Part 32

The first crude attempts about the age of three or four to draw animal forms exhibit great incompleteness of conception and want of a sense of position and proportion. In one case the head seems to be drawn, but no body—if, indeed, head and body are not confused; and in others where a differentiation of head and trunk is attempted there is no clear local separation, or if this is attempted there is no clear indication of the mode of connexion (see, for example, Fig. 43 (_a_)). In the case of animals the side view is for obvious reasons hit on from the first. But, needless to say, there is no clear representation of the profile head. As a rule we have the front view, or at least the insertion of the two eyes. Both eyes appear in Mr. Cooke’s illustrations of drawings of the cat by children between three and four (Fig. 43 (_b_)), as also commonly in drawings of horses. The position of the eyes is often odd enough, these organs being in one drawing by a boy of five pushed up into the ears (Fig. 43 (_c_)).[273] The front view of the animal head along with profile body appears occasionally in savage drawings also.[274] In some of children’s drawings we see traces of a mixed scheme. Thus I have a drawing by a boy of five in which a front view is reached by a kind of doubling of the profile (Fig. 43 (_d_)).

Footnote 273:

Mr. Cooke kindly informs me that in an early Greek drawing in the First Vase Room in the British Museum, the eye of a fish is placed in the back part of the mouth.

Footnote 274:

An example is given by Schoolcraft, _op. cit._, pt. iv., pl. 18.

More remarkable than all, perhaps, we have in one case a clear instance of the scheme of the human face, the features, eyes, nose, and mouth being arranged horizontally to suit the new circumstances (Fig. 44 (_a_)). With this may be compared the accompanying transference of the animal ear to the human figure, though this suggests—especially in view of the pipe—a bit of jocosity on the part of the young draughtsman (Fig. 44 (_b_)).

The forms of both head and trunk vary greatly. In a few drawings I have found the extreme of abstract treatment in the drawing of the trunk, _viz._, by means of a single line, a device which, so far as I have observed, is only resorted to in the case of the human figure for the neck and the limbs. An example of this was given above in Fig. 1 (p. 334). The following drawing of a dog by a little girl between five and six years old illustrates the same thing (Fig. 44 (_c_)).[275] On the other hand we see sometimes a tendency to give the trunk abnormal thickness, as if the model used had been the wooden toy-horse, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy of five (Fig. 44 (_d_)). Rectilinear instead of rounded forms occur, and the head is often triangular, these rectilinear contours being probably suggested by the teacher in his model schemes (see Fig. 44 (_e_)).

Footnote 275:

Line drawings of animals as well as of men are found in savage art: see, for example, Schoolcraft, _op. cit._, pt. iv., pl. 18. Mr. Cooke gives examples from drawings of the Trojans. Hence line drawing may, as he infers, be the primitive mode.

The legs are of course all visible. The strangest inattention to number betrays itself here. As we saw, a child in beginning his scribble-drawing piles on lines for the legs (see above, p. 334, Fig. 1). A girl between three and four years of age endowed a cat with two legs and a bird with three (see Fig. 45 (_a_) and (_b_)).[276] A boy in his sixth year drew a quadruped with ten legs (Fig. 45 (_c_)). They are often drawn absurdly out of position. In more than one case I find them crowded behind, as in the accompanying drawing of some quadruped by the same little girl that drew the cat and the bird, and in a drawing of a mouse by another child about the same age, viz., three and a half years (Fig. 45 (d) and (e)). They commonly remain apart from one another throughout their course, following roughly a parallel direction. But this simple scheme is soon modified, first of all by enlarging the space between the fore and the hind legs, and then by introducing some change of direction answering to the look of the animal in motion. This is most easily effected by making the fore and the hind pair diverge downwards, as in Fig. 43 (_b_) and (_c_) (p. 373). In rarer cases the divergence appears between the two legs of the fore and of the hind pair (Fig. 45 (_f_)). The knee-bend is early introduced as a means of suggesting motion. Either the legs are all bent backwards, as in Fig. 45 (_g_) (_cf._ above, Fig. 44 (_e_)); or, with what looks like a perverted feeling for symmetry, each pair is bent inwardly, as in Fig. 45 (_h_). The forms are often extraordinary enough, a preternatural thickness of leg being not infrequently given, and the knee-joint occasionally taking on grotesque shapes as if the little draughtsman had just been attending a class on the anatomy of the skeleton. The hoof is drawn in a still freer manner, various designs, as the bird-foot, the circle, and the looped pattern, appearing here as in the case of the human foot (Fig. 45 (_i_) and (_j_); _cf._ Figs. 43 (_c_) and 44 (_a_) (p. 373)).

