DISCOVERING ARTISTIC DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDREN WHEN THEY SPEAK

ABOUT THE ARTS AND CULTURE

BY


LINDSEY LEIGH LINDGREN









A LITERATURE REVIEW SUBMITTED TO THE COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2014




Abstract

This literature review explores how children learn to speak about art by modeling others
and learning from their surroundings. Many factors emerge as relevant to a child's ability to
speak about and create art including environment, visuality, culture, and education. An example
would be how children of affluent and educated backgrounds are more capable to speak about
their feelings about different types of art. The research included in this literature review defines
stages of childrens artistic development that correlate with their levels of understanding when
visually representing their environments in drawings. Some terms that will be defined will be
visuality, individualism, freedom, and social culture. The purpose of this literature review is to
bring to light the advantages some children have when they have been fostered to learn, speak,
view, and discuss art and its mediums.


Introduction
Children are products of their surrounding environments and represent their culture and
family values. They learn to speak about art by modeling adults that they deem as having
knowledge of the world. This literature review explores how environment, visuality, culture, and
education impacts a childs ability to speak and create art. The review will explore how children
of affluent and educated backgrounds are more capable to speak about their feelings about
different types of art. This literature review will define visuality, individualism and freedom, and
social culture as influences of a child's artistic development.
Smith-Shank investigates how children of affluent upbringing are more likely to speak
about art. The children she interviews are all individuals that define low and high art as well
what type of art they like. Thompson & Bales does a similar study about children speaking about
art, which found artistic communities, because as children exchanged ideas and discovered
shared interests, they built communities within the class (1991, p. 52). With young children
building their own language while artistically developing their drawing skills, as they grow up
they are more likely to openly discussing their feelings and knowledge about art.
Definitions and correlations
Visuality when discussing art refers to the socialization of vision (Walker, 2004, p.
75). Visuality is another way for the artist to put the viewer into a new perspective and get the
audience to see through their eyes. As stated by Gablik, inviting in the other makes art more
socially responsive (1992, p. 6). By transforming the viewer into the creators perspective the
individual seeing is disposed to take more care and actively see through anothers eyes
(Gablik, 1992, p. 6). Children do this when they start to scribble. Children are verbally labeling
and scribbling to show what they see. As investigated by Thompson & Bales, young children
are symbol weavers. Their drawings may be composed, not only of lines and colors, but of
languages (Dyson, 1986, p. 381). Children in the art classroom have their own personal and
social speech (Thompson & Bales, 1991, p. 44). I believe this type of speech in young children
represents their learned and surrounding social culture(s).
Children go through stages while developing their drawing skills. During these stages
there are identifiable characteristics that are all slightly differing by style, but are universally
recognizable. Artistic development has well-established stages that teachers can use to identify a
childs developmental level. Children start off with scribbles and evolve into the next stage with
circles. Preschematic and schematic are two phases that show a transition in a childs drawing,
where they go from labeling and portraits to showing portions and scale with a ground line.
Children progressively enter a stage to represent realism as well as they can, they are seeking to
express reality (Donley, 1987). While children are trying to translate realism they are at this
point also comparing their works with others.
The pseudo-naturalistic stage is the point in a childs drawing development when they
become critical of their own abilities to represent reality. This occurs around age twelve. From
fourteen to sixteen children either continues to draw by further exploring the process of
improving their drawing skills or they leave the medium entirely (Donley, 1987). Children that
are introduced to different styles of art are more likely to expand their repertoire and continue to
learn new mediums. I personally recall leaving drawing behind in my teens to explore art history
and to study alternative methods of art production. As an adult I have returned to using drawing
as a foundation for sketching out ideas and concepts to create my paintings and three-
dimensional works. The stage of being introduced to alternative mediums and cultures lead me to
develop my own style.
Children are mini-artists because they are creating works that represent their seen reality.
Once they break away from the artistic developmental stages they start to build upon
their individualized style. For artists their identity is one that is free and self-sufficient because
it is independent and self-motivated (Gablik, 1992, p. 2). From what I have learned freedom is
the definition of individualism when recognizing artistic development because it is in that stage
that the artist can create works that are representational of their unwavering, ubiquitous morals
(Gablik, 1992, p. 3). Trending now for artists is a new argument which discounts the
individualized and free style of art because these ideologies do not fulfill the worlds current
needs to represent our interconnectedness as being more important in the arts (Gablik, 1992, p.
