Monday, December 06, 2004
Three-year-old Art
Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to teach my wife's Sunbeam class in church. This is the Sunday School class for three- and four-year-olds. Without going into detail about how much difficulty three adults (including the father of one of the kids) had in controlling four kids, I think the experience has shown me why so many people don't like modern art.
When it became apparent that our attempt to teach a lesson was pointless, we broke out the crayons and paper. One knock-you-in-the-face-with-a-sledgehammer cute cute cute girl did what three-year-olds do with crayons: she kind of scribbled around and filled in the spaces with other colors. It was a very abstract work of art, but it was pretty. Of course, the moment she showed it to me, I said, "That's beautiful! What is it?" Another kid did drew the same kind of picture and got the same response from me and the other adults (and even a couple of the kids). Neither of the artists ever gave us a straight answer to our question. Now, that could be because they are shy kids and didn't say much of anything about anything. But it could also be that the correct answer going on in their heads was, "What IS it? It's not anything! It's a bunch of colors! Can't you see that? Can't I just make a pretty picture without having to draw a picture OF something?"
From a very tender age--indeed, as soon as a child is able to wield a crayon--we teach children that art must be representational to be good. You can't just draw a picture--it has to be a picture OF something. If it doesn't look like something your parents or the other adults around you won't understand it and therefore won't praise it as much (I mean really--which are you more likely to say to a kid about his drawing: "That's a really great dinosaur!" or "That's a really great color field!"?). Kids who don't want to or don't have the skills to do a good representational drawing get marginalized, and so does their work. And everyone therefore grows up thinking that if it doesn't look like something, it's not good. Abstract art is bad.
When it became apparent that our attempt to teach a lesson was pointless, we broke out the crayons and paper. One knock-you-in-the-face-with-a-sledgehammer cute cute cute girl did what three-year-olds do with crayons: she kind of scribbled around and filled in the spaces with other colors. It was a very abstract work of art, but it was pretty. Of course, the moment she showed it to me, I said, "That's beautiful! What is it?" Another kid did drew the same kind of picture and got the same response from me and the other adults (and even a couple of the kids). Neither of the artists ever gave us a straight answer to our question. Now, that could be because they are shy kids and didn't say much of anything about anything. But it could also be that the correct answer going on in their heads was, "What IS it? It's not anything! It's a bunch of colors! Can't you see that? Can't I just make a pretty picture without having to draw a picture OF something?"
From a very tender age--indeed, as soon as a child is able to wield a crayon--we teach children that art must be representational to be good. You can't just draw a picture--it has to be a picture OF something. If it doesn't look like something your parents or the other adults around you won't understand it and therefore won't praise it as much (I mean really--which are you more likely to say to a kid about his drawing: "That's a really great dinosaur!" or "That's a really great color field!"?). Kids who don't want to or don't have the skills to do a good representational drawing get marginalized, and so does their work. And everyone therefore grows up thinking that if it doesn't look like something, it's not good. Abstract art is bad.
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