Footnote 276:

This is the way in which Mr. Cooke, who sends me these two drawings, explains them to me. The beak (?) in Fig. 45 (_b_) is added to the contour, as is the human nose in a few cases.

In this unlearned attempt to draw animal forms the child falls far below the level of the untutored savage. The drawings of animals by the North American Indians, by Africans, and others, have been justly praised for their artistic excellence. A fine perception of form is, in many cases, at least, clearly recognisable, the due covering of one part by another is represented, and movement is vigorously suggested. Lover though he is of animals, the child, when compared with the uncivilised adult, shows himself to be woefully ignorant of his pets.

_Men on Horseback, etc._

Childish drawing moves as the dialectic progress of the Hegelian thought from distinction and antithesis to a synthesis or unity which embraces the distinction. After illustrating the human biped in his contradistinction to the quadruped he proceeds to combine them in a higher artistic unity, the man on horseback. The special interest of this department of childish drawing lies in the fresh and genial manner of the combining. To draw a man and a horse apart is one thing, to fit the two figures one to the other, quite another.

At first the degree of connexion is slight. There is no suggestion of a composite or mixed animal, such as may have suggested to the lively Greek imagination the myth of the centaur. The human figure is pitched on to the quadruped in the most unceremonious fashion. Thus in many cases there is no attempt even to combine the profile aspects, the man appearing impudently in frontal aspect, or what would be so but for the lateral nasal excrescence, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy of five (Fig. 46).

With this indifference to a consistent profile there goes amazing slovenliness in attaching the man to the animal, and this whether the front or side view of the human figure is introduced. No attempt is made in many cases to show attachment: the man is drawn just above the quadruped, that is all. It seems to be a chance whether the two figures meet, whether the feet of the man rest circus-fashion on the animal’s back, or, lastly, whether the human form is drawn in part over the animal, and, if so, at what height it is to emerge from the animal’s back. Various arrangements occur in the same sheet of drawings (see Fig. 47 (_a_), (_b_) and (_c_)).

When this overlapping takes place the presence of the animal’s trunk makes no difference in the treatment of the man. He is drawn with his two legs just as if he were in relief against the horse; and this arrangement is apt to persist even when a child can draw a rude semblance of a horse and knows at what level to place the rider. So difficult to the little artist is this idea of one thing covering another that even when he comes to know that both the legs of the rider are not seen, he may get confused and erase both (see above (p. 376), Fig. 45 (_f_)).[277]

The savage is in general as much above the child in the representation of the rider as he is in that of the animal apart. Yet traces of similar confusion do undoubtedly appear. Von den Steinen says that his Brazilians drew the rider with both legs showing. Andree gives an illustration, among the stone-carvings (petroglyphs) of savages, of the employment of a front view of the human figure rising above the horse with no legs showing below (Fig. 48 (_a_)).[278] Even among the drawings of the North American Indians, in which the horse is in general so well outlined, we occasionally find what appear to be the germs of confusions similar to those of the child. Thus Schoolcraft gives among drawings from an inscription on a buffalo skin one in which we have above the profile view of a horse the front view of a man, with arms stretched out laterally while the legs are wanting.[279] A clearer case of confusion is supplied by the following drawing, also by a North American Indian, in which the lines of the horse’s body cut those of the rider’s legs (Fig. 48 (_b_)).[280]

Footnote 277:

_Cf._ Ricci, _op. cit._, Fig. 21 (p. 27).

Footnote 278:

_Op. cit._, pl. 2; _cf._ pl. 6, where a drawing from Siberia with the same mode of treatment is given.

Footnote 279:

_Op. cit._, pt. iv, pl. 31 (p. 251).

Footnote 280:

From the _Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology_, 1882-83, p. 206. The common appearance of both legs in these Indian drawings means, I take it, that the rider is on the side of the horse.

The same tendency to show the whole man where the circumstances hide a part appears in children’s drawings of a man in a boat, a railway carriage and so forth. Ricci has shown that the different ways in which the child-artist puts a human figure in a boat are as numerous as those in which he sets it on a horse. The figure may stand out above the boat or overlap, in which last case it may be cut across by the deck-line and its lower part shown, or be clapped wholly below the deck, or again be half immersed in the water below the boat, or, lastly, where an attempt to respect fact is made, be truncated, the trunk appearing through the side of the boat, though the legs are wanting.[281] A man set in a house, train, or tram car, is seen in his totality (Fig. 49 (_a_) and (_b_)). It is much the same thing when a child flattens out a house or other object so as to show us its three sides, that is to say one which in reality is hidden (Fig. 49 (_c_) and (_d_)). With these habits of the child may be compared those of the savage. The impulse to show everything, even what is covered, is illustrated in a drawing of a singer in his wigwam by an Indian (Fig. 49 (_e_)).[282] Even where colour comes in and one thing has to be hidden by a part of another thing the savage artist, like the child insists on drawing the whole. This is illustrated in a curious custom, the drawing of two serpents (in dry, coloured powder) by North American fire-dancers. They are drawn across one another, and the artist has first to draw completely the one partly covered, and then the second over the first.[283]

Footnote 281:

See Ricci, _op. cit._, pp. 17-23.