4). In the grander scheme, as art educators we should be showing our students how we are all
interrelated and connected to one another.
Artistic development in children
This literature review defines the stages of childrens artistic development that correlate
with their levels of understanding when visually representing their environments in drawings.
Donley breaks down the stages that children encounter during their artistic development by
explaining the stages and key recognizable traits included in childrens drawings. She compares
Betty Edwards and Viktor Lowenfelds creative and mental growth drawing stages, which I
found to be highly informative. Lowenfelds describes the stages in a formal manner that is
analytical while Edwards breaks down what the drawings mean and what gender is more likely
to produce while drawing.
One of the goals of this research is to study the advantages some children have when they
have been fostered to learn, speak, view, and discuss art and its mediums. Children that get past
the pseudo-naturalistic stage are more likely to continue drawing education with the introduction
of non-representational art. By enlarging a childs visual dictionary they can then process and
develop their own individualized style. Smith-Shank studied how children that are culturally
advantages seem to have defined their own values on the artwork they see and own and
appreciate (1996, p. 52). Her research proves that children that have had the privilege to study
and broaden their education about art and culture are more interested and able to speak about art.
This learned and nurtured interest is an advantage because it allows for children to understand
and see the progression of art and impact upon their society. We can empower children by
arming them with a vocabulary and the knowledge that better aids them in seeing the
interconnectedness of our communities and cultures.
Just as presentation affects our enjoyment of a meal, words influence our perception of
artwork (Smith-Shank, 1996, p. 54). Children that are educated and cultured at an early age are
more likely to freely speak about art and have a sense of how artwork is meant to be perceived.
Contrasting to the opinion that words influence perception, is the statement that visual
perception is a mind set, a predisposition for selection, rather than the physical act of seeing
(Hamblen, 1984, p. 21). The complex interactions of nature and nurture influence how children
speak about art. Children learn from their environments and parents, affluent children have a pre-
set environment that often encourages open conversation and study of society, culture, and
artistry. While others may not have the same advantage, they should ideally be getting this in the
classroom.
Another aspect I took note of in the Smith-Shank study was that the children with
educational advantages are more inclined to speak about art with others that are within their own
social groups because they share similarities and knowledge of a similar culture. Even if a childs
ideas are not fact based, they are still able to express their feelings about art. The children she
interviewed were able to distinguish what they did like and did not like in certain works and they
were able to explain why they felt a certain way about works of art in a manner that was not
disagreeable, but in a way that demonstrated that they were versed in the language of arts and
culture.
Conclusion
This literature review is accumulation of scholar and educators opinions that pertain to
the artistic development of children and the ability they obtain to converse about art. There were
relationships made between the education of children in the arts and them being able to articulate
their feelings and opinions about art. Students of wealthy culture and education are more likely
to have the skills and ability to speak about art on many levels. Students that are in a city that
promotes education and have parents that advocate for learning are more apt to discuss and
establish their own personal artistic tastes in art.
Other educators would find this information and relationships discussed helpful because
they too should recognize that there are certain cultural demographics that will be more apt to
discuss art over others. Depending upon the location some children will have the experience and
knowledge about art while others will be deficient due to socioeconomic factors.
There is also a need to create a connection that reinforces a childs artistic development,
art education, and levels of articulation of thoughts about art. Art is a reflection of our culture
and currently our culture is driven by social medias. Children need to understand that what they
do with social media is a permanent footprint on the Internet. Art educators need to relay the
importance of our interconnectedness to children because we as individuals actually create a
whole society.
References
Donley, S. (1987). Drawing Development in Children. Drawing Development in
Children. Retrieved July 26, 2014, from
http://www.learningdesign.com/Portfolio/DrawDev/kiddrawing.html
Dyson, A. H. (1986). Transitions and tension: Interrelationships between the drawing, talking,
and dictating of young children. Research in the Teaching of English, 20, 379-409.
Eisner, E. (1978). What do children learn when they paint? Art Education, 31(3), 6-10.
Hamblen, K. A. (1984). Artistic perception as a function of learned expectations. Art
Education, 37(3), 20-25.
Smith-Shank, D. (1996). The amazing artworlds of culturally advantaged high school
students. Art Education, 49(2), 50-54.
Thompson, C. M., & Bales, S. (1991). Michael doesnt like my dinosaurs: Conversations in a
preschool art class. Studies in Art Education, 33(1), 43-55.
Walker, S. (2004). Artmaking in an age of visual culture: Vision and visuality. Visual Arts
Research, 30(2), 23-37
Winner, E. (1993). Exceptional artistic development: The role of visual thinking. Journal of
Aesthetic Education, 27(4), 31-44.