I-7: Golomb – Sociocultural Influences on Children's Drawings

Sociocultural Influences on Children's Drawings

"The question of universals in drawing development and the influence exerted by the cultural milieu has motivated investigators to study drawings from many diverse cultural settings. One of the. earliest collections (Paget, 1932) included 60,000 drawings made mostly by children from the non-Western world. The drawings were collected by numerous collaborators and, despite the lack of optimal standardization, they are interesting because they highlight Significant variations in the style of the drawings and also call attention to graphic models that seem characteristic of certain ethnic groups of children. Regarding the diverse stylistic renderings of the human figure, G.W Paget (1932) considered them all as problem-solving strategies that success~ fully represent their object. He also identified certain local conventions noticed among African children such as a frequently occurring drawing of a human composed of a tiny head and an elongated body He interpreted these local conventions as graphic inventions that are passed on from one generation of children to the next. Thus, children create their own traditions and regulate the transmission of their graphic styles.

This interpretation fits in well with an observation by Ricci (1887) of the graffiti made by Italian children at the end of the 19th century. The drawings of the oldest children occupied the upper parts 40 of a wall: Those of the younger children occupied the lower areas. This kind of division encouraged inspection of the work of the older and more expe- I rienced children and facilitated transmission of their particular version of the child art style to their peers. Considering both the variety of graphic styles and the local conventions, Paget proposed a twofactor theory: Children spontaneously invent representationally equivalent forms for the human figure , and they transmit their inventions to the next generation of children. Thus, childhood drawing styles develop independently from adult models and represent universal and meaningful problem-solving strategies of children.

Paget's illustrations demonstrate the diversity of graphic models that can be found among preliterate children: stick figures; tiny heads; contourless heads and bodies; square, oval, and scribble trunks; hourglass triangular trunks; and similar variations on the depiction of facial features [...]. These graphic models are typical examples of childhood art, and they can be found in any large collection of children's drawings, including Kerschensteiner's, collected at the beginning of the 20th century, and my own, dating from the 1960s to today (Golomb, 1992b). Such drawings are found in many times, places, and cultures. They are quite similar to 2,000-year-old rock carvings in the Camunian valley of northern Italy (Anati, 1967), to American Indian rock carvings in southern Utah (Schaafsma, 1980), and to Polynesian rock carvings on the islands of Hawaii (McBride, 1986). They attest to a universal factor in the creation of graphic equivalents at early stages of artistic development.

The same underlying graphic logic generates the diversity of early models, which are all based on principles of structural eqUivalence. No single graphiC model represents, exclUSively, child art at a particular developmental phase. Rather, within a certain structural range, graphiC solutions are tried out, and models are perfected, transformed, or discarded. The inventiveness of children and the constraints on early child art find full expression in the diverse examples discussed by Paget and later investigators (Belo, 1955; Dennis, 1957; Fortes, 1940, 1981; Havighurst, Gunther, &: Pratt, 1946; Jahoda, 1981; Sundberg &: Ballinger, 1968; Wilson &: Wilson, Child Art in Context 1984). In recent years, the drive to eradicate illiteracy and the emphasis 00n schooling has brought Western models of drawing to many countries in Africa. The search for totally naive subjects who have never been exposed to paper and pencils has become more difficult (Andersson, r1995a, 1995b, Andersson & Andersson, 1997; Court, 1981, 1989, 1992), and it is not easy to tease apart the effects of schooling from established local traditions.

The emphasis on child art as a relatively autonomous development of a pictorial language should not obscure the impact of the larger culture on children's productions. The tools that are provided (paper, pencils, crayons, markers, paints, and brushes) have a decisive influence on children's experimentation with the medium. Thick brushes and runny paints yield different outcomes than crayons, a more controlled medium. The models provided by the culture, the teaching strategies used, and the expectations of teachers and parents can have a notable impact on the art children produce. Thus, for example, in China, which has a long artistic tradition, children are taught the exact steps they have to take to represent goldfish, shrimp, birds, and flowers. These steps are modeled by the teacher and closely followed by the children. Not surprisingly, these children show an early competence in the artistic style that is explicitly taught and practiced.