Footnote 282:

Andree observes that in Australian drawings objects behind one another are put above one another as in a certain stage of Egyptian art (_op. cit._, p. 172).

Footnote 283:

_Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology_, 1883-84, p. 444 ff.

The child’s drawing of the house, though less remarkable than that of the man and the quadruped, has a certain interest. It illustrates, as we have just seen, not merely his determination to render visible what is hidden, but also his curious feeling for position and proportion. In one case I found that in the desire to display the contents of a house a girl of six had actually set a table between the chimneys. The accompanying drawing done by the boy C. at the age of five years five months illustrates the fine childish contempt for proportion (Fig. 50). A curious feature in these drawings of the house is the care bestowed on certain details, pre-eminently the window. This is even a more important characteristic feature than the chimney with its loops of smoke. Some children give a quite loving care to the window, drawing the lace curtains, the flowers, and so forth.

_Résumé of Facts._

We may now sum up the main results of our study. We find in the drawings of untrained children from about the age of three to that of eight or ten a curious mode of dealing with the most familiar forms. At no stage of this child-art can we find what we should regard as elements of artistic value: yet it has its quaint and its suggestive side.

The first thing that strikes us here is that this child-delineation, crude and bizarre as it is, illustrates a process of development. Thus we have (_a_) the stage of vague formless scribble, (_b_) that of primitive design, typified by what I have called the lunar scheme of the human face, and (_c_) that of a more sophisticated treatment of the human figure, as well as of animal forms.

This process of art-evolution has striking analogies with that of organic evolution. It is clearly a movement from the vague or indefinite to the definite, a process of gradual specialisation. Not only so, we may note that it begins with the representation of those rounded or ovoid contours which seem to constitute the basal forms of animal organisms, and proceeds like organic evolution by a gradual differentiation of the ‘homogeneous’ structure through the addition of detailed parts or organs. These organs in their turn gradually assume their characteristic forms. It is, perhaps, worth observing here that some of the early drawings of animals are strongly suggestive of embryo forms (compare, _e.g._, Fig. 45 (_b_) and (_d_), p. 375).

If now we examine this early drawing on its representative side we find that it is crude and defective enough. It proceeds by giving a bare outline of the object, with at most one or two details thrown in. The form neither of the whole nor of the parts is correctly rendered. Thus in drawing the foot it is enough for the child to indicate the angle: the direction of the foot-line is comparatively immaterial. In this respect a child’s drawing differs from a truly artistic sketch or suggestive indication by a few characteristic lines, which is absolutely correct so far as it goes. The child is content with a schematic treatment, which involves an appreciable and even considerable departure from truthful representation. Thus the primitive lunar drawing of the human face is manifestly rather a diagrammatic scheme than an imitative representation of a concrete form.

In this non-imitative and merely indicative treatment there is room for all sorts of technical inaccuracies. Form is woefully misapprehended, as in the circular trunk, the oblong mouth, the claw foot, and so forth. Proportion—even in its simple aspect of equality—is treated with contempt in many instances (_cf._ the legs of the quadruped and the bird in Fig. 45 (_a_), (_b_), and (_c_) (p. 375)). What is no less important, division of space and relative position of parts, which seem vital even to a diagrammatic treatment, are apt to be overlooked, as in drawing the facial features high up, in attaching the arms to the head, and so forth. Even the element of number is made light of, and this, too, in such simple circumstances as when drawing the legs of an animal.

