During the workshop that we conducted for children, I came across a 4 year old child named Moksha who created an interesting shape of a Car. He was very original with the process and the creation although completely unaware of it. But it was very pleasing to the eye. Why? I did not know.
Before finding the answer, Let me
introduce you to Moksha’s car
Here’s Moksha so deeply lost in
creation. This kind of deep concentration is unlikely in us adults. As a part
of the workshop, he was given some pages of magazine, a fevicol tube and some pieces
of mirror for creating a collage. He started sticking torn pieces of paper with
fevicol initially and during the process he got hooked to the fevicol. He started
pouring a large quantity of fevicol to create something.
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| Moksha's Fevicol Cars |
Moksha’s first car was entirely made
out of Fevicol and had 2 round mirrors for the wheels. The other car he created
was also fully made of Fevicol but one wheel was round and other was
rectangular. Both these cars have a bizarre yet beautiful shape and
unconventional wheels made of unconventional material.
This was a completely innovative way
of creation. He had no inhibition to select a rectangular wheel for the car.
It does not mean that he did not
have the knowledge of what a car is; fact is that he came for the workshop in
his father’s car. Then how did he come up this distortion?
Although he had seen the car, he had
bypassed the practical knowledge that this car may not work on the road. And
this was not done intentionally, as he may not have known the word “PRACTICAL”
yet. Although he was able to see the reality, it had not affected his
creativity. That benefited him to create something that an artist tries
to achieve: Complete freedom from the known and a simplification of expression.
His unintended pursuit in ignoring the practical knowledge about workings of
the car and simply giving in to the instincts of creation helped him create
something new. He was creating art with free mind and simplicity of expression.
He had his powerful, uninhibited expression intact. He was not even aware that
his creation was original and pleasing to the eye.
With this thought I started checking
out young children’s drawings/paintings in newspapers/displayed contests. To my
surprise they all created paintings that were aesthetically beautiful.
Take a look at these paintings.
Aren’t they beautiful and extremely original?
These are created by children
between ages 4 to 7 years
What makes these paintings so
pleasingly beautiful? This question is more interesting when we
realize that the children who created these paintings did not have any formal
training in art.
While beauty is subjective to
a larger extent, there are a few common grounds on which certain art can give
visual pleasure to the eye and qualify as aesthetically beautiful. Properties
like beauty of form, expression, composition are necessary ingredients
of good art. Also, few traits that appeal
to the viewer are genuineness and sincerity of expression, spontaneity and
originality of creation.
If I check all the above paintings
with these parameters, I find that the above paintings fulfill most of the
parameters.
Then are these children born
artists? Do they have an inherent capability to create beauty without a
formal knowledge of aesthetics?
According to the researches that
have gone in finding answers to these questions, Children don’t have any
aesthetical knowledge as such at this very young age. But with their limited
perception, they can create simplified primitive symbols which can be traced to
forms found in a Modern artist’s work. So the children’s art looks like modern art which a trained modern artist creates by making deliberate
efforts of simplification. By default human brain is attracted to
simplification. Experiments in Neurology have revealed that we have an
attraction to primitive symbols ( e.g. cave art ). So it is possible that children’s
art attracts the eye because of its
beauty of simplification and primitivism.
The Research paper ‘Art of Children’
(REFERENCE 1) states that Children are not creating any aesthetic beauty
intentionally. Furthermore, It is normally misunderstood that younger
children draw/paint like this because of lack of skill. Although not entirely
true, the fact is that children have
different focus while they draw/paint. This focus could be sticking to
primitive symbols in their brains or simplification by selecting only what they
find necessary/interesting or their unintentional irreverence and unconcern for
the reality.
In Moksha’s case he knows that
wheels are round but since nobody ever told him wheels cannot be anything else
but round, he is unaware of the practical implication of it. That has benefited
him in his creation - however bizarre - yet extremely interesting.
A young child will go from simple
thought process to a complex thought process as he grows. He is not
exposed to a lot of experiences during his young age so his knowledge is
limited but his primitive ideas/forms are intact. Once he grows with his age,
he is influenced by external information which leads to a muddling of primitive
ideas. Young children have a benefit that they don’t ‘KNOW’, so they do not
have to unlearn anything to simplify their vision. Children are able to make
use of that small information and create something simple yet beautiful, An abstract
artist on the other hand has grown a lot of structure in his thoughts so he has
to unlearn to break free from rigidity and structure to go towards
simplification.
A Child is driven by simplification
and process of creation itself than realism, visual logic, neatness,
conventional rules and acceptability by peers.
Many modern artists greatly admired
children’s art like Paul Klee, John Miro, Gutai Artists.
Paul Klee gave a lot of importance
to art created by children with respect to his artistic exploration. He was
looking for simplicity in creation which he found in younger children’s art.
Paul Klee used to study drawings of his child as well as used to collect other
children’s drawings. When he found a portfolio of his childhood works, he was
mesmerized and commented that those were some of his most significant works. He
endlessly practiced child-like vision in his creation and searched for pure,
un-corrupted expression of a new-born.
The research paper ‘Paul Klee and
Art of Children’(REFERENCE 3) states that: ‘Klee does not indulge in
‘childishness’ in his drawings, rather it is the activity of honesty. It is
like a newborn child making a “tiny but real act” born of necessity. Paul
Klee has said “remain open through life, much favored child, child of creation”
What Paul Klee and children have in common is the honesty and wonder of seeing
with unobstructed eye’. It also states that the child forms his image
quite naturally drawing from within-the inner eye or imagination, and without –
the outer eye or world of nature. His representation of this image is direct;
his creations are driven by inner certainty or necessity and not by outside
logic or influence.
