back to our experiment (Picture 54). We state that children prefer different ways of portraying and they distinguish between the graphic genres. While one group, signiﬁcantly bigger, creates expressive pictures (drawings), the other one, which is much smaller, shares the visual experience in other forms. In our case, they draw maps. The map forms an alternative to express the view in a different angle, not the front one. The child drawing a map usually creates it in the bottom part of the paper and automatically portrays the reality from the bird’s eye view. S/he comprises a lot of visual information about important landmarks in the area in a way that s/he sees them from the given angle of view. This view enables them to avoid inaccuracies which could be caused by overlapping. They use spatial relations between the main (known) spots and their orientation. Spatial setting of individual orientation spots and their mutual distances do not permit fantasizing and are almost undistorted.

CONCEPTUALIZATION AND THE WAY OF RECORDING THE VISUAL EXPERIENCE Analyses and comparison of children’s pictures which were portrayed in many ways (drawing and map) serve as documentation of a different cultural language of conceptualization, the way of recording the visual 75

experience and imagination. Drawing focuses more on visual details (houses, trees, the sun, ﬂowers); the author of the map, in essence, omits the details and pays more attention to the location or size. The map is more rationalized and less detailed in contrast to the picture. Concerning the localization and distances, it is more precise, economical and efﬁcient. It is indifferent to colour and decorativeness.

EVOLUTION OF VISUAL IMAGE SPECIFIC INTERPRETATION Thus, we can state that acquiring and developing the ability to perceive visually, simultaneously means to learn how to see and distinguish between the different graphic structures. It proves that we have to record the comments, concepts, and also how to mediate the information – through drawing, writing, through the map or diagram. Individual children’s pictures, even in this publication, document that the beginnings of picture imagination date back to the earliest period, the period of scribbling and they express the relation between content and form, between quality and quantity, movement and the spot. We can characterize them as the ability to create a symbol in the process of creation. On the second level, through experimenting, the child explores concord between the similar ones, repeated or individual graphic forms; s/he explores and recognizes the relations between the splash of colour and the concrete track. A three-year-old child draws its attention to people and objects in movement. Picture imagination accompanied with movement, gesture or sound is usually result of a game, stories of storytellers, fantasizing, both in the space and time reference. Visual and verbal symbolization is understandable also for adults. The child uses geometric shapes also later. However, they bear more meanings (a circle resembling an apple, house or person). In artistic creation, s/he uses “the old” forms, and gradually brings in newer and newer. S/he has to ﬁght the graphic symbols, with their speciﬁc qualities and competences, different expression between the drawing and other genres of visual portraying included. Any further, the artistic expression is accompanied with movement, sound, gestures and a spoken word. If the child understands the priorities or restrictions, i.e. the possibilities of various visual genres, s/he owns, in its essence, the repertoire of diverse genres for recording the visual experience. 76

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From the age of 8 up to 11, children have their system of symbols set. They usually attempt to tell their real true story in detail. The artistic expression yet tells us that the child is able to distinguish, efficiently choose the right way to express the graphic qualities: shape, light, shadow and colour. There are straight and curved lines, strong and week lines, thick and thin lines, the lines symbolizing peace, happiness, nervousness, order or chaos. The lines full of movement are very often replaced by some simple and schematic figures (e.g. Picture 13, 48). At the same time, another children use also less expressive line, they are able to better distinguish the aesthetic elements in the artistic expression of others. A bit later, they understand how to accentuate certain mood using more metaphoric and more expressive aspects of drawing, e.g. a declining line or angular forms. In their middle school age they are able to define various graphic genres. They are able to change not only what they draw. The individuals are even able to define specific characteristics forming the style of visual portraying. And it is manifestation of sensitive perception of various kinds of visual communication which leads the individuals towards understanding of particular kinds and styles of visual art, as well as towards interpretation or formulation of the image. It is development and concurrently a summary repertoire, as well as the ability to create and correctly use the whole range of visual phenomena.

VISUAL PERCEPTION AND CHILD’S PICTURE REPERTOIRE

Art is universal. It has neither time nor territorial dimension. Similarly, the child’s artistic expression has become the means of cognition and communication between children of all cultures; it links children all over the world. The child’s artistic expression comprises creative exploration and self-reﬂection. Children learn to establish and gradually extend their perception of new phenomena and new processes, namely by means of differentiation of picture signs and their renaming. Each individual observes the world (the object) with their own eyes and expresses it by their own artistic (sign) means. Nowadays, these form the space for denotation of new quality; they form new pictures and they literally teach – how to see differently. Thus, they form the right habits. It implies that drawing, as well as other expressive art-concerned activities comprise concentration and forming of self-discipline. Artistic means help the adults to get to know much more about the child’s ontogenesis, about their intellectual and emotional potential. They form conditions for learning our own and foreign culture. They also provide space for active, amusing and meaningful work.

THE CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION AND INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT A long-term research, carried out in recent years, authorises us to state that any creative fine art activity of the child is influenced by the environment in which they live (Picture 36). On the lowest level - the micro-system – it is predominantly the family, classmates and school, whereas each of these factors affects the child individually, and influences them. Another hierarchical level is the mezzo-system. It represents the system of inter-relationships and links to school, family and classmates, their synergetic (progressive and regressive) effect on the child’s individuality and 79

simultaneously on their creation. A number of child’s drawings in this publication serve the adequate evidence. Above this level, there is the exo-system which influences the child indirectly, vicariously, namely by new visual media, by the existing economical conditions and the political sysPicture 36: Influence of environment on the child’s artistic impression. tem of society. The outer layer which surrounds and vicariously forms the child is the macro-system. It reflects general cultural stances of the child, i.e. spiritual values, culture, both national and regional culture and traditions.

VISUAL MEDIA AND IMAGINATION We stated that the child’s artistic expression is influenced at the level of the micro-system, mezzo-system, exo-system and macro-system. Nowadays, we live in the era of the electronic media and communication (television, computers, internet, multimedia, play stations, mobile telephones, and virtual world on the internet). Their coverage and new forms distinctly interfere with our everyday life and they start to influence and perhaps to change the long-term fixed habits of acquiring information, abilities, skills, and above that the child’s artistic expression. Therefore we are going to pay more attention to this topic. In the broader sense of the word “multi-medial“ and “multicultural“ communication, audio-visual media included, in nowadays conditions can reach to the mind’s development. This can be significant especially at younger generation. Pedagogues, psychologists, sociologists and others who deeply study the issue of ontogenesis of the child and the child’s artistic expression ask the question: To what extent do the nowadays cultural and communication phenomena affect the mind’s development, the learning process and the presentation of knowledge? 80

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Television, film, video and the most recently the internet belong to the visual electronic media of mass coverage which attract not only adults but also children. The way of presenting the information and on the other hand the direct “consumption” of the programs is similar to reality. We are going to consider what role, actually, the electronic media play in the learning process, in acquisition of new information, when and to what extent they influence the child’s artistic expression. In the following lines we will also pay attention to the process of development of the picture view and the art presentation in the environment of nowadays visual media. The fact is that nowadays there is practically no relevant research aimed at the influence of the television pictures, computer signs on the life of a child, multimedia and internet on-line games included. Although the numerous explanations have been publicised, they are not scientifically documented. Nowadays, it is indisputable that many children, if not majority, spend a lot of time in front of the TV screen, the computer monitor or the play station console. In fact, it is much more hours in comparison with the generation of twenty, thirty or forty years ago. However, we do not have any relevant indicators on the influence of the visual media from the past. Therefore it is difficult to make comparison with nowadays. At this moment, we can at least state the first publicised outcomes from the researches from the US and the Western Europe which have raised alarm. They draw our attention to the fact that the pre-schoolers at the age of two start watching TV and simultaneously perceive the TV picture. From the age of 3 to 5, in the brain, there comes the critical period for their cognitive and language development. There are findings that an average child spends up to 28 hours a week in front of the screen. At American elementary school the child watches the TV programme for 25 hours on average, the secondary school student up to 28 hours a week. This is 6 times more than the time spent on homework (J.M. Healy, 1999). So far, it has not been proved how much time the children spend on computer simulations through games and videogames. Despite that we can state that American children devote more hours of their free time to passive reception of information, television pictures and picture signs in comparison to other meaningful activities apart from sleep. It is also verifiable that the children with better school results do not show such strong interest in passive perception of the television picture and electronic games as the average or sub-average children. It is evident that in this cruel way, 81

many of them cut off their time which could have been spent for activities of greater importance concerning everyday life and active reception of information. The family environment contributes to the abovementioned to a large extent. In many families, the visual media has become an idol, the centre of the family events. The TV programmes substitute the family communication. The passive reception of information, among others, is a disincentive to cognitive development of a child. The importance and ability of learning to listen to the others is trailing off, and the imagination is weakened. In the family discussions, the ability of active solving of concrete situations is not developed, and there are rare discussions on the future, experience and emotions. Many parents tend to underestimate and simplify the problem instead of “diverting” the habits, or better to say annoying habits, from the computer signs or TV program to active communication and active reception of information.

VIRTUAL PERCEPTION AND EXPERIENCE Our empiric knowledge in the recent years is that the computer games and TV programmes lead to passive perception and passive reception of information. A swift movement, dynamics of events and light shows influence the child in the broader sense. The influence concerns the content and the form of the child’s artistic expression. These factors inhibit concentration and eventually also the ability to hear. It is reflected at school, namely that the children expect the teacher to serve them with the picture instruction prior to the verbal one. For a culturally literate person of nowadays, accepting and (re)producing of cultural values in their broader sense, including reading, writing or existing in semantic space is of great importance. From this point, notable findings have been recorded by the researchers in their four-year foreign research aimed at correlation, the relation between the passive perception of a TV programme and reading. It shows that this media has a negative influence on development of reading, namely the type where closer comprehension of the text or of the illustrated picture is required. Excessive passive perception of TV programmes and passive reception of information deprives of the pleasure from reading; what is much more important is the fact that the reader’s ability is underdeveloped. Above that, at children who sooner or later succumb to the style and regularities of TV pictures – schematic, shortcut-models of problem-solving and look82

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ing for simple answers, there is a negative attitude formed. We can positively state that the passive visual perception without verbal language is simple, in its essence, and it does not involve almost any activity. There is no wonder – the children approximately to nine years of age are not that intellectually and emotionally mature to be sufﬁciently critical and able to closely differentiate importance of the story. “Exactly at this age, there is, on a wider scale, decentration of thinking developed, and children gradually start being able to compare the plot of the story with their own inner standards and norms of behaviour.” (M. Vágnerová, 1999, page 210.)

PASSIVITY OF BRAIN A part of experts shows their worries concerning the fact that the visual media of nowadays suppress active learning, and therefore they lower the ability of active reception of information. This way, the concentration and abilities of children are inhibited. Let`s illustrate this in the example: a child, without any selection, perceives the TV programmes or computer games on a passive and long-term basis. These are mostly action-like, dynamic, so they are very attractive for young people. On the other hand, they are without any deeper plot coherence. Predominantly, they are not helpful in personal development. If we task the student to read the text, to “read” the picture or give them any other creative task – they suddenly become disoriented, unable to think straight, and their concentration is very low. (If the child is to learn well and positively solve some concrete situations, it requires active approach, engagement, persistence and creativity.) Failure, exactly at this crucial point, causes many of the children not to be able to learn, they accept the new information with difﬁculties, their thinking, imagination and fantasy is developed more slowly. Many adults intuitively sense that even at this simple example we can state that: a lot of time spent in front of a TV screen or another visual electronic media is the main cause why the children show tendencies to passive learning and passive perception of information; though majority of parents are not aware enough of the danger. This fact is going to be revealed soon, namely in the situations where the children give up too easily at the ﬁrst obstacle and they are not strong enough concerning their personality. Mr. Brain speaks on his own experience: “We forgot to teach the children! We teach externally, not internally. We form the child’s personality, 83

whose model of behaviour is inﬂuenced by the external inputs, show business with its pop stars and extravagance.” (J. M. Healy, 1999.)

