Between the ages of four and seven the child’s art and psychomotor skills grow in “phenomenal” spurts. Developmental psychologists have found that, “The way in which the child organizes (in space) what he sees is one of the primary processes which undergo change with age.” A child’s inability to correlate things properly in space in his art work is an indication that these spatial relationships are experienced emotionally—a phenomenological viewpoint that there cannot be a “radical separation between the act of perception and the object perceived.” One may see growth in the child as he/she illustrates in art the changes of their perceptions through added differentiations. Phenomenologist Carl R. Rogers states that this growth is a basic “forward-moving tendency of the human organism…”. This is manifested in the art of the child. These are illustrations by a six year old. The hands and fingers are not an important enough factor to his conscious perceptions to be included in his drawing. Piaget’s research disclosed that the child of six and seven years of age is still more egocentric than social; therefore, his art reflects the importance he feels as a biological entity. Most of the art work of a pre-school child and first grader may be prefaced verbally with “I” or “I am…”. For instance, a six-year-old girl who has actually performed the physical act of picking flowers may be asked to draw the picture, “I am picking flowers.” The hands the child draws may be extremely large in proportion to the rest of the body. Thus, “the way in which things are represented is an indication of the type of experiences the child has had with them.” The child’s hands were necessary appendages for picking flowers. She became perceptually aware of them and this was shown in exaggeration in her drawing. Here again, phenomenology states, “It is perception, not the reality, which is crucial in determining behavior.” The child’s way of showing his/her reality is not like that of the adult or even the older child. When the child between the ages of four and seven uses a two dimensional art media, he organizes in terms of what he believes to be true, important and essential. The child does not depict an exact likeness of the subject but in the process of creating he/she has learned more about his own reality. With age will come changes in his physical dexterity, his thinking and awareness, and his art expressions will change. Gertrude Hildreth, in her studies of the developmental sequences in drawings by children found that: “…the growth process in spontaneous drawing in early childhood may be characterized as a forward moving series of changes, analogous to organic evolutionary development. The developmental process appears to be internally activated as well as externally stimulated and controlled.” The child perceptually translates differently than the adult. His/her art work is a visual unification of the differentiations occurring in his phenomenal field. Through the child’s two dimensional art work they are learning to organize, reorganize, and interpret these perceptions in a definite observable manner. One is able to see that, in the study of the phenomenological theory of personality as manifested in early childhood art, it is impossible to separate the physical and emotional processes a child undergoes in his creation. Since the “growth process in (the) spontaneous drawing” of the child is through internal forces and processes as well as external, the phenomenological theory shows concurrence with the conclusion that personality development is the “congruence between the phenomenal field of experience and conceptual structure of the self.” The phenomenological theory of personality as manifested in early childhood art, is explicit and true. [email protected] ©Ann Rains April, 2021
Postscript: This is a condensation of a three chapter dissertation I wrote in graduate school. If anyone wishes to view the entire paper with footnotes and bibliography, please contact me. The art work is courtesy of my son, Jimmy Rains, saved from when he was a child. I know he would be totally embarrassed if he knew I was using them.
4 Comments
|
Subscriptions are free! Just fill out the box below.
Archives
August 2021
Featured Posts
|