[...]

Thus, although cultural models and teaching methods have a distinct impact on children's drawings and paintings, they do not change the basic structural similarities of child art, which are easily detected despite changes in time and space." (Golomb, 2002, S. 40-43)

Reflections on Cultural Variables

"Since the 'discovery' of child art in the late nineteenth century, man educator, artist, and art historian have pondered the presumed similarity between children's drawing and so-called primitive art. In their quest for innovation, the modern artist of the early 20th century turned to child art as an original and unspoiled pictorial language that inspired their experimentation with the simplification of unmodeled forms, the flatness of pictorial space, and the use of primary colors (Fineberg, 1997; Goldwater, 1986; Golomb, 2002). Comparison of the artwork of preliterate societies and child art seemed to suggest that both are product of an early ,cognitively naive but authentic stage in human development. In the domain of pschology, the notion of drawing as culture-free product of the child's mind, a conception that is quite compatible with this view of primitive art, motivated Florence Goodenough to construct her well-known Draw-a-Man test (1926).

Most student of child art have focussed on certain uniform stylistic features that characterize children' drawings across different historical periods (Andersen, 1961-1962; Arnheim, 1974; Britsch, 1926; Cizek, 1936; Freeman, 1980; Goodenough, 1926; Kellogg, 1969; Lowenfeld, 1939; Lowenfeld & Lambert-Brittain, 1970; Luquet, 1927; Piaget, 1928; Piaget & Inhelder, 1956; Schaefer-Simmern, 1948; Viiola, 1936). Although their view of the determinants that underlie drawing development differ in major ways ,the share, in broad outline, the conception of a relatively invariant succession of stages or phases. The most articulate spokesman for a position that stresses the internal logic of representational deelopment as a meaningful problsm-solving mental activity has been Rudolf Arnheim. [...] his approach to child art embodies a universalist orientation to developmental phenomena and look for general principles that cut across time and space. In its earch for general principles that underlie the artistic process, this approach is quit compatible with Noam Chomsky’s Iinguistic theory (1957) and Jame Gibson's stress on perceptual invariants (1966, 1979).

At the other end of the spectrum, we find the notion that artforms are social conventions, arbitrary signs that do not stand in an compelling relationship either to the subject of the drawing, that is, to the phenomenal object, or to the organizational principles underlying human perception. The most extreme position in this camp is that of the philosopher Nelson Goodman (1968, 1978), and a somewhat modified version can be found in the writings of Brent and Marjory WiIson (1977, 1982a, 1982b, 1984, 1985). [...]

Unlike Arnheim's representational theory, which stresses the artist's search for equivalence of form that will do justice to the object, the Wilsons maintain that a drawing is mereIy composed of configurational signs. In their view, when drawing, children are not concerned with the observation of objects in the real world; the learn to make signs by observing others at work and by studying the graphic models available in the culture. The graphic language of art, like the verbal one, consists of artificial sign that are mere convention." (Golomb, 2004, 340-341)

"There is widespread acceptance of the view that art-making is a uniquely human phenomenon that serves as vital communal function. However, depending on one's theoretical orientation, different sets of questions will be addressed. If one consider drawing as a naturally evolving language, one inquires into the impact of the culture in terms of "when," "where," and "how." If, however, drawing systems are seen as the product of cultural conventions, one must ask whether the impact of cultural model transmitted by peers, siblings, and picture book illustrations can adequately account for the cross-cultural regularities that seem to characterize drawing development.

