Research Highlight: Is It Art?
What is the difference between “art” and a mere scribble? Preschool parents may be as interested in this question as the puzzled adult viewing modern, abstract art at the local gallery. One sense of art stressed in this curriculum framework is that the creative arts aim at the joys of free expression and the pleasures of seeing and creating images. Art instruction at the preschool level is also concerned with basic, first steps that can lead to more advanced artistic skills.
Differing views prevail concerning the child artist. One approach seeks artistic significance in a child’s work—perhaps a genius or a prodigy is emerging. A contrasting view dismisses the child artist by labeling his artwork “haphazard” and its occasional glimpses of clever expression and beauty as “accidental.”
Over the years, the work of Nelson Goodman and Howard Gardner at Harvard University’s Project Zero has helped to demystify children’s art. Those scholars view art through the lens of cognition rather than through a value-driven critique of aesthetics. Art is a cognitive activity, requiring thinking, problem solving, communication, and intent. And learning in art is frequently tied to learning in language as well as culture.
For Goodman, the classical question What is art? is transposed into a less-familiar question: When is art? As Goodman suggests, art “occurs” when its symbols are functioning aesthetically. The aesthetic functions of symbols include expressiveness (conveying meaning or feeling), susceptibility to multiple readings, and repleteness (full or abundant rendering). These ideas de-emphasize judgments of beauty or merit; Goodman’s artistic creator is the individual with sufficient understanding of the properties and functions of certain symbol systems to allow her to create works that function in an aesthetically effective manner.
And what of preschool-age children? Rhoda Kellogg’s documentation and classification of hundreds of thousands of children’s drawings from 30 countries testify to children’s ability to use symbols at an early age, often depicting qualities of the artist as defined by Goodman. Children’s art is frequently expressive, conveying emotion, feeling, action, and story. Children’s art may be more or less replete—with abundant renderings of objects or symbols at times, with vague, sketchy treatments at other times. Young children are not very likely to plan and create works with multiple readings—this ability belongs to more mature developmental stages and can emerge in adolescence.
Appearing commonly in drawings of children, especially those of two- or three-year-olds, is the mandala, a term used to designate symbolic representations that include a circular motif typically incorporating a crosslike figure.5 For the child, the mandala is a well-balanced, pleasing form that lies en route to genuine representation. The contrasting, superimposed elements of the circle and cross are precursors to the figure’s metamorphoses to rounded figures with legs, arms, and facial details.
According to Gardner, the conditions suggested by Goodman, though helpful in thinking through the puzzles of children’s art, nevertheless leave the debate about art created by children in a state of relative limbo. The preschool teacher’s role is to introduce children to a range of constructive symbolic media and provide them with the faith that the child’s own vision and ability to give form to vision are worthy. The preschool teacher can view children’s art without an eye or plea for realism; rather, the gaze might borrow from Paul Klee, who, when discovering his childhood drawings, described them in a 1902 letter to his fiancée as the most significant ones he had yet made.[3]
Sources
H. Gardner, Art, Mind, and Brain: A Cognitive Approach to Creativity. New York: Basic Books, 1982, 60.
H. Gardner, Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children’s Drawings. New York: Basic Books, 1980, 38. 6. Ibid., 53.
J. H. Davis, 2005, Framing Education as Art: The Octopus Has a Good Day. New York: Teachers College Press, 70.
As cited in L. Camhi, “When Picasso and Klee Were Very Young: The Art of Childhood,” New York Times, June 18, 2006. www.nytimes.com/2006/06/18/arts/design/18camhi. html?pagewanted=1&_r=1 (accessed September 10, 2009).