VISUAL PICTURE AND NEUROLOGICAL PERCEPTION Many experts in the field of fine-art theory, even today, put forward the question on whether and to what extent the visual media, the visual pictures and inputs included can change, eventually influence the child’s brain structure and learning. At present, there are a lot of discussions on this topic but the outcomes, so far, are not unambiguous. Some effects of the influence are yet shown, and therefore we can expressly state that the part of TV programmes, video programmes and action computer games artificially “manipulate” the brain. They affect the models of behaviour. It is done with the aim to attract certain attention by means of visual and auditory inputs and the changes like a quick and dynamic switch of the scene, action of the plot or special effects. The final aim is to induce neurological passivity and disturb the balance. At present, there are many ways how to make the brain active in the desired and strictly given direction. For the child there is a moment of surprise, bright colours, swift movement and a sudden sound. These are the elements which current advertising (conception of the “brain wash”) as well as TV programmes for children and adults count on. Exactly these programmes introduce the habits how to, through certain input effects, keep the attention and concentration of the viewer. Permanent repetition of certain mottos and slogans forms and influences the behaviour (at the adults, the most frequently shopping habits) of the addressee. According to our research, approximately 50 % of 9 – 11 year-old children stated that they watched the TV programmes on a daily basis, advertisements included. They prefer visual perception to the auditory or emotional one. About 90 % of children are fascinated by the colourfulness of the TV picture; then the motion and the spoken word come. That is why their answers sound like this: “I do not have to read.” “I do not have to walk in the street.” “I do not have to watch when I do not want to, I only listen.” And what is the situation concerning the videogames, computer games or on-line games on the internet like? Although there do not exist any relevant researches, we can positively state that: they are designed in a way that they promise certain and concrete solutions to the player. They are programmed with a certain degree of difficulty, and these so-called levels 84

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have to be accomplished by the player in order to continue any further. These motivate the human brain to the task-solving and simultaneously to the obstacle-overcoming. Thus each of the successful or unsuccessful effort of the individual is immediately evaluated, and the machine becomes the so-called personal tutor. The tutor gives advice and at the same time encourages towards the achievement of aim. The advancements in the play cause the feeling of self-satisfaction of the player, bring them strength and self-confidence. The child comes to the feeling that s/he keeps something of the social importance under control. This can afterward compensate their frustration from the real life when they themselves feel that the things do not go the right way. Computer games and videogames require the player’s attention. The success, above all, assures the series of the following right decisions. So far, there is no methodology to offer a worked-out system on how to transfer this degree of attention to other kinds of study. Linda Siegel, the author of many scientific works from the area of school education, admits this kind of possibility. According to her, a greater advancement could be achieved in the field of visual holistic perception, prior to the field of rational thinking. She is not that convinced whether electronic games develop the kind of abilities, such as creation and decision taking. “I watched children playing games on the computer and play-station console. I was curious whether they make their decisions on the rational basis or if these are momentary, random decisions. I was interested if there is a system of rules in their minds or if it is an intuitive reaction. It seems that their reactions are guided; yet it is not clear what level of management control the children apply. If this is the intuitive decision-making – is it thinking at all? There is no clear answer to these questions even in the scientific environment. It is subject to further exploration”, adds L. Siegel. (J. M. Healy, 1999.)

PROBLEM OF TRANSMISSION, TRANSFER A part of experts assume that more inconvenient environment than the TV picture is formed by the videogames, various play-station consoles and computer games. Can there be an educational effect of the action electronic game during which the child ﬁghts for victory in a fantastic virtual micro-world? Is there developed and cultivated seeing as the main source of collecting information about the surrounding world, artistic 85

world or the life of other people? If the abovementioned was true, this reality could bring a number of information and non-verbal means concerning organisation of thinking. Visual cognition and communication in various forms requires, therefore, adequate proportional development and cultivating of visuality. Is the picture imagination, child’s creativity, cognition and comprehension of artistic expression developed hand-in-hand with distinct influence on social, ethic and aesthetic dispositions? To put it differently – does the abovementioned develop and cultivate the emotional intelligence? Do not the TV picture and computer simulation create a barrier, as they differ from the natural game and interpersonal interaction? Can children learn the strategies on general problem solving in this way or do they loose their own ability to think, create and artistically express their opinion? From this point, the key solution at assessing either positive or negative influence is the problem of transmission, transfer. It means, the kind of intellectual and emotional “heritage” the child can take from the already mentioned, and particularly how much of that they can transfer and use in other spiritual activities. Do the mentioned activities at least contribute to the child’s personal development? Exactly here we can see the core of the problem which can be formed in a simplified way, like this: there is very little from the passively acquired knowledge, information, abilities and finally also skills to be transferred to other activities. We could speculate that the multimedia computer games or on-line internet games located to space and requiring the space orientation from the child and their swift reaction to inputs could positively influence, for example, the speed of reading, visual perception and this way develop and cultivate seeing. We also could speculate that simultaneously with learning to program the software, the children also learn how to think critically. Our opinion is that it is not exactly the case. The reason is simple: we train the brain with our activities for only one limited area. There arises the question: How, and is it yet possible to transfer the already learned and acquired to another area of human activity? When we teach the child to “read” the picture, artistically portray or graphically record the story, it does not imply they are able to positively apply this ability in the subject of history. When the child, through the picture media, passively perceives a lot of visual inputs, it does not yet mean that they can “read” the picture. The brain has millions of cell networks, 86

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and it is not possible to simply state how the related transfers work. Many foreign researches acknowledge that the training of the eye itself through the schemes and drafts, in the principle, has a small effect not only on the reading ability, but mainly on developing and forming the child’s personality. Similarly, listening to music does not lead to better auditory abilities which could be utilised perhaps at language learning. The words and melodies proceed in completely different memory cell networks. Identically, there is no proof that the visual simulation as a consequence of passive perception of TV pictures or other passive picture inputs contributes to development and cultivation of visuality in other areas of human activity. Artificial encouraging, stimulating the brain centres cannot be overestimated and simply cannot substitute the active process. Any strong visual percept from the media cannot substitute expressive artistic perception or child’s artistic creation itself which is a priori based on activity. Similarly, active perception and reading of an artistic artefact or the child’s artistic performance cannot be substituted. These stimuli certainly do not increase efficiency of the learning process, and finally they are not helpful at school where there is very different, much calmer atmosphere. We could therefore admit the negative effect on the child who, under the influence of the visual media, gets used to the stimuli – and subconsciously expects them at school. It results in inhibited activity of the child. We attain the knowledge that predominantly the text-reading, active perception of visual pictures, i.e. reading the pictures, artistic creation (also in visual media) is the best method leading to development of seeing and visual perception, to development of communication. This kind of guidance (upbringing) stimulates the research process, the feedback and searching for the answers which form the ground for familiarization with fine art. It enables the child to think, compare, make up with their own consideration and develop their cognition and communication in this way. The old “modus operandi” is always there: The longer and more thoroughly we watch, “read” or study the artistic performance, the more it can reveal. It is approved that the children usually study the artistic artefacts systematically. They view the whole as a set of details among which there exist certain relations. Thus, they are aware of some analysis and also synthesis. Different stages of cognition, different views 87

(one sees it his own way, another has a different opinion) can, in the end, complement each other. The range of possible interpretations of the artistic performance referring to another artworks, art-related objects and information concerned definitely affect the organisation of whole viewer`s mind. It also develops the viewer’s cognition, their skills and abilities. Insufficiency of definite answers in the field of fine art leads to assumptions (What did the author have in mind?) or in better case – to collecting of creditable and believable information. From the abovementioned, it is obvious that one group of children will be satisfied with the given degree of cognition, and will be satisfied with the answer to the question on what the author had in mind. Second group of children will look for more evidence to “terminate the investigation” aimed at true incentives and intentions of the author and his artistic performance, to gradually receive the answers to questions on the author’s imagination, their style of creation, artistic language or artistic speech. This group wants to know more about the author – who the author of the artistic performance is, when and why it was produced. The aim is to constructively and actively work on themselves, on increasing their own cognition – by perception of adequate stimuli through the process of reflection their own perception and cognition gradually reach this aim and receive the answers to the questions: What exactly does the artistic performance represent? How was it created? Who made it? When? Where? Who for? What for? Etc. It stimulates children to the artistic utterance and their own artistic creation, even through visual media. The past can be understood as the inspiring background for a new creation. History serves us with valuable knowledge on how the artists worked, what inspired them and what they fought with or what expressive means they used. However, the dynamic present and close future in the name of information society brings us new challenges, new topics, new relations which cannot be exhaustively portrayed using the classical artistic means. It is necessary to stimulate the children to artistic utterance and towards their own artistic production, even using the new visual media, such as computers and the internet. Creative approach and using of these possibilities bring down the already acquired, very precisely curbed way of expression, and actively draw the child into the areas which were inaccessible for previous generations without special education. 88

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In the process of creation where serious and artistically rewarding game is concerned, the art-related problems are solved and the art-concerned answers are sought. The artist sometimes plays, sometimes artistically works, thinks, infers, searches for artistic possibilities of solutions, associations of thoughts and creates their own artistic language. They try to divert from the unusual schemes of thinking, not to understand anything as firm, unchanged, and yet to keep their own opinions, their own thinking. The heart of creation, as far as it pays off, is in finding something new that represents enrichment of culture and society. The creation, simultaneously, is the target category of art which is partially developed by the means of such a medium – the computer. The characteristic feature of creation is originality, the originality which is socially required, not the originality at all risks; next, there belongs original fantasy, guided by certain socially valuable aims – the creative fantasy. This way understood creation, socially required not only in the artistic and scientific creation but also in routine-life situations, is considered the most valuable characteristics of personality. The reason is that it forms the space for autonomy and self-realisation of each individual. From this viewpoint, the priority task of the school and education is not the method of implementing the electronic media to education but the issue of introducing the children to the world of spiritual values through the already existing anthropologic values of childhood and mankind using all moderate means of nowadays. There is the child who draws, paints, creates spatial objects, and learns to see. It is a specific, original learning process which is in permanent progress, whereas the crucial factor is quality of seeing. Therefore it is an active way of reception of information requiring the individual’s own thinking but also implementation of principles of creation and fantasy. If the child passively spends a lot of time on videogames or other visual media instead of active reception of information in the process of creation, it inevitably does not contribute to forming of their personality. This fact is revealed positively or negatively much later, i.e. during puberty or adolescence when the young person is expected to think critically and reason abstractly. Young brain should have the tendency to be developed towards higher horizon. The neurological paths should not be ameliorated only in one specific area. This point is of a great importance for good reasoning, healthy thinking as well as for development of imagination. 89

THE CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF PICTURE MEDIA We have spent a number of recent years on a study and a detailed research of the child’s artistic expression on a large scale of samples. This entitles us to draw your attention to at least two very important moments. First, everything created by children from the age of 1 to 2 up to approximately 15 years of age we can consider the child’s artistic expression. Second, the content of the child’s artistic expression is inﬂuenced on the stage of the micro-system, mezzo-system, exo-system and macro-system. In the modern era of nowadays, the process of the picture creation in the socio-cultural context is being changed. It can be expressed either by the non-geometric forms (a ﬁgure, house, tree, concrete scene) or also by the geometric abstract shapes (a circle, line, square, triangle and other polygons) which express the concrete value representation. Heritage of visual perception depends on the extent of abilities of the perceiving subject to integrate visual sensations to their memory and consciousness in a differentiated way. The child usually forms this differentiation subconsciously, namely when they start to talk. In this process, the child accepts all existing standards which were formed by speech in order to differentiate the space and objects, from objects, shapes and colours. The child explores new signs, symbols and artistic (sign) means which enable to denote new qualities. As we have already emphasised, these form new pictures, and literally teach to see differently.

