THE CRISIS OF REALISM
By the age of nine or ten, many children exhibit greater visual awareness of the things around them. As a result, they become increasingly conscious of details and proportion in what they are drawing. They typically include body parts such as lips, fingernails, hairstyles, and joints in their drawings of people. They also show more interest than before in drawing people in action poses and in costumes.
This new concern for making their pictures look “right” in terms of detail and proportion leads to a crisis for many older children. In trying to draw realistically, children's efforts often fall short of their expectations and they quickly become disappointed. Some search for adult-like skills by copying illustrations in books and magazines. More often, however, children become increasingly critical of their graphic abilities and begin to show a reluctance to engage in drawing activities as they grow older.
Figure 20: Portrait by a twelve-year-old
Given the increased emphasis on “realism” among children during their preadolescent years, art instruction that focuses on visual description and observational techniques can be particularly beneficial at this age. Indeed, most children are quite capable of attaining the realistic quality they so desire in their artwork (Figure 20). But, only if they receive the proper instruction that enables them to develop the competencies required to do so.
Figure 21: Drawing by a ten-year-old using a ground plane
THE REPRESENTATION OF THREE-DIMENSIONAL SPACE
Whereas younger children become engrossed in the meanings and actions of subjects as they draw them, older children tend to be more concerned with whether their pictures resemble what it is they are drawing. This interest in visual description typically emerges around the age of nine or ten as children begin to adopt their culture's conventions for representing a three-dimensional scene on a two-dimensional surface (Winner, 1982). No longer are objects placed side by side on a baseline as seen in younger children's drawings. Now children attempt to arrange the things they draw in relation to one another on the page with a ground plane (Figure 21). In doing so, they begin to show how the position of a viewer influences the image drawn. They begin to draw objects that overlap one another and that diminish in size. They also begin to use diagonals to show the recession of planes in space (Figure 22).
Figure 22: Barnyard drawing by a twelve-year-old who used
perspective, overlap,and diminishing size to show depthThe closer the child approaches adolescence, the more he loses the strong subjective relationship to the world of symbols. -Viktor Lowenfeld
As children's readiness and interest in showing depth in their pictures becomes apparent, having them study the ways in which various adult artists use overlap, diminishing size and linear perspective within their works might be helpful. But, children need to understand that the use of these pictorial devices is only one way of organizing space and that many artists today have abandoned such conventions in favor of developing more personal and expressive ways of seeing and making art.
VISUAL METAPHOR and EXPRESSIVE IMAGERY
Many older children continue to draw and paint symbolically in spite of the increased concern for realism in their artwork. Indeed, children's emerging capacity for abstract thought enables them to begin conceiving of images as visual metaphors. When children draw or paint metaphorically, they are using images to suggest an idea or emotion beyond the specific object depicted (Figure 23). For instance, older children are able to recognize that a picture of an isolated tree suggests loneliness and despair, or that a stag overlooking a range of mountains suggests nobility. The ability to use images metaphorically depends on being able to entertain two levels of symbolization at once. The artist must decide which object best represents the concept or emotion and which lines, shapes and colors best represent the object (Smith, 1983).
Figure 23: A nine-year-old uses visual metaphor
to express certain feelings for his sister
Older children are just beginning to discover the possibilities of visual metaphor and that images can convey meanings beyond the object depicted. In order to deepen this understanding and prevent children's concern for realism from dampening their creative spirit, the teacher should introduce themes that deal with the expression of certain emotions or concepts through visual metaphor. For instance, children might be asked to imagine themselves as an animal or an inanimate object and to represent themselves as such in a drawing or painting.