At a more fundamental level of analysis, we are considering whether representational development can best be described in qualitative terms, as a stagelike progression, in which case it is seen as an orderly, meaningful, and relatively self-guided process. In this view, children generate rule systems that reflect their understanding of the medium and guide the actual process of graphic representation. Such a view of a universal language of art, at least in early phases of development, can be contrasted with the notion that all forms of drawings, including the early ones, are the products of cultural influences. In the latter case, the early drawings reflect, perhaps unsuccessfully, the pictorial models available to the child and are the product of imitation and training. Such a conception has no place for stagelike contraints, and no specific sequence can be predicted." (Golomb, 2004, S. 342)

"Paget's illustration demonstrate the diversity of graphic models that can be found among preliterate children: stick figures; pin-heads; contourless heads and bodies; detached parts aligned vertically; square, oval, and scribble trunks; hourglass triangular trunks; and concave featureless profiles [...] Examining this array of graphic models, my overall impression is that these models are the typical example of child art [...] The diversity of models can be assumed to be generated by the same underlying graphic logic. No single model truly represents child art at a particular developmental phase. Rather, within a certain structural range, graphic solutions are tried out and models are perfected, transformed, or discarded. In spite of what one could call the phenotypical variety of the actual specimen, the constraint on early child art, with which we have become familiar, find full expression in these examples, which attest to basic structural principle that underlie the visual logic of graphic development." (Golomb, 2004, S. 347)

"The appearances of the stick figure among widely diverse cultural groupings indicates that it is not an arbitrary graphic convention, but ought to be seen as one of a number of early representational equivalencies for the human figure." (Golomb, 2004, S. 349)

"The findings [...] on the graphic development of unschooled, preliterate children point to a rather limited range of basic representational models that fall within the child art style. Where developmental progression can be observed, either in a single session or over a period of several trials, it follows in broad outlines the general principles of differentiation. The progressio is from simple form, right-angular relation, and frontal view (or undifferentiated frontality) to more detailed and complex representations. Although cultural variability exists, it consists of a limited set of variations on a common underIying structure, indicating that the same rule can generate alternative models that are representationally equivalent." (Golomb, 2004, S. 352)

"The Wilsons have justly drawn our attention to sociocultural factor that can appear early in a child's development, and their critique of a rigid stage conception of graphic development has found a receptive audience. However, their emphasis on "innate" factors or biases is problematical and might be mistaken for an outdated model of human development in which universally present tendencies are attributed to specific hereditary patterns. We are not likely to discover a set of genes that predispose children and naive adults to the making of tadpoles, open-trunk figures, and right-angular relations. Such an approach might trivialize the nature of the problem-solving enterprise and underestimate the value that drawing as a record of visual thinking can provide to the student of child art. There is logic to the manner in which an inexperienced individual, child or adult, conceives of graphic or plastic representations." (Golomb, 2004, S.356-357)

"My analisis of several competing theorie and of the available empirical data has led me to a rejection of two extreme positions: an orthodox version of a stage theory and the notion that graphic development is devoid of intrinsic meaning. In my view, development seem to evolve across cultures in much the same way,with structurally simple form and figure always preceding more complex ones. The rule for representing the world appears to be the same even though specific graphic models,variants of the same underlying visual conception, may become a preferred pattern in ways we cannot fully trace. [...]

Having made the case for an intrinsically ordered sequence of graphic development, we still need to examine the role of social and cultural variable. [...] The normal child, from the very beginning, is a social being, interested in her environment and reponsive to it; she is also endowed with certain perceptual prefrences that sensitize her to specific features of her environment [...] Observations of preschoolers indicate that the pay attention to what their peers and siblings can draw and that they may try to adapt the more advanced models of some of their peers to their own level of comprehension and of skill." (Golomb, 359-360)

"Throughout the child's development, and underlying the diversity of styles and of cultural conventions, there is a unity that characterize representational thinking and motivate the search for those graphic solutions that best express the child's conception. As soon as she discovers the simple rules that generate the early representational model, she imposes her personal stamp on the general forms and expresses her individuality through her unique styIe. Within the broad constraints imposed by biology, culture, and cognitive understanding, the child's overriding aim is to create with simple means a pictorial world." (Golomb, 2004, S.361)