EXPLORATION OF SIGNS AND SYMBOLS The best and even the most interesting period, from our viewpoint, concerns pre-school children and then the children of lower school age. If we omit the period of symbolic denotation, then we can speak about 4 (5) to 6 year-old children. This is the age when the graphic symbols are formed. We are convinced based on our long-term research, direct observation or analysis and synthesis of the child’s artistic expression where we examined the artistic creation of children to 15 years of age on a long term basis. We draw our attention mainly to formation of signs and symbols, their importance, situating but also to the fact how the meaning is changed in the context, and how it becomes the communication tool. We were also interested in who the author is, who (what), how (to what extent) inﬂuences the creation of signs and symbols. 90

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For the involved reader, we have chosen at least some interesting information from our research in 2000. At the beginning, it is a pleasure to state that 96,7 % of interviewed 5 – 6 year-olds stated that they liked drawing. Only 3,3% of the children state that they do not like drawing and their negative attitude to drawing is interpreted simply: “I do not like it…” or “I cannot do it…” 5 – 6 year-olds admit they can draw animals (a dog, cat, rabbit, monkey or dinosaur). The pre-school teachers state that the children draw the dinosaurs with distinct accuracy. According to their opinion it comes from their spontaneous interest to know various kinds of dinosaurs, the environment they lived in, the way they moved. Similarly, it is interesting for them to draw space, planets, space-ships or astronauts. The second place is taken by the figures of people (princesses, mother, father, Tarzan or Ariell), houses (castles), then there come the means of transport (cars, trucks, F1 formulas and cranes). After that the children state symbols of flowers, trees, a symbol of the sun, grass, a symbol of heart and skies. It is necessary to note that the children’s answers are subjective. Children approach the answers very seriously, and they attach great importance to every single word. When we asked them what they liked about drawing most of all, the order did not change much: animals (a cat, horse, bear, tiger, duck, rabbit or tortoise), then houses. After that, there come people (parents or princess), the means of transport (cars and planes). Finally, there are trees, the sun and geometric shapes. Nowadays, modern information communication technologies have distinct influence on children and youth. Predominance of visual information over the verbal one is nowadays enhanced by the visual media and visual signs. In comparison with year 2000, young people, in their artistic expression, more and more prefer graphic symbols to verbal expressing. It is the result of onset of new communication technologies (e-mails, chatting, text messaging). These forms of mutual contact, with respect to technological nature, count on expressing using abbreviations even signs (the time, charges for connection and transfer of information, etc. are saved). Thus the used vocabulary is deprived – there is an absence of interjections, clauses, etc. Instead of them, there are graphic symbols in the form of smiley faces which, in a distinct way, express feelings of happiness, sadness or surprise. For the visual portraying of a feeling of happiness, the young artists very often used the symbols of sweets, presents, etc. Many of them were contented with the symbol of a smiley face, so frequently used in text 91

Picture 37: Ivan, 6 years old. The Smile. Katka, 13 years old. The Smile. Lucia, 11 years old. The best chocolate. Veronika, 9 years old. The world on four wheel.

messaging and in any electronic messages of nowadays. Children have explained that the smiley face is ďŹ ne because it speeds up communication, saves the written and spoken word. It is understandable to everyone, especially when it is at the end of a sentence. In the form of drawing it has a nice impact. It is symbol of a positive news, mood, energy, similarly to the one on a mobile phone display. Majority of young people from our research were entirely inspired by advertising, and literally copied the symbols of commercials. Among the most popular there were sweets, advertised drinks, then smiley faces, young smiling people with big eyes, presents, texts and titles like â&#x20AC;&#x153;Take it easyâ&#x20AC;? or any other advertising slogans (Picture 37). Artistic expression of other group of children, which 92

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was in minority, was only a little influenced by the media. Although, we can find the figures of the cartoon series, their authors “set” them to a different world and touched them up according to their fantasy. The last, the smallest group, was formed by the children whose creation was not influenced by advertising at all. Their joy of life is associated either with the family celebration or food and drinks, experience, strong emotions (sweets, presents, flowers and animals). The most frequently they stick to the figure with smile or possibly to community of other people (parents or friends) or animals.

THE PROCESS OF PICTURE CREATION: INTERIOR In the socio-cultural context, it is probably the most interesting to study the child’s artistic expression, way of drawing, creation of signs and symbols. We assume that our findings will equally attract the reader of the publication. From numerous topics and subjects responsible for forming a more continuous view on the process of art creation and perception as the means of cognition and communication in the environment of new picture media, in conditions of multimedia and multicultural communication, we have chosen at least some interesting information. Portraying the environment and the family (housing) furnishing of the room, children draw very simple linear forms: e.g. a cupboard usually is in the form of a rectangle “standing on two legs” (Picture 38). They use the front view. It is more difficult to use the same way of portraying and draw a bed because children view it as the surface for sitting and sleeping. For this reason they prefer the bird’s eye view. As they find it important to draw also the symbols of the bed’s legs, they simply prolong the sides of the rectangle and continue farther without problems. They form the symbol of a chair as a link of two squares (a seat and a back-rest). The lines symbolising the legs of the chair are drawn perpendicularly to the bottom edge of the paper. They place them all four next to each other, where the lengths of all the lines are the same. The square symbolising the window in the room is portrayed only by one child because next to it there is another important symbol – a desk and a chair. These symbols are placed perpendicularly to the right side of the paper whereas the rectangle, the cupboard, is drawn perpendicularly to the bottom edge of the paper. The symbol of the door is portrayed only in one drawing, and the child gives these reasons: “There is a door – because when we sleep, it 93

Picture 38: Kamilka, 3 and a half years old. The interior. “My room, shelf, bed and a TV. I am inside of the room. The sun shines outside, there are also some clouds.” Marek, 6 years old. The interior. “I drew the play-station, TV and a video. Next to the play-station I drew ﬂowers in a vase and a palm. I drew my mum, daddy, Branko, Andrejko and me.”

is closed.” The symbol of the sun is evident in two cases. According to the children’s statements, it has its place there because it makes the room full of heat and light. Artistic portraying of the rooms in the house is also worth noticing. It simultaneously points out the most important symbols, furnishing of the rooms included. At the same time, this acknowledges how and where the family members usually meet. The geometric shapes, mainly rectangles – rectangles and squares, in mutual combinations, enable the child to portray the spatial arrangement of the interior onto the paper surface. So, the front view and the ground plan coexist simultaneously.

THE PROCESS OF PICTURE CREATION: GAME, PLAY AND TOYS In the child’s artistic creation there are as usually the symbols of classic toys, a bag of toys, but also some books. Another type of symbols represents the most modern toys which simultaneously express the 94

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Picture 39: Reiner, 6 years old, a child with delayed school attendance. Game, play and toys. “ This is a socket - a component for connecting an electrical receiver to the net, electric cables, adapter, screen, light, it is me, set on the driver. I play the polycompact joysticks”: 1. Socket -a component for connecting an electrical receiver to the net. 2. Electric cables. 3. Adapter. 4. Screen.5. Light.6. It is me, set on the driver. I play the polycompact joysticks. Zuzka,6 years old. Game, play and toys. “I am playing on the computer and Dominika is dancing. My sister is swinging on the chair. There is a colourful carpet on the ﬂoor.”

child’s game and play. Thus, geometrical shapes resemble different cubes, modern types of cars, plush toys or a robot, they characterize the present. Exactly in the child’s drawings, inter alia, we have a possibility to see the influence of TV programs, computer games and multimedia equipment approximately in 16 percent of examined artistic works. “Transparent” walls signalize game, playing in the house, which some children perceive and portray as figures in the room while taking in the television image or playing with a playing bracket. We consider the symbolic portraying of computer, video recorder connected with the television set, mostly linear, in the form of rectangles, squares or other angular polygons, using blue, black or green colour, to be a new phenomenon in the child’s artistic creation, mostly by boys (Picture 39). Other drawings with similar themes unusually frequently lack human figure, which might show that it is an impersonal expression. Child’s verbal commentary clarifies the content of a certain drawing: “At my grandma’s I have a computer, a printing machine, a keyboard and a mouse. I play a computer game.” Drawing is getting only a challenge to sit at “the drawn” table and play. It is subjective graphical expression when the children do not find it important to portray not even themselves. Their authorship (name) is a lot more stressed by bold font. 95

Vice versa, in the artistic creation made by six to seven year old children there are, except of traditional signs and symbols also some new ones which portray the new quality of perception and at the same time a different way of communication (with computer). Consequently they demonstrate that children confronted with computer are in this age interested in the fact if the computers are alive, if they think or feel. Angular shapes prevail in creative child’s works and individual parts portraying space of the interior are portrayed through colourful shapes, even though the used line is actually an outline. The works are full of ideas, rich in colour, dynamic, full of life, joy, where each family member has their place and work function.

THE PROCESS OF PICTURE CREATION: MAIN CHARACTERS IN CHILD’S DRAWING In relation to the text in previous paragraph, it is interesting also to study portraying the figure in the child’s artistic expression. It is necessary to mention that a part of the children like to portray the main characters from classical fairy tales: Briar Rose, Little Red Riding Hood, Three Little Pigs, Snow-white and seven dwarfs, Kubko and Maťko or Pipi the Longstocking, which is usually symbolized by figure of a girl with protruding ponytails and big boots. However, nowadays many children like to grab the comics, more modern tales or TV series and films, often on videocassettes: TV film Home Alone II, part Lost in New York has become a motive for children portraying Kevin as a main character and the other two characters represent burglars. Other shots document an attempt to create a symbol of characters Gumkáči. Children give great significance to portraying details of ears in both drawn figures. “They are Gusto and Grafy – both are good. They are from the video”, note authors of the pictures. Tom and Jerry – a tomcat and a mouse, thus two animal characters popular from the TV screen, choose two children to be their friends as the main characters of a tale and at the same time as an attempt to make a stylization of an animal character (Picture 40). Lion King is symbolized by an animal character with markedly different head. Short lines – a symbol of lion’s mane – are placed around the circle in the form of rays. Human figures appear in other drawings. “A red muzzle, an uncle, a boy and they have found a mouse...I do not remember how it is called” adds another author of the drawing. 96

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Picture 40: Lenka, 7 years old. Mythical dream. 1. I. 2. Pikachu. 3. A cupboard. 4. A window. 5. A picture. 6. A vase. 7. A triangle. 8. A wheel. 9. A dolly. 10. A bed. 11. A train. 12. A table. 13. A carpet. 14. A seats. 15. A ﬂowers. 16. A table and seats.

We consider as the most original way of graphic portraying that symbolizes a favourite friend from a tale the artistic expression of a child who has draw a rectangle in the middle that symbolizes the whole TV screen. Under it there is a narrower rectangle with a symbol of circle and shapes of letters S, E – control buttons on the video receiver. The next rectangle from which a long line leads to the right paper edge, represents a shelf. On the opposite edge there is an open cupboard with shelves. Choice of symbols represents furnishing of the living room. The most important item in the whole drawing is a perfect title on the TV screen MRASIK. “The tale Mrázik is starting, we have it recorded on the video”, adds the boy. As the 97

child’s drawing itself documents, writing takes over the dominant status, is a bearer of the main idea. Other symbols only develop and add content of the drawing (Picture 41). This work sufﬁciently documents as the surrounding and living style inﬂuence child’s thinking and as a child gradually enters the symbolic line of culture.

THE PROCESS OF PICTURE CREATION: TREES Development of drawn symbols of a tree resembles the development of human figure drawings. From older expert literature we have learnt that the child experiments with portraying a tree in an early age. First they portray it as a vertical line on the bottom edge of the paper. This line has been traversed at the right angle by short lines, sometimes the angle is getting smaller. Britisch claims that “... drawing of a tree which originates and the branching on it is angular is a symbol for the generally acceptable ideological content, it is not a view on the tree, any projection of real directive lines on a natural object.” (J. Uždil, 1976, p. 34). However, our research has shown that children usually portray and prefer a symbol of a fruit tree with fruits which is a significant symbol of differentiation of coniferous from deciduous tree. Another symbol characterizes portraying of a root from which the branches grow. Sometimes the branches fork, while smaller branches are as if connected to the main branch at the right angle. We may state that the symbol of a tree appears almost in every child’s artistic expression with the appropriate topic the Forest. As early as in the first chapter we had the possibility to read that its portraying is varied (Picture 14). Some children are satisfied with classical, so called lollipop symbol. Other children, based on the knowledge that the tree also has a tree top, first make the branches by drawing the lines in different directions. They place them to a circle which should symbolize the shape of a tree top. Small shapes of the circle that symbolize Picture 41: Janko, 5 years old. My friend. “The tale Mrázik is starting, we have it leaves “grow” from short lines which recorded on the video. go in a ray-like form from the peri98

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meter of a big tree – tree top. They remind us of the symbol of sun. It appears that this symbol helps to solve the problem how to portray the growing leaves. In some other drawings the tree top is portrayed in a spiral form, in the circular shape. It expresses dynamics, plot and according to the authors of the drawing “also a tree may become the source of movement”. To portray the shape of a coniferous tree top, children use two refracted lines with the same distance from each other. These create rhythmically alternating short lines which change direction in a common point.

