Artistic expression: The development of representational strategies in children's drawings
Hsu, Hsiu-Chu
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Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/19050
Description
Title
Artistic expression: The development of representational strategies in children's drawings
Author(s)
Hsu, Hsiu-Chu
Issue Date
1996
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Thompson, Christine
Department of Study
Art Education
Discipline
Education, Art
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ed.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Art Education
Fine Arts
Developmental Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Language
eng
Abstract
Theories of artistic development must take account of the specific interaction between artistic expression and cognitive development. This study is designed to investigate the development of expressivity in childrens' and adolescents' drawings, color choice, and judgment of expressive drawing, in order to reexamine some contemporary cognitive and artistic developmental theories. Elements such as lines, forms, colors can be seen in their drawings and the ways in which these elements are presented may change as children grow. Ives (1984) suggests that children use the representational strategies of literal expression, abstract expression, and content expression to depict emotional qualities; Winston, Kenyon, Stewardson, and Lepine (1995) find that children like to use themes to make expressive qualities in their drawings. In the present study of eight age groups (ages four, five, six, seven, nine, eleven, fourteen, and sixteen), the representational strategies in the drawings of mood expression of a happy tree and a sad tree were established by three distinct tasks (drawing, color choice, and judgment task). The result suggests that age is a factor in the development of expressivities and the relation between stage and age may be best captured by Vygotsky's (1978) theory of the zone of proximal development. It also indicates that social interaction is a factor in the development of the representational strategies and the development of artistic expression needs to be considered both in terms of universal and nonuniversal domains.
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