One of the most curious of these misrepresentations comes into view in the third or sophisticated stage, _viz._, the introduction of more than is visible. This error, again, assumes a milder and a graver form, _viz._, (_a_) the giving of the features more distinctly and completely than they appear in the object represented, and (_b_) the introducing of features which have no place in the object represented. Examples of the first are the introduction of the nasal angle into the front view of the human face; the separation throughout their length of the four legs of the horse; and such odd tricks as detaching the reins of the horse from the animal, as in Fig. 51 (_a_). Illustrations of the second are numerous and varied. They include first of all the naïve introduction of features of an object which are not on the spectator’s side and so in view, as the second eye and the second arm in what are predominantly profile representations. With these may be classed the attempt to exhibit three sides of a house. Closely related to these errors of perspective is the exposure of objects or parts of objects which are covered by others. It is possible that the spread-eagle arrangement of the two joined arms is an attempt to represent a feature of childish anatomy, _viz._, the idea that the arms run through and join in the middle of the trunk. A clearer example of this attempt to expose to view what is covered is the exhibition of the whole human figure in a boat, house or carriage. With this may be compared the disclosure of the whole head of a horse when drinking, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy of five (Fig. 51 (_b_)), of the whole head of the man through his hat (see above, p. 350, Fig. 20 (_b_)), and of the human limbs through the clothes (Fig. 41, p. 371).

A class of confusions, having a certain similarity to some of these, consists in the transference of the features of one object to a second, as when a man or quadruped is given a bird-like foot (Figs. 7 (_d_) and 43 (_c_), pp. 342, 373), and still more manifestly when the facial scheme of the man is transferred to the quadruped or _vice versâ_ (Fig. 44 (_a_) and (_b_), pp. 373, 374).

These last errors clearly illustrate the tendency to a conventional treatment, a tendency which, as I have observed already, runs through children’s spontaneous drawings. This free conventional handling of natural forms has been illustrated in the habitual drawing of the mouth and eyes, and still more strikingly in that of the hands and feet.

Paradoxical though it may seem, these drawings, while in general bare and negligent of details, show in certain directions a quite amusing attention to them. Thus, we find at a very early stage certain details, as the pipe of the man, insisted on with extravagant emphasis; and may observe at a somewhat later stage in the elaborate drawing of hair, buttons, parasol, and so forth, a tendency to give some feature to which the child attaches value a special prominence and degree of completeness.

The art of children is a thing by itself, and must not straight away be classed with the rude art of the untrained adult. As adult, the latter has knowledge and technical resources above those of the little child; and these points of superiority show themselves, for example, in the fine delineation of animal forms by Africans and others.[284] At the same time, after allowing for these differences, it is, I think, incontestable that a number of characteristic traits in children’s drawings are reflected in those of untutored savages.

Footnote 284:

The tendency to identify the drawings of the child and the savage led to an amusing error on the part of a certain Abbé Domenech, who in 1860 published his so-called _Livre des Sauvages_, which purported to contain the graphic characters and drawings of North American Aztecs, but proved in reality to be nothing but the scribbling book of a boy of German parentage. The drawings are of the crudest, and show the artist to be much more nasty-minded than the savage draughtsmen.

_Explanation of Facts._

Let us now see how we are to explain these characteristics. In order to do so we must try to understand what process a child’s mind goes through when he draws something, and to compare this with what passes in the mind of an adult artist. The problem has, it is evident, to do with drawing from memory or out of one’s head, for though the child may begin to draw by help of models, he develops his characteristic art in complete independence of these.

In order to draw an object from memory two things are obviously necessary. We must have at the outset an idea of the form we wish to represent, and this visual image of the form must somehow translate itself into a series of manual movements corresponding to its several parts. In other words, it presupposes both an initial conception and a correlated process of execution.

In psychological language this correlation or co-ordination between the idea of a form and the carrying out of the necessary movements of the hand is expressed by saying that the visual image, say, of the curve of the full face, calls up the associated image of the manual movement. This last, again, may mean either the visual image of the hand executing the required movement, or the image of the muscular sensations experienced when the arm is moved in the required way, or possibly both of these.

The process of drawing a whole form is of course more complex than this, each step in the operation being adjusted to preceding steps. How far the movements of the draughtsman’s hands are guided here by a visual image of the form, which remains present throughout, how far by attention to what has already been set down, may not be quite certain. Judging from my own case, I should describe the process somewhat after this fashion. In drawing a human face we set out with a visual image of the whole, which is incomplete in respect of details, but represents roughly size and general form or outline. This image is projected indistinctly and unsteadily, of course, on the sheet of paper before us, and this projected image controls the whole operation. But as we advance we pay more and more attention to the visual presentation supplied by the portion of the drawing already produced, and only realise with any distinctness that part of the projected visual image which is just in advance of the pencil.

It is evident that the carrying out of such a prolonged operation involves a perfected mechanism of eye, brain and hand connexions; for much of the manual adjustment is instantaneous and sub-conscious. At the same time the process illustrates a very high measure of volitional control or concentration. Unless we keep the original design fixed before us, and attend at each stage to the relations of the executed to the unexecuted part, we are certain to go wrong.