THE PROCESS OF PICTURE CREATION: MOVEMENT AND SPACE Roundabout, ship, cars and caterpillar operating as a little train are next symbols that portray the experience from the roundabouts. From our point of view, children form and stylize a symbol of the roundabout – regular child’s roundabout, swing roundabout and a twister in a very interesting way. One child expresses the continuous movement through a circle from which go some interconnected lines in a ray-like way and which resembles an open umbrella from a frog’s perspective. As if their physical appearance predetermined them to this view. In another artistic expression, the child draws in a parallel way to these lines another line and thus changes the arisen rectangular shape to the square resembling a seat for child. Moreover, movement, dynamics and joy are symbolized through variety of used colours (Picture 42).

Picture 42: Sonička, 5 years old. A roundabout. Macka, 5 years and 6 months old. A roundabout. “Big chain roundabout”, speciﬁes the child.

Another drawing seems very original, where there is a circle on the bottom paper edge and some lines are going from it at the end of which they are figures portrayed in a symbolic way. The child draws the chest of the figure in the form of a square which expresses stability, solid place for sitting and the head is placed under an arch – a little roof. One more roundabout appears in this drawing – the chain one, in the form of a spiral which is a dynamic element and portrays real plot. A great experience is undoubtedly an indication of action that expresses swinging, movement on a big ship, represented by an oval, not as we would have expected – through two connected circles. Stylization of this symbol appears also in further art works. A view into the inner space from a bird’s perspective enables seeing the figures. The child is solving also a technical problem – the movement normally portrays as gradual turning of a wheel, which is placed under the ship’s hull. Braking is secured by another wheel. Both wheels are connected by a common symbol – circle. Children place them symmetrically, from both sides of the oval. Sun, as a symbol of warmth, light, the clouds and the Earth add up to the picture. Another ship stylized through a symbol fully complies with an adult’s view. The child places their ship to the real natural environment. It is portrayed from the sides, which is typical for drawing of a vessel on the water. Motor racing circuit attracts mostly boys´ attention. The used symbols of cars have become easily readable. What is interesting is their arrangement on the paper format: lining up to the horizontal lines above each other or only to one line. There are no figures visible, which may suggest that the cars might have been parked. The car which covers the whole paper surface in the next artistic creation represents child’s personal experience: “I have driven such a car”, while the other cars are not that interesting and important for portraying the concrete situation. Only one child’s work does not represent a personal experience. A centipede – circles next to each other, which symbolize wagons – is moving on a solid track which is formed by two lines placed next to each other. There are some figures sitting in the wagons. The artistic creation expresses a desire to ride on this concrete centipede. Sun, clouds and crows – two circular lines in the form of a reversed wagon – bring the child to a real environment. We have a possibility to perceive two ways of portraying. A group of children represents movement in the shape of a circle, higher number of small circles resembling threaded beads on one thread, which form 100

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something like a necklace. Such symbolic portraying of space is enough for children. They put the details of a human figure – eyes, nose, mouth, sometimes hair – in small circles, whereas the glances of all portrayed child’s faces head to the receiver of the picture. In fact the portraying of figures would have required observing the principles of perspective. Except one drawing, children have avoided this problem. Probable cause is their apprehension about not managing a readable shape. Another group of children draw the figures horizontally. The drawings that symbolize figures are placed next to each other in a linear way with an indication (holding hands), but also without indication. Connecting the two lines of figures solves the artistic portraying of figure, the symbol of which is inverted. Instead of side view, we can see them from the front; they are turned approximately in 90 degrees. These and also other child’s artistic creations clearly prove how important it is nowadays to study the process of picture creation, development and way of graphic portraying. The same is with graphic symbols and their significance, mostly if the child’s creation aims at expressing space, perspective and movement.

THE PROCESS OF PICTURE CREATION: PLAY WITH SHAPES Creative image is a spiritual process during which a new value and idea is formed. Connecting the visual-space thinking and artistic expression in the creative process determines development of child’s creative image ability. Children present their ideas, attitudes, own system of values and hierarchy of values in a unique way, by means of colour, shapes, lines and other relationships. They make abstract pictures, however, based on unawareness of notions, they put them as late as on the seventh grade. They make shapes and lines in a different form, they put points in the groups, and they solve colourful structure of areas, whereas they prefer clear and neat colours (Pictures 52, 54, 59). Children include in their pictures also block letters or other signs. Only in some artistic works, there are some older, known and already fixed symbols of flowers or a king’s crown. The artistic pictures suggest certain Paper-machine, Colour picture, Ninja turtle, Special fountain – geometrical. In the second group there are individual geometrical shapes scattered on the whole surface. Artistic works are of a diffusive character and pictures suggesting Balls, Colour picture, Auto-robot, Strings, Lorry with traffic lights and Carnival are created. 101

Picture 43 a:

Kamilka, 5 years old. A Bird. Petra, 7 years old. A Flower. Zuzanka, 12 years old. Splash of colour. Jurina, 9 years old. A Fireworks.

A source point for further activity has become a spot, which in childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes represents Colourful fence, Colourful bush, Fruit tree, Colourful toys, Special colourful tree, Daisy, Green tree, Ice-cream town, Flower 102

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Picture 43 b:

Michaela, 7 years old. A Labyrinth. Lucia, 11 years old. A Medusa.

and Labyrinth. What is interesting is the child’s expression, but also their handwriting. Part of children uses the colourful surfaces, which literally adds to the black spot. They try to include the “spurs” of the sport in one, less complicated shape. They use clear and bright colours. Red, pink, blue, green and yellow surfaces prevail. Part of children also uses colourful surfaces which they border by a line and perceive as a whole. The third group of children puts the colourful surfaces directly to the spot and then draws geometrical shapes or more complicated shapes created from different refracted lines. In the last group there is a big amount of small, fine shapes stylized in different shapes (circles, short lines, arches, ovals, dots), which eventually make the spot more special in a very original way. Lining up the colourful dots shows a very sensitive attitude. Some children write their first name and, thus, writing serves as a decorative element that makes the whole picture more interesting (Picture 43 a, b). Most children in pre-school age create very spontaneously. From the artistic point of view, we cannot talk exactly about creativity because their artistic expression is not sufficiently equipped with creative (sign) means or artistic techniques. On the other hand, it is very personal, fresh and sincere. Child’s spontaneity vanishes around 6 to 7 years of age and unfortunately, at the age of 7 (8) years also interest in the artistic creation, which we estimate approximately at 40 percent. Most children start to copy what they can see and start to prefer the word as a way of their own expression in this period. 103

In comparison with children of pre-school and younger school age, only minor percentage of creative works are found among children of older school age, which we consider to be a minimum level of continuity from the childhood. Why isn’t the artistic creativity transferred to older age? We may perhaps reason it partially by development principles, but this fact is a lot more influenced by school with its norms, rules and educational influence which prefers imitation, “teaches children to learn” and little supports creativity. Level of cognitive development at this age is predetermined by development of convergent thinking at the expense of divergent one. Also family environment, as well as classical methodology of teaching the Arts with exactly defined style of learning contributes to this fact. Expressive perception of activity, which we find the basis of the Arts at school, confirms the strength of relationship and communication dimensions of fine arts influence. Creative activities, but also the Arts subject itself form space for self-realization, dynamic learning of oneself and others. Especially in these modern times it is more necessary than before to support development of child’s own artistic creation, as modern technologies and new visual media enforce artificial creativity on children and suppress the own (individual) creativity of each individual mostly through perception of TV images and computer signs.

COLOUR IN COMMUNICATION. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCE The most important phenomenon of artistic perception and reflecting the light is colour. Concerning colour, nearly everything is allowed, naturally in interest of final expression. Colour is frequently bearer of light, joy and peace, but also bearer of dramas or tragedies. It may record odour and other dimensions of our world, or vice versa, it does not have to respect this reality at all. However, it is frequently a totally undistinguished building element of picture compositions or it becomes the dominating factor of the expression and point of the whole idea. In this part of the publication, our aim is to interpret some observations in the field of artistic expression of pre-school age children. We aim our attention at the phenomenon of colour and relationships with colours, 104

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which depends on the psychical state, mood, as well as child’s emotional experience. Their significance and usage in social interaction and communication will be important for us. Thus, context of environment in which colour as a significant symbol creates not only separately, but also as a phenomenon of current world perception. From the brief interpretation of research results we have chosen only those facts which touch the spontaneous or tasked topics, with impact on the colour phenomenon, preferring of colour and expressing the emotions which were categorized to three groups: 1. positively experienced emotions, 2. negatively experienced emotions and 3. mixed feelings, which are of short-term character and may be positive, as well as negative. Our research has shown on the sample of 4 to 6 year old children shows that yellow colour is the most characteristic for expressing positive emotions. As much as 30 percent of children prefer this colour and it is surely due to the fact that it is the colour of light and Sun, but also of autumn leaves. Bright colour, which is close to the golden one, is a symbol of richness, nobility, glory and beauty. In child’s artistic expression, yellow colour is very frequently matched with red one, which is considered a symbol of human body, energy, braveness, strength, joy, happiness, health, light and warmth, but also hate, suffering, danger, fire and fight. At the same time it is the colour that encourages, stimulates emotions and creativity. On average, it is preferred by as much as 20 percent of children, the same with brown and green. Green colour is a symbol of nature, spring, life and freshness. It has an attribute of levelling, harmonising, it increases tolerance and understanding. In this connection, another, not less important meaning has been derived, and that is colour of hope, another life and immortality. Black colour, as a symbol of the absolute, which simultaneously provides room for self-reflection and examination of our inner self, has the lowest preference in child’s artistic creation; only 5 % children comply with it in case of expressing positive emotions. (Graph 1) Black colour is the most characteristic in case if children are about to express anxiety or negative emotions. One third of 4 to 6 year old children have this preference. The second place is occupied by blue colour, which is prioritized by as much as one quarter of children for expressing negative emotions. Other colours have relatively same preferences, around 10 percent. (Graph 2) 105

Children did not have a strong idea when 30 about to express mipositive experienced emotions 25 xed feelings (fear and (joy and happiness) 20 admiration). Practically all colours were repre15 sented in the same vo10 lume in child’s artistic 5 expression, and that 0 30 22,5 17,5 8,7 5 16,3 was also in case if they Yellow Red Brown Blue Black Green had to express posiGraph 1 tive and negative emotions at the same time. (Graph 3) 35 negative experienced emotions When we compared 30 (anger and sadiness) colour preferences by 25 girls and boys at the 20 15 age of 4 to 5 and 5 to 6 10 years, we did not ﬁnd 5 any striking differen0 ces. At this age the dif6,3 15 11,3 23,7 31,2 12,5 Yellow Red Brown Blue Black Green ference of sexes might not play a signiﬁcant role. Graph 2 We state that the feeling of happiness is matched by most children with yellow and red colour, grief mostly with blue and anger with black colour. Generally 5 to 6 year old children prefer yellow colour (28 %), green (28 %) and blue (24 %). These dominant colours suggest positive emotions for 40 % children, mixed feeling for further 40 percent and negative emotions for the remaining 20 %. Younger children (4 to 5 years old) preferred and green colour, which evoke positive emotions in them (40 %), or also mixed feelings as admiration and grief (47 percent). In the research we also compared how their favourite colours correspond with their emotions. The results showed that in 22 percent of respondents their favourite colour is matched with gaiety, in other 22 percent their favourite colour is matched with admiration, even surprise, in 10 percent with anger, in 8 percent with fear. (Graph 4) Preferred colours (in percentages) and expressed emotions (a sample of 4 – 6 years old)

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We may state that emotional impulses and sense perceptions influence colourfulness of child’s artistic expression and relation to colour. We have been persuaded about this fact also in the artistic portraying and interpretations of a heard and seen story according own images. Children use their favourite colours mostly in the same way to express positive, as well as negative emotions. Although we must state that certain stronger preferences do exist: yellow colour is dominant at expressing positive emotions at any rate and black colour with the negative ones. If we figured emotions on the scale from positive to the negative ones, yellow colour would have descending tendency and the black one increasing. Children have most frequently portrayed negative emotions (grief and fear) using black and blue colour. Green and brown occurred most frequently in middle position, mostly in case of expressing mixed feelings. Regarding the frequency of used colour, children tend to use blue colour most often (nature is also the most mixes feelings of a short-term nature, frequent artistic motiboth positive and negative (fear, admiration) ve and thus portraying 25 of water and the sky). 20 Although we did not 15 find any significant differences at comparison 10 of colour preferences 5 at boys and girls, girls 0 still prefer yellow and 13,75 12,5 20 17,5 13,75 20 Yellow Red Brown Blue Black Green blue colour and boys the green and blue one. Graph 3 Blue colour symboliConformity of children’s favourite colours zes trustfulness, devowith their emotions (in percentages) tion, stability; it is calm 8 % joy and perceived as a co22 % admiration 10 % fear lour of communication. It suggests that boys in pre-school age more 18 % anger frequently incline to 22 % grief cold colours than girls. Moreover, the re20 % happiness search has shown that children under the inGraph 4 107

