I just did a quick check to see what research has been found to be the stages of art for children. I have my own observations and ideas and I wanted to compare. I'm going to share my list of stages latter.
We can all agree it starts off with scribbling. Then they (who ever they are, apparently they are writing for school boards) have this stage called Preschematic, Schematic, Dawning Realism, and Psuedorealistic stage.
It's after the schematic stage I really start to disagree. Overall though I have issues with the whole thing.
Firstly the age ranges that they give for the stages are too average. I have seen at least one 5 year old boy that would be considered to be in the Psuedorealistic stage. It had nothing to do with any art lessons. It's just the way he was and actually stills is. But I wouldn't call him an art prodigy.
I guess this is a problem that I have with labeling and defining "normal" development in the first place. Making it one big heaping average when really it variety so much, in children in all areas, but especially with art.
Secondly they call it the" progression of artistic development". I take issue with this also. The stages are built toward a progress that gets closer and closer to realism.
But is straightforward representational drawing really "Artistic"? Oh I can think of a few famous Artist that would take issue with that notion. I take major issue and I consider myself to be representational. .
I don't even want to get into the kind of western cultural bias, that the Stages are build around. As being realistic is the pinnacle of artistic development that all children naturally strive for. If anything it's a culturally imposed concept that children try to live up to because it is the goal, or at least for some. What about traditional Islamic art as example. How did those artist develop without being able to be directly representational? Or would the authors of the "progression of artistic development" say they were delayed at Dawning Realism stage.
But even lets say without that cultural pressure, even if we assume that it is natural for all children to strive towards realism in their drawing, there is still a distinction between drawing and Art.
Again the word Art gets abused and misused again, but this time by people who should know better.
Lastly if being realistic is really the end game we can utterly skip the Dawning Realism, and Psuedorealistic stages and go right to Realistic with some good technique based drawing lessons. Not saying they should be skipped over. But we are talking about a theory that doesn't take into consideration the full value of the process or the various influence/interference of parents and educators.
We can all agree it starts off with scribbling. Then they (who ever they are, apparently they are writing for school boards) have this stage called Preschematic, Schematic, Dawning Realism, and Psuedorealistic stage.
It's after the schematic stage I really start to disagree. Overall though I have issues with the whole thing.
Firstly the age ranges that they give for the stages are too average. I have seen at least one 5 year old boy that would be considered to be in the Psuedorealistic stage. It had nothing to do with any art lessons. It's just the way he was and actually stills is. But I wouldn't call him an art prodigy.
I guess this is a problem that I have with labeling and defining "normal" development in the first place. Making it one big heaping average when really it variety so much, in children in all areas, but especially with art.
Secondly they call it the" progression of artistic development". I take issue with this also. The stages are built toward a progress that gets closer and closer to realism.
But is straightforward representational drawing really "Artistic"? Oh I can think of a few famous Artist that would take issue with that notion. I take major issue and I consider myself to be representational. .
I don't even want to get into the kind of western cultural bias, that the Stages are build around. As being realistic is the pinnacle of artistic development that all children naturally strive for. If anything it's a culturally imposed concept that children try to live up to because it is the goal, or at least for some. What about traditional Islamic art as example. How did those artist develop without being able to be directly representational? Or would the authors of the "progression of artistic development" say they were delayed at Dawning Realism stage.
But even lets say without that cultural pressure, even if we assume that it is natural for all children to strive towards realism in their drawing, there is still a distinction between drawing and Art.
Again the word Art gets abused and misused again, but this time by people who should know better.
Lastly if being realistic is really the end game we can utterly skip the Dawning Realism, and Psuedorealistic stages and go right to Realistic with some good technique based drawing lessons. Not saying they should be skipped over. But we are talking about a theory that doesn't take into consideration the full value of the process or the various influence/interference of parents and educators.
