Developing individual in society Lecture 7 : 26/11/2020 Drawing and Morality Lecturer: Fenja Ziegler Drawing - What can we tell from a child's drawing? - A large development for humankind, first seen around 40,000 years ago. - These drawings were produced and understood by individuals, that they represented something in the world that took place in the past, or not at all. - Notably, this is around the same period burial rites began to take place. It represented concern for the dead which went above daily life. - All of these things indicate the presence of imagination. In the present day, a child's drawing may often be described as a bunch of scribbles, however to the child they understand what they drew clearly. The child produces these scribbles but see them differently than we do. Very distinct things can be shown in children's drawings. When a child is young, they do not truly understand spatial relations, however development in this increases over the years, up to about the age of 12. Communication through drawings - Art and drawings have been used for thousands of years as a way of communication. - The key question is, what are children attempting to communicate through their drawings? - Many pieces of pictorial art attempt to show a form of communication or represent what an event was like. - Children's drawings may communicate their current understanding of the world, which they may struggle to communicate any other way. - A child's drawings are often represented with intellectual realism, and children draw people as tadpole figures, without instruction. Intellectual realism Intellectual Realism: The child draws what they know, rather than what they see. E.g. Drawing 4 wheels on a car despite viewing it from the side. Piaget: Claimed this is a product of general egocentrism. However, could it be an attempt to communicate important features of the object? Representing what is there rather than what is seen.
Inclusion of defining features: - Freeman, asked children to draw a cup exactly as seen. - < 7 years, omitted flower on the cup but included the handle. - Handle was the defining featurefl the flower was not. - The knowledge of the identity of the object influenced the child's drawing. - Only children who saw the handle on the cup included the handle. P Child's view Drawing produced Opaque or transparent features: - Crook, placed a rod through a ball in one condition, and two rods on either side of the ball in another. - 5 year olds drew the rod as a continuous line through the ball. - 5 year olds drew the rod as a discontinuous line when it was two rods on either side of the ball. - Children draw opaque objects as transparent to display an important detail of the object. Partial occlusion: - Light & Humphrey, placed a red pig behind a green pig on a table. Asked children to make one drawing from each side of the table. - 5 &