Primary colour preferences and creative expression itself suported by seen pictures (“Colour board“ by P. Klee, 1930) 10 girls boys 8 6 4

8,00

0,00

2,00

0,00

2,00

0,85

0,00

1,71

6,28

6,57

6,86

6,85

8,57

7,42

8,86

9,42

turquoise

black

dark-brown

white

yellow

light-brown

orange

pink

light-blue

cyclamen

Graph 5

fluence of outer stimuli, in certain emotional state use a richer scale of colours irrespective of real colouring of the things and phenomena. They attach higher value to colour in their artistic creative play. For example, if they had to finish the story which they had listened to in the artistic way to the position: the story with a happy end or the story with a sad end. However, we have found out that children symbolically portrayed the main characters of the story with a sad end, which evoked negative emotions, using red colour, at that was in 53 percent. In case of positive end of the story, brown colour (20,8 %) and yellow colour (18,2 %) was symptomatic for the main characters. Phenomenon of colour, relation to colours, preference of colours, as well as the artistic creation itself acquires a different quality in an environment if motivated by the fine arts. In our case, we worked with a work of art and emotional impact of colours (Colour board, 1930, Concentric circles, 1913) by P. Klee and W. Kandinský, who nowadays rank among the most favourite artists; children like to imitate them or even identify themselves with them. (Picture 48, 50). In the artistic play when young authors were tasked to retell a story colourfully, whereas the pictures by P. Klee and W. Kandinský served only as an inspiration, their picture repertoire (of signs and symbols) was 108

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extended significantly and most of all their colour spectrum. Whereas in other cases with children, blue colour has been typically dominant, in this case the children used more colours and their tones. Apart from the usual colours it was also cyclamen colour, bright blue with the attribute “amiable”, the colour of “air and freedom” or pink colour that symbolizes freedom, energy, and tender activity. Orange colour, thus sunny, friendly with a big potential of energy, bright green which has “a taste to make new contacts” in itself, or turquoise colour and alike (Graph 5). It has been confirmed by our research that children use a concrete scale of colours to express their experiences and emotions. For instance, yellow colour is significantly dominant at expressing positive emotions and black colour at negative feelings. It was surprising to have found out that children use their favourite colours approximately in the same amount to express positive, as well as negative emotions. Stories and artistic plays (inspiration by works by P. Klee and W. Kandinský) has shown that under the influence of outer stimuli the children extend and enrich their picture repertoire, also concerning colours. Inspiration by the fine arts positively influences and enriches colour preferences of children and extends the scale of their means of expression. We may state that the colour has become a significant means of communication; social and cultural environment markedly influences the artistic creation in pre-school age.

CHILD’S ARTISTIC PERFORMANCE IS BOUND ON THE SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS Traditional aiming of research at graphic production, and especially drawing, so far has limited the space for discussion on ontogenetic development in the child’s artistic expression. Some researchers, aware of this fact, start to use closer denotations in their publicised works. For example, there is development of picture imagination or a graphic symbol, which according to the technical literature, comprises all symbolizing or substituting qualities having the graphic form in the shape of a line, surface or system of graphic traces. The graphic symbol situated between the word and picture is irreplaceable. Their common feature is the graphic form but semantic value and concrete shapes are distinctly different. The process of creation and the artistic product, as well as our further empiric knowledge show us that the child’s artistic expression of nowadays is not only a demonstration of what the authors know and see in 109

their surroundings. Knowledge that the child’s artistic expression is bound to the system of symbols is important. Children literally explore and create various systems of symbols which simultaneously enable them to create their own vision of the portrayed world. As we are persuaded by some of the examples in this publication, in the child’s artistic expression, their own graphic logic prevails. At an early age, children gain the ability to use the graphic language. They simultaneously develop different possibilities of expression and a different visual language. Today, it is evident that the child’s artistic expression is influenced in the socio-cultural context, multi-medially and multi-culturally. It is changed also thanks to current trends in the fine arts. Children do not counter these changes, they gradually use new means of expression, change the content and the way of portraying. As their artistic expression is influenced by the environment and at different levels, it is diverse and multilateral. It is quite difficult to speak about strictly defined evolution concept of the child’s artistic expression. In the ontogenetic principle, linearly understood concept of the development of the picture creation seems to be insufficient in the present day conditions. It is perhaps indicated by the content of the publication together with many illustrations. According to A. H. Kindler (1999), the concept of the child’s artistic expression is more acceptable as the concept of the “open structure” because the children at the same time develop different possibilities of expression together with the visual language. Contemporary process of the picture imagination has to be viewed as a reflection of a civilised society. The children will change it hereafter; their view of the artistic expression and self-creation will probably be changed as well. The teachers will do the same. It comes to a certain conflict of interests which will require mutual understanding, sympathy. Therefore, it is inevitable to explore the child’s artistic expression as a phenomenon and pay close attention to it in the future. Nowadays, apart from the graphic expression and imagination, tremendous fortune lies in the area not yet scientifically explored – in the spatial creation, in photography or multimedia.

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The period when the child`s drawing was considered only some kind of doodling is over. A different look, different view on the child`s artistic expression is nowadays, to a certain extent, formed also by the new art styles. We have on mind the art of avant-garde, which in its essence, rejects the illusionist principle of reality approximation. That is why nowadays it is very interesting to study the symbol and its essence in ﬁne art and in the child`s artistic creation, and to compare how the symbol is formed, how its meaning is formed, how the meaning is transformed into the context of its formation; it is also interesting who creates the meaning and where the meaning is located. For us, the important role is played by a graphic symbol, which comprises all symbolising or substitution qualities having their graphic form in the shape of a line, surface or in the system of graphic tracks. The graphic symbol, which is located between the word and the picture, is irreplaceable. Their common feature is graphic similarity, similarity purely accidental; on the other hand, semantic or meaningful value and concrete shapes signiﬁcantly differ.

CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION AND ART OF PREHISTORIC AND NATURE NATIONS Very often, there is a kind of parallel or analogy between the child`s artistic expression and the art of prehistoric and nature nations, when the symbol was considered something mysterious, and demonstrated that the human life has its meaning. The ﬁrst developing art forms in geometric shape (ornament, pictogram, ideogram, writing) and in naturalized shape date back to 100 000 years ago when the natural motives were recorded on the walls of caves. A prehistoric human marked his ideas by means of a picture, and that is why he looked for simpler signs and sym111

bols. After the first finger drawings in Toiran, there were many others formed in the cave La Clotilde in Santa Izabel and in Gargas. The walls in caves of Altamira in Spain or Lascaux in France were also marked with vertical or irregular lines, set of parallel lines or the lines refracted to the right angle, with a number of spots, the meaning of which escapes us. The horizontal strokes intersected the vertical ones and they resembled abstract drawings even though, in principle, they were not abstract. From the numerous intersecting lines, there was more a frenetic effort felt to fill the walls up driven by the horror of emptiness. According to Pijoan, a psychopathic child defends himself similarly, drawing a number of big circles on the paper or covering the paper with spots. From his viewpoint, this reaction is a demonstration of fear and deep anxiety. “In the period of hunting, mankind experiences its age of a child and its living conditions are very difficult. Walls of the caves marked with finger drawings reveal anxiety.” (J. Pijoan, 1987, page 14). The need and tendency to simplify and stylize was not typical only for the prehistoric art; it was also applied in a number of later cultures. Schematic art, naturally inspired by themes of nature, left its footprint in the form of cave or rock drawings and paintings. We can look for the origin of abstract creation in manual or mental simplifying which then led to geometric shapes. This principle of nature nations is an expression of easy, unaffected feeling of a human being, which is similar to the way of child`s seeing, transformed to the child`s drawing (Picture 44, 45). According to Jozef Čapek, the way of seeing of an Indian and a black person is comparable to the way of seeing a child; with a

Picture 44: Symbolic Indian drawings. Rio Negro. Lenka, 6 years old. An experience from the visit.

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concern for the topic, he remarks: “A black person, in general, loves strong and bright sensation, exciting liveliness; as a child, s/he is attracted by diversity and resourcefulness; contributes a lot to it, sees a lot in it and prefers blistering and surprising contrasts, as well as lively offensive dynamics. The ability to recall and concentrate the form to the geometric shapes is usually accompanied by the sharp-witted feeling to benefit from these acquired surfaces using them for further formal effects with concurrence of polychromy…” (K. Čapek, 1996, page 129) An effort to portray everyday life, and endeavour to get hunting under control, even in drawing, has led to the attempts in figurative creation. These facts preconditioned the origin and development of naturalistic and expressive portraying of animals which were usually portrayed from the profile to enable portraying of four legs and hoofs; the horns were portrayed from the front (Picture 46). In the drawing, there was a lot of encoded information and belief that what the hunters have just demonstrated, will happen tomorrow. The portraying had to ensure successful hunting. Alongside with the picture, there also appeared magic to help the hunter. The reality was perceived by the human as very deep, 113

Picture 45: Doodling from the Old Stone Age. Child`s drawing. France. Dominika, 6 years old. In the kindergarten. Radka, 6 years old. Wheel, wheel of the mill.

complicated; that is why he attempted expressing by his utmost ingenious signs of multiple meaning. The pictures from the Bronze Age, found in Sweden (Picture 47), representing the tree signs, can serve as an example. A man credited them with a symbolic meaning, and he was working on the assumption that he was rooted to ground and lifted up to heavens by means of branches. Thus, he represents the “being of two worlds” (H. Biederman, 1992, page 287). The meaning of a number of drawings is comprehensible mainly when the realistic portraying is concerned. Some drawings have conPicture 46: Drawings on the skin. ventional nature and there is no South Australia. need to decode them. “SchematiMarek, 6 years old. Domestic animals. zation of pictures, their transformation to a symbol, a conventional sign, started in the Stone Age. In the New Stone Age, the geometric style started to dominate in the art of Neolithic people.” (A. Kondratov, 1981, page 25) Antique artists used to tell their mythological stories through a number of diagrams resembling some kind of antediluvian animation. Since the same symbols were always repeated, they formed picture writPicture 47: Tree-like signs and ships. Bronze Age. ing as one of the communication Peter, 5 years old. Trees. means and the way of passing on the moral. Calligraphy of the antique art and the narrative painting of symbols were extended by the artists of lyric abstraction, developed foremost in the creation of Willi 114

ARTISTIC – SYMBOLIC CODE, DETAILS AND DIFFERENCES IN ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

Baumeister and Paul Klee. Baumeister explained his intentions in the Ideograms in a way that his creation is predominately about “unaffected demonstrations of wandering fantasy”; their inspirations came from ethnographic signs of writing and ancient mythological picture stories. Invented marks became the means of materialization of their inner feelings. Willi Baumeister explained the ideological essence of his artistic utterance as concentration to the concretization of the unknown (In: K. Thomas, 1994). Through the unknown utterance, the artists of lyric abstraction could directly lean upon fantasy, and in this way create a brand new subject speech of abstract forms; through these forms the work of art becomes more exciting and at the same time a secret.

CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION – INSPIRATION OF TITANS OF FINE ART A number of signs, symbols, diagrams and metaphors are symptomatic for mythology and its stories, as well as for the art of today. Contemporary art, in many respects, is close to the world of child`s drawing. The reason is that it does not attempt the accurate reproduction of phenomena which their authors meet on a daily basis. For contemporary artists, there is an importance of reflexion, mood, feeling, materialization of their inner world, which reacts to the world around them. The child, as well, through their own symbols, tries to give reference on themselves, and on what is around them. As the myth portrays the picture of the world through the symbols, also the child communicates with the surrounding environment. S/he tries to give their pictures a certain form of their own symbols and depictions, which only the author himself can understand, as it reflects their subjective world. This children`s world relates to the transformed nature of the myths, to the fairy tale. History of fine art and concerned culture document that the child`s drawing has always been, and further on remains an inspiration for many masters of fine art (J. Fineberg, 1995). In the era of romanticism, the child`s drawing was perceived as “ingenious” because the children were able to see the truth and express it. It is known that many artists, knowing this reality, have then tried to imitate the child`s objectivity, creativity and simplicity of forms. At the beginning of the 20th century, the children`s drawings, which are considered the children`s art by some of the theorists, were displayed in 115

the prominent culture centres of Europe. Many masters of ﬁne art openly admitted that they were fascinated by the child`s creation. Even Wassily Kandinsky, Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Joan Miró and others were intensively involved in the child`s artistic performance (Picture 48 a, b). They collected the art and simultaneously exhibited it with their own work.

