In his last and most overarching essay on the subject, Rudolf Arnheim encourages us to see the range of individuality in children's drawings and to recognize the child's creation of "significant form" as a way of bringing coherence to his or her experience of the world. This groundbreaking book brings together distinguished critics and scholars, including Rudolf Arnheim, to explore children's art and its profound but rarely documented history. The contributors address central questions of how children use art to make sense of their experience and what really constitutes visual "giftedness" in children. They also cover such topics as visual thinking, the influence of popular culture on children's drawings, giftedness versus education in children's drawings, process, and social interaction in drawing. Created to accompany an exhibition on children's drawings, When We Were Young features a stunning full-color gallery of drawings both by famous artists such as Ingres, Van Gogh, Picasso, Miró, and Klee when they were children and by extraordinary "ordinary" children. An annotated chronology, with synopses and more than a thousand scholarly notes, offers a comprehensive survey of the literature and history of child art from the thirteenth century to the present.
Essays by Rudolf Arnheim, Jonathan Fineberg, Misty S. Houston, Olga Ivashkevich, Christine Marmé Thompson, and Elizabeth Hutton Turner
When We Were Young New Perspectives on the Art of the Child
About the Book
Reviews
"Jonathan Fineberg captures in words the reality, delight, and imagination of children's art. He is a visionary, as are so many of the artists he cites in this important book."—Agnes Gund, President Emerita, Museum of Modern ArtTable of Contents
Foreword by Jay Gates and Richard Herman
Acknowledgments by Jonathan Fineberg and Kathleen T. Harleman
Introduction: Gifts of Seeing
Jonathan Fineberg
Beginning with the Child
Rudolf Arnheim
The “Ket Aesthetic”: Visual Culture in Childhood
Christine Marmé Thompson
Drawing in Children’s Lives
Olga Ivashkevich
The Early Drawings of Louis XIII in the Journal de Jean Héroard
Misty S. Houston
“Animal Sketching”: Aspects of Drawing and Play in Early Calder
Elizabeth Hutton Turner
Child’s Play and the Origins of Art
Jonathan Fineberg
Gallery
Children’s Art: An Annotated Chronology by Jonathan Fineberg, Olga Ivashkevich, and Mysoon Rizk
Index