Children's Ways / Being selections from the author's "Studies of childhood," with some additional matter

by James Sully

Fig. 2 (a).

Fig. 2 (b).

Here it is evident we have a phase of childish drawing which is closely analogous to the symbolism of language. The form of representation is chosen arbitrarily and not because of its likeness to what is represented. This element of symbolic indication will be found to run through the whole of childish drawing.

As soon as the hand acquires a certain readiness in drawing lines and closed lines or "outlines," and begins to connect the forms produced with the necessary movements, drawing takes on a more intentional character. The child now aims at constructing a particular linear representation, that of a man, a horse, or what not. These first attempts to copy in line the forms of familiar objects are among the most curious products of the child's mind. They follow standards and methods of their own; they are apt to get hardened into a fixed conventional manner which may reappear even in mature years. They exhibit with a certain range of individual difference a curious uniformity, and they have their parallels in what we know of the first crude designs of the untutored savage.

The Human Face Divine.

It has been wittily observed by an Italian writer, Signor Corrado Ricci, that children in their drawings reverse the order of natural creation by beginning instead of ending with man. It may be added that they start with the most dignified part of this crown of creation, viz., the human head. A child's attempt to represent a man appears commonly to begin by drawing a sort of circle for the front view of the head. A dot or two, sometimes only one, sometimes as many as five, are thrown in as a rough way of indicating the features.

I speak here of the commoner form. There are however variations of this. Some children draw a squarish outline for head, but these are children at school. In one case, that of a little girl aged three years four months, the outline was not completed, the facial features being set between two vertical columns of scribble, which do duty for legs (Fig. 3). Sometimes the features are simply laid down without any enclosing contour; and this arrangement appears not only in children's drawings but in those of savage adults.

The representation of the head sometimes appears alone, but a strong tendency to bring in the support of the legs soon shows itself. This takes at first the crude device of a couple of vertical lines attached to the head (see Fig. 4).