2-1: The debate (second version)

As discussed and documented in the Intermezzo, different authors give very different interpretations regarding the question of whether or not early pictures in ontogeny generally are "universal" or "cultural". Because human figure drawings have always attracted high attention in the related research, the "universal" versus "cultural" controversy is often discussed directly related to early human depiction.

In brief and again referring to the citations in the Intermezzo, the positions taken cover the entire range between a notion of general "universality" of early graphic expressions in ontogeny, including a parallelism of ontogeny and phylogeny, and a notion of their general "culturality", referring to pictures as symbolic expressions and thus "cultural" in principle. Intermediate notion is also given of "universal" rules of graphic procedure but "cultural" dependence of single graphic aspects.

However, as indicated, some preliminary clarifications concerning the terminology are needed before discussing the matter.

Existing considerations of early drawings of children in fact rarely relate to a discussion of "culture", but mostly to some specific aspects of the concrete context of picture production, possibly including a discussion of the influence exerted by adults or peers, and possibly including a discussion of the relevance of materials and media. Therefore, the term "culture" should be avoided.

The same holds true for the term "universal", also for other reasons: If similar graphic aspects can be observed for very different contexts of picture production, this does not by itself provide proof of a time-independent early graphic development (for details on that matter, see Maurer, 2013). Moreover, and most importantly, it does not by itself indicate a "natural" basis of the early graphic structure.

Thus, we propose to reformulate the debate: Are the qualities, structural formations, and development tendencies observed in children’s drawings and paintings in their first years of life entirely dependent on the concrete context of their production, or are they at least in part unrelated to that context?

Concerning early human figure drawing, we propose a related formulation: Are the qualities, structural formations, and development tendencies that can be observed in early human figure drawings of children in their first years of life entirely dependent on the concrete context of their production, or are they at least in part not related to that context?