0-1: Intention and content

Early pictures in ontogeny: Europe–India–Indonesia

Since 1999, a research team at the Zurich University of the Arts (Switzerland) has re-examined the very early qualities, structural formations, and development tendencies that can be observed in the drawings and paintings of children in their first years of life. Thereby, one of the main topics addressed is the question whether or not–or more precisely: to what extent–early pictures in ontogeny depend directly on the concrete context of picture production. In other words, whether or not early pictures in ontogeny are entirely coded.

When comparing extensive picture archives of contexts of Europe, India, and Indonesia, evidence was provided that a substantial–and possibly structural–part of early picture qualities and their development are not directly related to the concrete context of the production of the drawings and paintings. This holds true both for so-called "abstract" as well as "figurative" aspects. Such a finding is of importance since, up to now, the question is a matter of debate, as will be explained in the first two parts of the present publication.

Early human figure drawing: All over the world

Since 2005, from all over the world, Gilles Porte has been documenting drawings of the human figure, created by children in their first years of life in terms of selfportraits. For a part of the children, he took their portraits (photographs). In this way, diptychs were formed of portraits and selfportraits. For the other children, he has been filming the drawing process.

Hitherto, Gilles Porte holds a picture archive of more than 4,000 drawings and a film archive of more than 600 film recordings. These two archives document more than 4,000 children of 38 countries of six continents. With regard to his documentary, aesthetic and artistic motives, and in the form of selections and compilations, he has published a book, 80 short films (including animations), a full-length film, and a double DVD (for details, see Part 2).

However, beyond such artistic value, his archives are also of scientific value and interest. Therefore, together with Gilles Porte, we began to reprocess parts of the archives step by step, creating interrelated digital open access archives and eBooks. These publications shall serve both scientific and public interests.

In a first re-edition, we have published the main part of the diptychs in digital form and have commented in more details this part of work of Gilles Porte. The motive of the present second publication is explained in the following paragraph.

For the online version of, see:
>> "Portrait–Selfprortrait" 

The subject matter

Having observed a cross-contextual structure of early pictures in ontogeny in our own investigation, when we first looked at the drawings that Gilles Porte brought back from his journey, we felt that these drawings carry scientific value and can substantially contribute to a clarification of the relation between early graphic qualities and concrete context of picture production.

The study

Following this valuation, for the present publication, we first digitised the drawings that were not included in the collection of diptychs. Secondly, we have created a digital picture archive comprised of all drawings: the drawings already documented in the "Portrait–Selfportrait" publications and the newly digitised drawings. Thirdly, we created a catalogue of basic graphic aspects discussed in the literature concerning early human figure drawing of children. Fourthly, for each of the drawings, we assessed the graphic aspects related to the human figure depicted. Finally, on the basis of the corresponding results, we questioned the relation between single graphic aspects and concrete contexts of picture production.

As can be expected, many graphic qualities relate directly to the concrete context of picture production and early drawing models and styles, or handed down by the adults or mirroring a peer effect, can be observed.

However, at the same time, this collection of drawings confirms that basic graphic aspects of early human figure drawing occur in very different contexts of picture production.

The present publication

It is the intention of the present publication to provide a documentation of all these drawings and to give evidence of the finding of similar basic graphic aspects of early human figure drawing occurring in very different contexts of picture production. Thereby, the study is described in details in this eBook and all pictures examined are presented in a parallel picture archive. Where the text refers to a specific group of pictures, corresponding links to the archive are provided.