Also, Gutai Artists greatly followed
a children’s magazine ‘Giraffe’ for artistic inspiration. They also greatly
admired and tried to implement the uninhibited attitude of children. When I
read further about these artists, I found great similarity between the process
of Moksh’s fevicol car and one particular artist Shimamoto Shozo’s work ‘holes’
. Shimamoto Shozo , was working on an improvised canvass which he made by
sticking layers of newspaper to a wooden frame. While he started drawing on it, the newspaper ground accidentally tore open, to which Shimamoto responded by deliberately making holes
all over the surface. And that was his finished work. He simply gave in to the
process and to the chance physical action with material.
And what did Moksha do? The same. A
chance physical action with material. He liked the fevicol drippings so much
that he simply stopped sticking pieces of paper and worked with fevicol alone
just to have the chance physical action with fevicol. As if he knew Gutai
artists!
While I was astonished with the
younger children’s built in capabilities and wondered how far they could go, I
took a pause and gave a thought about Moksha and his possible future. Here it
goes:
When Moksha will go to a
school; he will be so excited to create something new. This time he will decide
to create a car with triangular wheels. But the teacher will see his work and
try to teach him that the wheels are always round. He will ask ‘But my car
wants to have triangular wheels’. ‘Why can’t it have?’
‘No. that’s not possible. How can a
car have triangular wheels? Are you silly?’ The teacher might say.
There! He will be bound to think : ’oh I should not
create the wheels the way I want. I should abide by what they say. Or they will
call me silly’.
He will stop imagining beyond the
limits because he will be afraid of being called silly. He will become “sane”.
And he will draw a car like a car. Without fevicol , without
rectangular/triangular wheels without imagining what his car could be. He
will draw it with round wheels. He might not find fun in drawing it but still
he will complete it till the class is over.
After visualizing his possible
future, I got some clues for why kids like Moksha can become less and less
creative with growing years and started looking for answers to what are the
other factors that contribute to this diminishing creativity, originality and
self driven exploration.
I checked out paintings in age group
8 and above, to check whether this phenomenon is true. And it is indeed true.
Take a look of these paintings by children of age group 9 to 12; although these
paintings are more in line with reality and trying to follow the rules of
drawing, they are less aesthetically appealing, less original and less
experimental.
Why?
The creative thinking and
exploration starts diminishing once formal training starts either in the school
or special classes. Creating out of a same old mold and didactic ways of
learning shuts off the creativity. The way of perceiving and depicting certain
idea/object does not come from an inner feeling but rather it is imposed from
outside based on reality/conventions. The soul of the work is lost somewhere
and what we see is a pretty same old work with no originality and caliber to
surprise and please the eye. Many researchers have studied young children’s art
and possibilities why the artistic creation degrades after a certain age.
Art of children A Research paper(REFERENCE
1) greatly looks into the reasons, It helped me find out many factors ranging
from conventional pedagogy to children’s own psychology:
Older children may not have a lack of
ability to create but they have a shift in their focus of concern. They have the
ability to be imaginative but they focus on realism instead. Making spontaneous,
inventive drawings may not be older children’s priority. And this results in
decline to aesthetic sensitivity due to too much indulgence in skill mastery
and no interest in exploration and creative action.
Older children do not draw for the
enjoyment of drawing, they draw with some aim, and also with growing age
there’s a shift in focus (with studies of other subjects etc) and the
priorities change. Learning existing knowledge (that’s taught to them in
schools/or through other mediums) is so exhaustive that their interest in
exploring and creating “new” is lost. Information is bombarded on them. To be
more acceptable by the authority and also by peers, they have a tendency to
follow the conventions. The inclination is towards following the rules and not
to be left out. Importance to spontaneity of thought, unconventional, original ideas,
and imagination is ignored. Sometimes, it is even deliberately hidden to
fit to the conventions even by the children themselves. When this uninhibited
expression is kept hidden and un-nurtured, it is lost forever. Creation is more
outcome oriented than process oriented, so older children’s frequency of
drawing without aim simply indulging in process of creation also decreases. It
may happen that the children who do not/can not draw as per the standards are
considered ‘not good’ at drawing by the authority, parents or sometimes even
the children themselves. Some children may not be good at drawing activity but
good at reflecting and appreciating a piece of art and able to write or sing or
compose something by getting creative inspiration from the Art. But because the
focus is only on production and not on art-appreciation/reflection or cross
domain creativity, they are discouraged to interact with Art. With growing age
the acquaintance and interaction to creativity/art is disconnected. The
children who show some talent in art also focus on
realism/technicality/stereotype than spontaneity/experimentation. These
older children can perceive aesthetic properties but do not seem to be
concerned about them and they can not consciously put their knowledge of
aesthetic properties in their creation.
Contrary to this younger children
take more daring steps towards creation because they are ignorant of both
outcome and knowledge. They do not have knowledge of realism, perspective. It
acts as benefit to allow complete freedom of imagination in their creativity.
Also they are not cautious of making mistakes. So they are freely discovering
their creativity with confidence though they are less competent. They do not
care about end results; they are more involved and forget themselves in process
of making.
May be more factors need to be explored,
and once we know the reasons, the bigger question is are there any possible
remedies to retain children’s creative ability with their growing age?
My research continues with these
open ended questions…
REFERENCES
1. The
Art of Children’s Drawing: Elizabeth Rosenblatt and Ellen Winner
2. Art,
Mind and Brain: Howard Gardner
3. Paul
Klee and Art of Children : Ellen Marsh
- By Shiwalee
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