Innocence and Corruption: Conflicting Images of Child Art

Abstract

For more than a century, theoretical discussion of child art within psychology, education, and art history has been largely structured by two schemas of innocence and corruption. Each appeals to a conception of a pure mode of vision, yet in two contrasting ways. The visionary schema dismisses linear perspective as a perversion by the adult culture of the child’s imaginative vision. The perceptual schema regards perspectival art as the one natural mode of representation, and the distinctive art of the child as the sign of early corruption. Furthermore, despite their contrasting emphases, their conflicting ideals of art are equally and essentially anti-developmental and anti-historical. This paper traces the careers of these schemas, and their influence upon and paradoxical relation to the recent literature, including the most widely held account of the artistic achievements of autistic children and the claims of experimental researchers that young children are capable of drawing in perspective. The paper closes by drawing attention to Luquet, an early theorist widely associated with the schema of perceptual innocence, yet whose work has been radically misinterpreted. It is argued that Luquet was, in fact, beginning to define a new theoretical space beyond each of these conflicting and highly problematic schemas of innocence.

The primacy of social over visual perspective-taking

“…But of course, by the time children have the motor skills and motivation to depict objects and events, they have long been language- and concept-using beings who have passed any hypothetical phase of innocent vision (see Costall, 1997, 2001). …”

Framing “I can’t draw”: The influence of cultural frames on the development of drawing

“…Imitation of other people's drawing styles, and any explicit instruction by a teacher, stifled a child's innate creative potential, because it reflected cultural influence over subconscious instincts (Cizˇek, 1927;Richardson, 1914Richardson, , 1937Viola, 1936). He and other later proponents of this view have gone so far as to claim that imitation not only limits creativity, but is a detriment to a child's mental health (Arnheim, 1978;Lowenfeld, 1947), and have compared it to child slavery, prostitution, and even murder (Costall, 1997).…”

Framing a Developmental Psychology of Art

“…The development from topological to pictorial representations is often recast in terms of a hypothesized developmental shift from intellectual to visual realism [see Luquet, 1924, andPiaget andInhelder, 1969; for an alternative interpretation of Luquet's position on these two forms of drawing sec Costall, 1997], Drawings that con tain distinctive features not observable from the artist's perspective, or any perspective for that matter, are taken as evidence of intellectual realism, that is, a cognitive orienta tion which values specifying conceptually distinctive features of a referent over its imme diate appearance. By contrast, drawings depicting features exclusive to the artist's van tage point are taken as evidence of visual realism, or a cognitive orientation which pre serves the perceptual appearance of the referent over its conceptual features.…”

“…Research has focused on whether or not it is valid to conclude there is a stage shift in cognitive orientation; less attention has been given to evaluating the valid ity of a perceptual theory of appearance which is basic to visual realism [Costall, 1993[Costall, , 1997, Within this section appearance theory is examined against a perceptual theory of affordances as the epistemological bases for psychologies of drawing and artistry.…”