Picture 48 a:

Wassily Kandinsky. A colourful sketch with rhombuses. 1913. Janko, 9 years old. A fly, spider and colourful rhombuses. “A captured fly in the rhomboid colourful web. The spider is lurking the fly and the landlord is calmly watching TV.”

Modern artists owned collections of children`s drawings. Paul Klee as 23 years old, returning from his studies in Rome (1920), in his father’s house, found a number of his own drawings from his early childhood. They enormously attracted his attention, inﬂuenced his further artistic expression to that extent that he started to collect the drawings of his son Felix. Throughout his life, he was involved in the child`s artistic expression, was inspired by it, and looked for “the return to the roots” in it (Picture 49). A great collection of the child`s drawings was owned also by the artists of the younger generation, e.g. Jean Dubuffet, 22 years younger than Paul Klee, then the members of the COBRA group (formed in 1948) and representatives of pop-art. 116

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Similarly, some other artists enjoyed the returns to the child`s drawing. Michail Larionov admired his son and painted his pictures according to his son`s drawings. In his creation, he used the expressive dynamics of colour. He interpreted the new method of disintegration of things to ray-like, rhythmically arranged lines as the inevitable consequence of cubist, futuristic and orphistic experiments with abstraction. Child`s drawings were a perpetual inspiration for Gabriele Münthe. From the point of semiotics, psychoanalysis and anthropology, we Picture 48 b: Paulina, 19 years old. Picture – inspiration comes from Wassily Kandinsky Extemporization 7 can find the adequate parallels at the level of the child`s drawing at already mentioned Wassily Kandinsky, who, apropos, was very much interested in the child`s drawing. In his pictures, he essentially used abstraction with the aim to reduce the volume of materialistic matter. He subtracted from the things not only their weight, but their body measurements – the spatial definition as well. The thing itself is meaningless to him; what is accentuated, is his own unpredicted motives, emotions which are concretised in the picture as the composed accords of colours and lines. The creative approach is reflected in harmonious compositions of colours and forms mirroring their freedom and stillness of the spirit, emotion and thinking. Consequently, a free, playful and spontaneous expression is of concern to children. And exactly this freedom of 117

Picture 49: Old Stone Age, 25, 000 years BC. Drawing on the cave wall, Middle Stone Age, 10, 000 years BC. Watercolour of Paul Klee (1870 – 1940). Marek, 6 years old. A walking person.

expression was the object of the search in the art creation of Wassily Kandinsky, also Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and other titans of ﬁne art.

ARTISTIC-SYMBOLIC CODE Expressionism tended to emphasise mental point of view. Work of art was considered the expression of artistic soul, attempting gradation of the expression, even at the cost of deformation. In the effort of underlining the expressive value of the motive, the masters of ﬁne art deformed the forms of a being and a thing until a complete decomposition. This was reﬂected in the symbolism of lively, relaxed and bright colouring. The artists created the abstract compositions of forms and they preferred plane decorativism and rhythmic linear elements. In their style-forming 118

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tendencies, the authors oriented towards the art of nature nations. This art exaggerated and consequently unified individual forms according to the needs of magic. Similarity in artistic language and orientation towards the child`s artistic expression is yet comparative; the reason is that every child`s drawing is then also a deformation, highlighting of what the child considers important. Paul Klee, who was considerably involved in the research of basic geometric forms and pure linear combinations, derived from expressionism. The drawings are often formed by one continuous line which changes its direction and forms the square and zigzag patterns. The line is formed spontaneously as an abstract pattern, to which there are added additional figural elements. He used to say that he “portrayed the line of a walk”. In his work, we can often find the roads, sidewalks as metaphors of the artist`s interest in creative processes, which exceeded his interest in his final work. “Never try to portray the definite image… Do not think about the final form but about the forming lines,” he advised the others. (In: S. Kentová, 1996, page 58.) His artistic-symbolic code, containing thematic information, resembles the informative code in the children`s drawings. The shape of objects is usually determined by the systems of the graphic elements. All the elements are arranged in a way that each of them has its position and cannot be replaced by anything else. Paul Klee did not leave anything up to the chance event; he always attached great importance to the aesthetic-artistic point. Let’s imagine, on the small area, as there gradually is formed a mosaic of colourful squares and rectangles letting us sense the geometric rule. The lines are neither fully horizontal, nor vertical but they “give out” the principle of the vertical or horizontal. The colours are transparent; they are on the move; they live and breathe. The study of the nature of the symbol and comparison enable us to state that Klee`s principle resembles the one of the child: the children also find out that some of their pictures could also be bearers of some information, e.g. “the circle as an apple”, “the rectangle as a car”. Paul Klee leans towards the relative; that is why he artistically played so much, artistically explored, and treated the basic and simple forms in a way that is usually and naturally done by children. Similarity of his creation with the one of children is therefore remarkable (Picture 50). We can find fantastic elements in the work of many artists of the 20th century in the dream and poetic associations of Paul Klee, in the scenes 119

Picture 50: Paul Klee. A black prince, 1927. Marek, 6 years old. Popolvár (based on a fairytale from the puppet theatre).

of fairytales of deep distinct colours painted by Marc Chagal. Viewers` great interest in fantastic themes is documented by a number of entertaining pieces of work, comics created by illustrators of science ﬁction and works of literature. Amongst them are the authors of comics – Phillipe Druillet or Jean Giraud, called Moebius. Nowadays, the comics are very popular and in recent years, children have also enjoyed drawing them. They are inspired by contemporary popular art. It is noteworthy that those children who prefer the stories of comics show quite a high level of drawing abilities. However, their performance has only a little in common with the traditional artistic expression (Picture 51).

THINKING AND SCHEMATISM Henri Matisse, a sensitive painter and a supporter of an intensive joy of life, drawing from philosophy that “… an artist has to look at life with the eyes of a child. Otherwise, s/he looses the possibility to express himself in an original way”. Matisse was confident in the fact that “drawing comes out of the spirit” and that is why he constantly searched, explored and gradually fulfilled his credo. To receive the definite form, different ver120

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Picture 51: Milan, 7 years old. A dialogue. Alenka, 13 years old. A dialogue.

sions in various stages, which followed one another, were formed. These stages, in the original way, led to increasingly stronger schematisation, to intensive and pure colouring. His prudence and schematism led to deliberated deformation supported by composition reduced to a pure and basic line. Not taking into consideration the naivety in the work of Henri Matisse, in some of his pictures we are attracted by the diversity of colours applied in larger areas, which gave up any relation to the volume. A clean colour, a simple shortcut, compositional customariness of picture space without modelling and shading, as well as perfect harmony between emotional expression and decorative composition are comparable to customariness of the child`s artistic creation. In both cases we are fascinated and astonished mainly by their simplicity, cleanliness, brightness and a great deal of abstraction (Picture 52, 53).

PLAYFULNESS, SPONTANEITY, SINCERITY, CLEANLINESS, COURAGE AND DESIRE FOR SEARCH French cubists were the ﬁrst to draw attention to the aesthetic values of the child`s artistic creation. They, after the impressionism which lightened and “aerated” the forms, elevated the colouring and clariﬁed the basics of visual perception, considered it ne-cessary to come back to the line, form, to the material form of objects, to their relief values. The cubists, since they were instructed by Cézanne and the fauvists, were interested 121

Picture 52: Henri Matisse. A still life with goldﬁsh. Zuzka, 8 years old. A still life. (A still life with a simple table which is portrayed from above; on the table there is a vase with yellow-red ﬂowers immersed in dirty water with orange background; a little teapot dominates the front.) Simonka, 6 years old. A still life. (A still life with a simple table which is portrayed from above; on the table there is placed a violet cup and pink plates with colourful fruit and vegetables.)

in portraying the material reality in its full tangibility and objectivity, not as it appeared but realistically. Their aim was to place the whole material comprehensiveness of the three-dimensional objects and things onto a two-dimensional canvas. The conceptual realism, on which the children`s drawings are based, has also other peculiar similarities to the effort of the cubists: portraying the same element from many sides, the circle perspective, simultaneous interchanging of the plan and elevation, transparency. In this way, there it comes to disassembling of objects to their individual parts, whereas we can see them in chronology one after another and from many angles of view. In the picture, these are portrayed simultaneously and next to each other. On the surface, the subject is changed – the countryside is replaced by the still lifes with bottles, glasses, fruit and a guitar; portraying of space disappeared from the pictures. According to Juan Gris, for Braque the guitar was the same as Madonna for the medieval artists, or what presence of the Sun, a ﬂower, a tree or a lamp means for children (Picture 54). 122

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One of the greatest artists of abstraction who used to ﬁnd the motives in the mythological symbols of the nature nations was Pablo Picasso. This artist was so much attracted by mythology that he volunteered to illustrate the MetamorPicture 53: Henri Matisse (1869-1954). A Romanian blouse, 1940. phosis of Ovidius wheNatália, 6 years old. My mother. re the poet remakes antic mythology. These illustrations serve as an evidence of Picasso`s ability to express the essence of the depicted idea using simple forms. In the cycle which is abstracting the bull’s body Picasso was able to achieve a pure line, the minimum expressive means in a way that is managed, in their subconscious simplicity, only by children or the primeval man. Picasso’s effort and ability to abstract and simplify was intentional and therefore more difﬁcult, whereas children can abstract without realizing it. The artists of nature nations acted similarly; a lot of heritage of our ancestors endured in their creation. Their artistic performance brings evidence that they drew what

Picture 54: Georges Braque. A pink tablecloth, 1933. Veronika, 6 years old. A still life (a table, lamp, spoon, plate, cups).

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they knew about things and not what they really saw. The whole sphere of myths is in fact about what the people knew about the world, and tried to explain the unexplainable by means of the whole series of symbols and signs. Nowadays, these enable us to understand, at least partially, the way of their thinking. Pablo Picasso preserved in himself a lot of the child – playfulness, spontaneity, sincerity, cleanliness and courage, desire for search, for the future. With resourcefulness and playfulness, characteristic of him, he resembled a child. He enjoyed performing magic and played with the form and the language of his pictures. He thoroughly explored, experimented and got to know the reality of our world and the human’s life. He joined the elements of two different specialisations of research: cubism, where the object is depicted from different viewpoints simultaneously and the child`s way of portraying, with their great freedom of composition. Not only that he tried to know the world with the eyes of children, they quite often represented an inspiration for him; that is why he used to aptly remark: “All my life I have learned to draw in a way children do.” Children portray the things as they know them. They are not burdened by the customariness of artistic creation; they experiment with a clear mind. They follow their own experience and memories. In doodling and in the tangle of lines they explore geometric shapes, and are able to tell complete stories about them. They are able to perfectly comment on the colourful doodling with a number of ovals and spirals. Thanks to their unbounded fantasy, a square is the house, a circle is the Sun and a colourful tangle of lines resembles grass. Children use fragmentary signs and symbols instead of concrete objects. A number of ﬁgures portrayed “through each other”, deformations and exaggerated enlargement for better expression of their emotional attachment to the portrayed reality, are typical for a child. Children`s drawings are very sincere, and have the ability to present not only the external look of the portrayed reality as they can see it. However, they tend to show what is inside of the object, and slightly reveal their own inside. The child linearly portrays and at the same time tells you not only how the house, where they live, is big; they also tell you who they live with, what they like doing, and who they love the most. Like children, also Picasso in his creation, was far off any kind of dogma; his effort was to reach the distinct simplifying of outlines and surfaces. He always experimented, and he never followed any theory; he restricted himself to the main 124

