2-2: Kellogg – Why Young Children All Draw Alike

"The best introduction to the main points of my research is provided by Herbert Read: It has been shown by several investigators, but most effectively by Mrs. Rhoda Kellogg of San Francisco, that the expressive gestures of the infant, from the moment that they can be recorded by a crayon or pencil, evolve from certain basic scribbles towards consistent symbols. Over several years of development such basic patterns gradually become the conscious representation of objects perceived: the substitutive sign becomes a visual image. Scientists may object that the analysis of this process has not been carried far enough to justify a generalization, but we have an hypothesis that should hold the field until it has proved to be false. According to this hypothesis every child, in its discovery of a mode of symbolization, follows the same graphic evolution. Out of the amorphous scribblings of the infant emerge, first certain basic forms, the circle, the upright cross, the diagonal cross, the rectangle, etc., and then two or more of these basic forms are combined into that comprehensive symbol known as the mandala, a circle divided into quarters by a cross. Let us ignore for the present the general psychological significance of the process: I merely want you to observe that it is universal and is found, not only in the scribblings of children but everywhere where the making of signs has had a symbolizing purpose-which is from the Neolithic Age onwards. [ Read, 1963, p. 4.1 ]" (Kellogg, 1970, S. 2)

"As we all know, it is the brain which organizes visual data into meaningful gestalts. That the child's brain is stimulated by the visual impact of his own scribbling is here documented. Though each child has an individual "style," the scribblings of all children evolve so similarly that one may entertain the hypothesis that the brain is predisposed to comprehend and to retain certain spontaneously scribbled gestalts and to fail to do so with others." (Kellogg, 1967/2007, Handbook p. 4)

"Evidence that the human mind is "imprinted" with basic imagery common to the species is suggested by this material. That the human capacity for comprehending formally organized visual data is both innate and learned is documented by the data of child art." (Kellogg, 1967/2007, Handbook p. 6)

"This article the subject of how children teach themselves to draw between ages two and six years, and shows that all children, the world over, use the same method of self-teaching and achieve similar results. After six, when the child attends school, his art work becomes influenced by examples of adult art works which reveal the cultural influences and preferences of differing countries. [...]

Self-taught art, or the natural art oft he preschool years, consists of structural scribbling. Culture-influenced art is more the outcome oft he artist’s observation of local objects plus the study of how adults draw these objects. [...]

When the adult draws a house, he thinks oft he square and triangle shapes he must combine to produce a house. The preschool child, however, artistically combines squares and triangles before he draws houses. We might say that the culture-influenced approach ist to look at houses and figure out what square combinations look like the houses he is drawing. The child art approach ist o note that houses look like certain familiar square combinations which can be labelled houses. The child gradually evolves to an early pictorialism rhough modifying the shapes and formst hat have evloved out of his pre-pictorial scribblings. [...]

The artistic ability common to all children can be explained as originating in the lines of beauty that result from the natural rhythmic movements of scribbling. Because all children have the same basic arm and hand structure, their movements are similar. Similar movements produce similar line direction – vertical, horizontal, diagonal, circular – and eventually similar pre-pictorials and pictorials. [...]

The 300 000 drawings of preschoolers which this writer has collected and studied show that the child sees certain images or „gestalts“ in his scribblings, and that he isolates parts oft hem as separate items. With progressing development he builds up a whole series of combinations of shapes and designs and arrives at certain symbols for common objects. The series is so similar fort he world’s children that we can call these early art expressions universal, indiginious patterns of art. These patterns are self-taught, originated in body movement, and emphasize an overall balance. [...]

The universal aspects of child art is evidence of a basic artistic unity among human beings the world over. Thus we speak oft he universal „öanguage of art“. This unity later becomes fragmented into cultural art categories by preservation of adult art expressions and the encouragement of children to imitate adults." (1967/2007, Card 255, Reproductions 4-7)