How they mature and what children's images express.
In the earliest period, the child begins to draw in the sand, various forms on the wall or on a piece of paper. These are confusing zigzags, variously thickened curved lines and circular forms.
Some lines are stronger, others lighter. Already in the very act of drawing, the child apparently finds some satisfaction, and yet he cannot yet express anything in these forms, in the differences in form certain painterly values appear, namely, the contrasts of forms and accents.
The figure shows a typical drawing of the so-called. cephalopod. This is the first readable form of the human figure drawn by a child between the ages of two and four. From such initial forms, slightly more elaborated representations of the human figure then develop.
The child repeats these new images many times, usually on the same sheet, and thus solidified his concept, but with some changes it differentiates and develops it.
In a similar way, a child builds an image of a tree from very simple forms, which it then develops and enriches, obtaining a fuller and stronger expression of the subject.
Also in a similarly simple and direct way, he creates a drawing image of the house and many other objects.
We can see from the above examples, that dash, which the child draws, is alive and direct. It is clearly freehand, and thus devoid of calligraphic evenness and lifelessness. The variability of its intensity is natural for the human hand, and for the activity of painting expression it is the most appropriate.
The image of a 4-year-old child is exceptionally interesting in terms of composition and expression, depicting a human figure against a richly played background. The line here is lively and direct, and divisions emphasized by significant value differences. The central compositional accent of the strangely simplified figure is supported by black planes. Thanks to this, it contrasts perfectly with the brighter surroundings, which is ingeniously broken up by a varied lattice. The form of the image is as simple and naive as a child of this age, but compositional ingenuity, variety of its elements, and above all, the original authenticity of the vision, emanating from the whole and from every line and stain, they are absolutely amazing. The expression of this image is touching with the mysterious separateness of the child's view of the world.
The next two examples show clearly, how a child can express the landscape in an unexpected way. In one picture this space, seen from the air, is composed crosswise in a rectangle. In the second, the principle of composition resembles this kind of approach, found in precious ancient eastern carpets. In both cases, the landscape is expressed without the conventional classical perspective and without naturalistic tendencies, rather, with a sense of decorative action. Four further examples are industrial-themed landscapes, made from reminders by children aged from years 10 do 14.
In the first two we see a rather surprising division of the image plane, excellent characteristics of individual parts and finally ingenious texture. How many decisions, every line and stain in the landscape with a cable car has an element of force and immediacy.
Similarly, in the third work, the child does not express reality in an objective way, but he feels it deeply in the original experience and feels it secondarily, when he creates his image - a story about the seen world.
In the picture, made with tempera paints by a 9-year-old child, a expressing the interior of a room with a table covered with a white tablecloth, how much peace, dignity, and above all, how much truth of light with a very simple compositional arrangement. How well the detail is subordinated to the whole - and how well one of the very difficult problems of building a picture has been solved.
A similarly interesting expression was expressed by another 10-year-old child sailing ship at sea. Large planes of the hull are painted with ease and decision using tempera paints, sails, sky and sea, with which the lacy drawing of the rigging and small details of the ship contrasts. Add to this the vividness of perfectly harmonized colors, and the whole will convince us of it, that's just inspiring, a strong experience and a vivid painting instinct existing in the child's psyche could show him the way to make such a picture.
And the painting titled "Spring Work", by a 9-year-old boy, so it's not saying the same thing?
And the "portrait" of a chimney sweep clearly shows the maturity of a 10-year-old child's painting concept and the ability to express his own vision through the whole and every detail, every stain and line of the composition? How bold and painterly is the nature of the brushstroke in this portrait, how sensitively they are opposed: big, black, the smooth plane of clothing - the cut plaid of bricks, and finally the pale plane of the face! What a sense of color contrasts, their burdens, like a broadly developed scale of accents from the strongest to the most delicate!