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shapes and surfaces. In a certain period of his creation, he even abandoned the colourful tones. To give a true picture of his emotions, he restricted his pallet of colours only to several basic ones. Picasso always looked for new approaches, ways of expression, to be able to portray the object the most accurately. He played with the form. “When I want to paint a bowel, then I naturally show you that it is rounded. However, the general rhythm of the picture, the compositional layout can force me to portray this curve as a square.” He Picture 55: Pablo Picasso. A still life with a guitar, 1922. (A still life on the table, a guitar). disassembled the figures, and then again he Lenka, 8 years old. A confusing still life. assembled them. In his pictures, we see the things portrayed so realistically, from many available angles and viewpoints using all information about the model, as we then have the impression that they are unrealistic. Pablo Picasso used his peculiar principle of composition. The space of the picture is not organized anymore, it does not undergo the principles of homogeneous central perspective; each object is then reproduced individually, each time from a different angle (Picture 55, 56). “I treat the painting as I treat the objects; it means that I paint the window in a way I look out of it. If the window looks delusively in the picture, I close it and pull the blind just like I would do so in my room. In fine art, just like in life, it is necessary to act smoothly. Naturally, in fine art, there 125

Picture 56: Pablo Picasso. A woman, 1907. Martina, 6 years old. My mother.

are also conceptions, and it is important not to overlook them. Yes, there is no other choice. And that is why we have to keep in mind the real life”, he adds on the margin of his artistic performance. There are innumerable experiments leading towards the natural development of his work of art which bring the evidence of Picasso’s frankness. He expressed himself very straightforwardly and sincerely, just like a child. He was astonished by everything new and the old things inspired him to remake them. He explored the new techniques thanks to his curiosity and natural playfulness. He experimented with everything, and he was interested in the original function of an object. Things around him were changing in his hands; they lived the story which the author inscribed in them as the child who makes the animals, let’s say from the chestnuts; or it can be their favourite character from the fairytale or a collage. The Baboon with the baby was created similarly – by his son’s cars forming his head. All parts composing this artwork are composed in each other, in a way that it is impossible to imagine individual elements separately. 126

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Picture 57: Estrecho de Santonge. Covatilla de San Juan at Horcayo. Joan Miró. A small blond in the park, 1950. Miško, 6 years old. A musician. Ivanka, 6 years old. A dancer.

OUTER WORLD VERSUS INNER WORLD Joan Miró is said to embody the notion “homo ludens”, a playful man. He also was the “homo faber”, a creative man. He naturally met also the signiﬁcation of the notion “homo sapiens”, as a man who enjoyed knowing. He drew his expressive power from the Indian cult drawing of Latin America. However, in his nature, he was a deep thinker. Hardly anybody was able to express his own creative process, his intentions and commitment of his own creation as accurately as Joan Miró. This characteristic but also the customariness of his artistic creation suggests that he also belongs to the artists who were very close to the child’s artistic expression. Not only history, but also current events constantly inﬂuenced his creation (Picture 57). The external and internal world came to mutual unity. Traces of this unity, which surrealism attempted and which originally 127

Picture 58: Joan Miró. A snail, woman, ﬂower and a star, 1934. Veronika, 6 years old. A meadow with ﬂowers.

existed at all people, may be found in the child’s artistic expression up to nowadays. A small child does not see the rough contrast between the outer world of live`s inevitabilities and the inner world of games and dreams. S/he wants to step into new dimensions, explorations, secrets, yet wants to keep their old imaginations. S/he connects the imaginary to the realistic, a dream to reality, and the objective to the subjective. In this sense, Joan Miró serves the children with the example. His vision helps the children to see what they could not and were not able to see.

Adam, 10 years old. An entrance to the unknown land.

Joan Miró was able to preserve the child`s mind. As he remarks, he hopes to ﬁnd “all values of the childhood” at the end of his life. He dared to be unlimitedly creative. In his artistic expression, he was inspired by game, toys and robots… To the system of surface signs, spatial ﬁgures and writing, he was able to compose some mechanical elements, levers… In his creation he connected reality with the secret in an unrestrained space. As he noted, he was grateful to Dadaists who were creating in the principle of accident, illogical associations, nonsense; this way they attempted to belittle the existing conventions. They also connected their values with the belief in a new, unmarked world of primary and clean children`s emotions. 128

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Just like children, also Joan Miró was inspired by nature; he respected its order. He was particularly interested in organic shapes, their flexibility and dynamics. He created some kind of mythological pictorial signs in which he joined the human, animal or plant motives; these were then put to some interesting absurd associations (Picture 58). With courage, he used to find the expressive means which were natural and did not tend to astonish: he felt rhythmically, loved curves, especially the spiral. He schematized shapes either to the form of geometric shapes – circles, triangles and cones, or he reduced them to a simple line. In certain period, he also separated, isolated and segregated individual parts from the unit as independent forms, and he indicated their compactness only by a connecting line. Fearlessness, courage to experiment with colours was an input to looking for analogy with the child’s artistic expression. His colours look clear, intensive, clean, bright, even suggestive; just like children’s. In his picture world, there are fairytale-looking trees, flowers, even space, the Sun, Moon and stars. All the objects and things have their characteristic form, which is so close to children. That is why Miró is an artist naturally and effortlessly accepted by children. One of Mirós interests was to tell, in colours, how he was impressed by the scenery of countries, already portrayed in simple, rough lines using charcoal. In the pictures, we immediately get to know the persistent creative effort of the author, as well as portraying of a seeming reality, also typical for children. Alongside with not very frequent landscapes portraying the favourite spots, there were the first still lifes announcing their arrival. His pictures are filled with figures which “almost become the grotesque, comic or dramatic figures. They are moving, dancing, yawning. They mirror the author’s interior“(M. Bucci, 1972, page 13). This is exactly how also children can portray. Miró does not have to speak straightforwardly. The things, figures… talk instead of him. “The propelling force and the expressive means of his artistic brushwork is a colour full of energy - the bearer of emotion and state of mind. His red is incandescent, dripping, fleshy, and rarely smutty. The green is inhibited, iron blue, sometimes sour, sprinkled with ice-blue. His blue colours are bright and clean; his ceruse is matt and dull, somehow expressing exhalation and the space in the dense tangle of other colours“. (M. Bucci, 1972, page 13) Children also like this kind of pallet of colours. They are attracted by clean and chromatic colours. According to eight-year-old Romanko: “Red 129

Picture 59 a:

Joan Miró. A moon wall. Janka, 10 years old. A wandering tennis player. Maroš, 9 years old. Life of ants.

colour is full of energy, sometimes it is encouraging, sometimes threatening.” “Yellow colour is like a sun beam which penetrates and lights up all corners”, also eight-year-old Zuzka added. “Violet colour is like a balance between blue and red. Neither one, nor the other can prevail; otherwise it will not be violet”, admits nine-year-old Paľko. Comparison and analysis of the pictures enables us to express the opinion that every lively language, also the language of Joan Miró and the language of children gradually changes. Miró never ﬁxed one sign for one notion. He always found a new one; again and again he compared the sign and optical perception; he veriﬁed the mediated voltage in reduction. He created and discovered a number of artistic synonyms for the triplet of notions: a woman, a bird and a star. Just like children, he also put some forms aside; other forms stayed permanently valid: the celestial bodies – the Sun, Moon and the stars – which formed Miró`s cosmology, signs of the escape ladder formed by four to six crossed lines, a 130

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wavy line or a refracted line ended with a circle and finally the spiral coming out of the central point. His creation persuades us that the master of art verified the expressional reservoir of the sign language; he was able to extend it and tell the whole stories this ways. Joan Miró has a lot in common with the child’s artistic expression, and that is why, not accidentally, he remarked: “The older I am and the better I master the creation, the more I turn to my experience from my early childhood. I think that at the end of my life I am going to restore all the strength of my childhood.” Eventually, we can illustrate it by the piece called the Moon wall located in Picture 59 b: Janka, 10 years old. A wall full of symbols, signs, colours and Paris, in front of the UNESCO Pastories. lace, and by the wall full of signs, symbols, colours and stories of a 10-year-old boy which hide the message from the far and close past. Similarly, in the next child’s picture, there is life of ants portrayed. Although the man symbolized by the footprint of his shoe is big and powerful, they can set an example for their diligence. In another child’s picture, there is a tennis player who wandered to different places; she sees and hears a lot of interesting: nice music, a heartbeat, a paved sidewalk, secrets, coloured country and danger (Picture 59 a, b). Herbert Read perceived art as an area full of symbols where some of them substitute images or notions, which from the historic viewpoint, are already settled. However, the children’s symbols are arbitrary and non-systemic. They do not attempt the translation of the graphic image or the artistic form. These are the objects with image associations. The author escapes the vivacity of his images; s/he wants to create something relatively firm and personal – s/he wants to escape the reality. S/he creates a visual symbol, a code in the language of lines which are expressions of author`s emotions (H. Read, 1967). 131

VIOLATING THE BOUNDARIES OF TRADITIONAL BEAUTY

Picture 60: Jean Dubuffet. Frequently visited region, 1981. Zuzka, 6 years old. Figures.

A great collection of the child’s art is owned by a lot of artists of younger generation, e.g. Jean Dubuffet, 22 years younger than Paul Klee, the already mentioned members of the COBRA group but also the representatives of pop-art. In the primitivist genetic figuration of Jean Dubuffet, there is also reflected the attitude of Dadaistic provocation merging to absurdity, then surrealistic automatic irrationalism which is concretised in adoration of naively portrayed disrespect, recklessness towards children and mentaly ill (art brut). Deliberate nonartistic treatment with the signs which impact trivially, grotesque and even absurd; he called them “art brut”, crude art or art in a raw condition. Jean Dubuffet, similarly like children, liked the abstract world, the world of fantasy and dreams. That is why he formed a subjective way of expression which was also the reflection of his mental labyrinth. He usually substituted the signs of primitive figuration by the individual mythology. His pictures, even nowadays, fascinate by their tangibility, bizarre formal figurativeness which is expressed by unintentional brushwork resembling scribbles on the 132

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grey walls of houses, the scribbles which we ignore passing by on the tar pavements. For Jean Dubuffet, the material nature of the relief layers was the bearer of the picture plot, of narrativeness. “My apparatus works like a machine which cuts down the names of things, and demolishes party walls, destroys the meaning distinguishing different things, different systems of things, different groups of facts and things, different levels of thinking.” (K. Thomas, 1994, page 221.) Jean Dubuffet never hid the fact that he had found inspiration in the child’s artistic expression. He broke through the boundaries of traditional beauty, and that is why he noted: “… better crude art than cultural art …” He filed his own art to “crude art” of harmless visionaries. He usually pictured not what he saw at the moment, but what he would like to see; he ignored the proportions. It is suggested by his figures which look like as if they stepped out of the child’s drawing. Jean Dubuffet was an inventor of new forms and radically new language smashing down existing habits in perception of artistic expression (Picture 60). Whereas the master of art points at primitivist figuration, the child copes with this issue spontaneously. We find the traces of pictogram records in his artistic expression. The artwork of the titan of fine art and the child’s artistic expression is linked with interesting imprints, the tracks in the sand: “All soil in the oasis, trod in this way and full of tracks and signs, is like a giant sketchbook, the sketchbook with improvisations. Similarly, the school board covered with writing is the ground we live on, perish and learn.” (J. Dubuffet, 1993, page 189.) Jean Dubuffet was attracted by the naïve infantility of child’s drawing and non-sophisticated spontaneity of the artistic expression of ill people. The world of the art of Dubuffet is open to everybody; we can permanently come in, and simultaneously explore it. The world of the child’s drawing is identical - open and deep. Similarly to the way the mentioned artist felt the urgent need to escape the world of reality and move to the world of fantasy; the same way the children, by their drawing, are able to express their secret world. Their expression is a subjective issue, similarly to Jean Dubuffet. Every point on the canvas or in the paper is a message, a code which we have to learn how to read. Also in child’s artistic creation, we discover the picture of their playful and dreamy micro-world fascinated by diversity of the real world. The master of art, similarly to 133

children, did everything with love and also in a quick pace. He enjoyed the positive result of each work which a bit topped his strengths and possibilities. Therefore, he used to say about his artwork that “he does not want his work to be perceived as the one created by an exceptional hand, but the hand of anybody else.” (J. Dubuffet, 1993, page 18.) He ignored proportions, and he oriented his attempts to portray the things towards the graphic concept impossible to describe. His work was a far cry from the real, objective criteria; so many people used to speak about his creation as about the one of a child. “This is the approach I am concerned with – to see them (the objects) and not to gaze at them too much and not to pay more attention to them than it would be paid by an ordinary person in a normal life”, Jean Dubuffet added. (J. Dubuffet, 1993, page 199.)

MAGIC SPACE BETWEEN WRITING AND PICTURE Writing – alphabet signs, words, numerals, texts and writing become not only an integral part of the overall art of the 20th century, but also the basic means which brings the modern art back to original sources of culture – right there where in the lap of mythic safety, the signs of historic age start to articulate. The mythic unity of the picture and word – eidos and logos – was not and will never be forgotten. It is reminded in pictures and labyrinthine poems from antiquity to baroque - similarly to illuminated manuscripts or block medieval books. This mythic unity comes back to life again in a concrete visual poetry of the 20th century because the artists of cubism, futurism and surrealism, together with poets attempt to break the stiff categories of 19th century; they tend to regenerate the creative imagination by mutual conversion of these categories. That was the beginning of the picture and writing. The greatest artists of modernism, namely J. Dubuffet, P. Picasso, P. Klee but also M. Ernst and the others were fascinated by the secrecy of the magic space between the writing and the picture. “To write or to draw is essentially the same… we can ﬁnd the roots of art both in ethnographic collections and in children’s rooms. Do not laugh. Children also know it. In the fact they know it, there is hidden their great wisdom”, Paul Klee adds. (In R. Fisher, 1996). Finally, the one or the other group is inspired to create something new, the universal writing. Also the representatives of abstract expressionism J. Pollock, H. Hartung, but also K. Schwitters, M. Hartley, F. Depero, 134

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Picture 61: Numerical war panorama, 1915. Michal, 9 years old. A castle. Zuzana, 9 years old. A castle. Miloš, 5 years and 1month old. A letter from the kindergarten. Veronika, 10 years old. An unﬁnished tale of the goldﬁsh.

with an effective help of eastern calligraphy go to that extent, that they identify their method with psychophysical processes of writing (Picture 61).

INFLUENCING CHILDREN’S PERCEPTIONS The artist of pop-art Andy Warhol and David Hockney, with their attitude to advertisement and media, shifted the relation of our thinking from the nature to “culture” which in the rudiments inﬂuences also the child’s 135

Picture 62: Andy Warhol. Two blue cats, 1956. Eva, 4 years old. Cats.

perceptions (D. Hockney, A cruel elephant). According to A. Warhol, the pop-art “wants to give the floor to things themselves”. Everydayness becomes aesthetic and beautiful through advertisement, comics, graffiti, fashion and design. “Superficiality” of everyday look is overcome by stylization and indirect transformation, multiplying and enlarging, which transform the object of everyday use to the artwork having its place in the museums and galleries. A. Warhol was the first one who made art out of documents and banal quotations from everyday life. He showed that everything becomes creation when it is properly reproduced. He multiplied the most primitive drawings, wrappings of the most popular products and broadly popular faces. He proved that the value of reproduced works can reach the value of unique pieces of work (Picture 62,63). It is necessary to ad that over 300 of his pictures (by the subject and size) were dedicated exclusively to children. He was inspired by the toys from Hongkong, China and Russia. In his pictures we could see a lot of multicoloured children’s mechanical toys, e.g. Pando - the teddy bear, dogs, monkeys or cars. All of them were placed in the Children’s gallery in Swiss Zurich and Warsaw as low as the children could visually perceive them. 136

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Picture 63: Andy Warhol. 25 Marilyn, 1962. Rasťo, 10 years old. 18 ufoooo. Rasťo, 10 years old. 12 faces.

CHILD’S ARTISTIC EXPRESSION TRANSPOSED TO ARTISTIC CREATION Francesco Clemente, who in 1985, incorporated a child’s drawing of his children to the mouth of a giant head in his picture (Picture 64). He repeated and transformed similar procedure many times. A less noticeable way of incorporating the child’s drawings to his picture was used by Donald Baechler, who used a number of different child’s drawings in his picture named Balzac in 1989.

CHILDREN AS CO-AUTHORS AND CO-CREATORS Methods of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat seem odd. They deployed children as helpers, assistants to help at work with their pictures. Jasper Johns was conﬁdent that the process of children’s cognition itself had many links with art. The reason is that in the little child’s 137

Picture 64: Francesco Clemente. Untitled, 1985.

drawing, the crucial role is played by the unintentional, development conditioned “conventions” (J. Fineberg, 1995). He discovered these formalities in his artwork Flags and numerals from the 50-ies. Their use, including “prefabricated” forms gave him new possibilities for personal expression and emotional self-validation. In his creation, an important role is played by child’s drawings, which he incorporated to a number of his pictures. This transformation of expression in John’s creation forms a distinct contrast to existential model of abstract expressionism. It points at the new concept of individuality connected to multimedia and virtual reality.

ARTISTIC EXPRESSION IS COMPARATIVE It is obvious that representatives of modern art forms have broken the barrier of conservative art and proved endlessness of art and boundlessness of artistic beauty. They connected the random character with the principle of constructive, artistic intent which can have enormous effect either on the artist’s canvas or in the child’s paper, perhaps from a blot which accidentally dripped from the brush. Even though the personal experience, cultural awareness or the way of artistic reﬂection of the artist and the child vary, they also have a lot in common. The text, and above all, the individual pictures persuade us that the elementary qualities of artistic expression are principally comparable. Artistic (sign) means, principles of art creation, the abstract and the concrete foreshadow the perception of the visual art of nowadays.

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SUMMARY

In the publication Child’s creative expression through fine art I centred at the theoretical and practical levels on the problem of the creative expression of children, first of all those from 2 to 12 years of age. Although this area is worked out in detail in the foreign, especially Anglo-Saxon literature mainly in the form of research and expert studies, there is a lack of such analytical and synthetical sources in our country. In my work I drew on of the historical as well as the latest foreign theories on the ontogenesis of the children's graphic expression, but I placed them in the context and conditions of our reality and educational process. Besides, on the basis of the results of my own research and comparison and practical illustrations of the artistic expression of the present generation of children I looked for causal connections of the development of thinking and graphic creativity of school children. The first chapter is a historical cross-section of the conceptions and views of the children's drawing and graphical expression. Several theoreticians perceive the children's graphic expression as one of the first spontaneous manifestations of the spiritual life of individuals. They stress that it is connected with an actual psychic state and structure of personality. It is a certain form of a creative activity, but also the evidence of the inner life, interests, feelings, experience, thoughts, life orientation. It serves for the communication which is specific for the given state of a healthy as well as psychically sick man. It says about the social environment in which a person lives, about the influences of education and culture, about all personal history. The drawing, shape and form are the space projections of an experience, while the colour is rather an emotional projection of the shape and form. The colour underlines the emotional experiential aspect, the drawing stresses the sensor-motor space projections of the experienced. In answering the question why a child draws there exist many opinions and assumptions. The majority of researchers orientate their research to the graphic development of a child at an early age. Many of them perceive 139

a drawing as the child's play which does not need a partner, it employs hands and eyes and it pleasantly and easily gets in motion the inner experience of a child. According to them a child draws to amuse him/herself. The others are of the opinion that the drawing is a picture of what a child knows. A smaller group of theoreticians devote their attention to the children's graphic creativity and expressive graphic production. The researchers are much more interested in the production of children's pictures and they are of the opinion that the children's drawings are much richer for getting to know the graphic language, whereas they are not the result of only active production of graphic symbols. This model presents the graphic development as a semiotic process based on the ontogenetic principle which is placed in the socio-cultural context through which it is formed. Their common denominator is communication as the educational principle. In the last period the activities of researchers are concentrated on a transfer from the conceptual graphic development to the development of the pictorial repertoire, then the variety of drawn pictures produced by children and adults on the one side and the inďŹ&#x201A;uence of the western conceptualism represented by visual realism as a focal point on the other side. The process is realised on the basis of the multimedia principle using vocalisation, verbal performance, gestures and production of signs. The second chapter is devoted to the ontogenesis of the children's graphic expression. On the basis of the practical illustrations of the present generation of children mostly from kindergartens and basic schools, I analyse their graphic expression from the very beginning, and I theoretically explain the regularities of individual phases of development. Thus the reader goes through all phases of the graphic development, from scrawling to the conscious representation. The development, repertoire and interpretation of a visual idea form the content of the third chapter. I analyse a verbal and a visual symbol in the children's creative expression. Pedagogical practice and more researches persuade us that younger children become the prompt and inventive users of signs, symbols and their combinations including gestures, pictures, spoken and written words. They take part in the socio-dramatic play realised primarily. In the centre of the fourth chapter is the visual perception and the child's pictorial repertoire of the present modern period. I devote much room to the inďŹ&#x201A;uence of the environment on the children's graphic ex140

SUMMARY

pression including the visual media. Today, we live in the era of the electronic media and instruments (television, computers, Internet, multimedia, playing consoles, mobile telephones) which by their impact and new forms exert influence in a significant manner on our everyday life and begin to influence, or, change usual habits of acquiring information, abilities and skills as well as the graphic expression of children. In the broader sense of the word the multidisciplinary and multicultural communication and the visual media have at present an impact on the development of mind, which can be significant especially in children of the younger generation. There is, however, no doubt that many children, if not the majority of them, spend a lot of time either in front of the television's screen or in front of the computer's monitor, or with a playing console. This really represents much more hours in comparison with the generation twenty, thirty or forty years ago. Today it is evident that the children with better school results are not interested so much in the visual perception of the television picture and electronic games as the average or below average children. It is also evident that many children deprive themselves in a very cruel way of time that could be devoted to important activities and active reception of information. The passive reception of information is, among other things, a brake of the cognitive development of a child, the sense and the ability to learn to listen to the others disappear, the imagination weakens. The children's drawings document that in the family discussions the ability e.g. to solve actively concrete situations is not being developed, the future, experience and emotions are discussed very little. Many parents instead of literally „redirecting“ these habits, or better said bad habits from the computer signs or television screen to the active communication and active reception of information often underestimate or simplify this problem. The period when the children's drawing was considered to be only a kind of scrawling is gone. A different view on the child’s creative expression through fine art is at present to a great extent also formed by new artistic orientations. I have on mind the avant-garde art which in its substance refuses the illusionistic principle of the imitation of reality. It is, therefore, at present very interesting to study a symbol and its substance in the graphic art and children's graphic production, to compare how a symbol comes into existence, how its meaning arises, how the meaning changes in the context of its origin, who creates the meaning and where 141

it is situated. The study of the phylogenesis of art and ontogenesis of the children's graphic expression suggests, and at the same time documents, that the children's graphic expression inspired such giants as P. Picasso, P. Klee, J. Miró and others. Child’s creative expression through fine art. We emphasize that the majority of the hitherto existing researchers were realised by psychologists and therefore the children's graphic expression bears the signs of this specific scientific orientation. Besides, this area of research often concentrates on the first years of life of a child in an effort to form the universal theory of the development and on the research of the children's drawings and only a little attention is paid to the context in which they had been created. Only recently there has started a serious research of the graphic development also from a socio-cultural point of view, and there were proposed the alternative models which consider the children's graphic expression to be the development in the repertoire of pictures.

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Prof. PaedDr. Božena Šupšáková, PhD. works at the Comenius University in Bratislava, in the field of Pedagogy of Fine Arts and at the Faculty of Media BSL in Bratislava. Her expert profile and professional orientation is connected with research of the visual symbol of children and youth and education. The long-term studies of anthropological bases of verbal and non-verbal (artistic) expression, writing and relationships between drawing, writing and picture have formed a good base for scientific exploration of the visual symbol, similarity and difference in the visual figurative expression of children and youth of the modern era. Pregradual and postgradual education, actual issues in the pedagogy work experience and educational system, concept of study programs, mostly for the field of visual culture – art – new media – education, as well as formation and verification of innovative educational models that emphasize ethno pedagogical and nontraditional approaches in the multicultural environment highlighting communication and communication skills in cultural, interest and educational area – form the second sphere of author´s professional orientation and theoretical studies.

Božena Šupšáková

CHILD’S CREATIVE EXPRESSION THROUGH FINE ART

© DEBORA 2009 Published: DEBORA, Publishing and Culture Promotion, Ltd, Ljubljana, Republic of Slovenia Designed: Linwe/KRAFT Phototypesetted: DEBORA Printed: Linwe/KRAFT Bookstore on the web: www.debora.si ISBN 978-961-6525-56-5 244281344