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While generations of children have been creating art-like things presumably forever, this timeline will begin with early documentation of cultural influences directing child art. The rake-like hands illustrated in Russian birch bark drawings are evidence of European cultural schemata infecting the drawings of children. This technique can be traced throughout Britain and other European countries, yet not on other continents.
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Drawings from two young boys living within the same era, one in Denmark, the other in Italy, were compared stylistically. Both boys drew in a similar style illustrating the human figure with a circular torso, and legs with embellished lengths. This data supports the notion that children were influenced not only by adults and cultural structures, but by the artwork of their peers.
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Theodor Galle's engraving illustrates a studio of apprentices in the 16th century. The apprentices appear to be drawing figures as well as crafting sculptures. The master is positioned in the center, a plane above the apprentices suggesting the hierarchical dynamic of historical art education. The practice of copying and realistic rendering is evident.
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Gian Paolo Lamazzo's Allegory of the Artist's Career details the believed necessary components of successful art in the late 16th century in Italy. In this piece he alludes to instrumental texts and intellectualism involved in the artist's profession. Skill coupled with wisdom and learning were considered vital of artists and art.
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Cornelius Cort, after Johannes Stradanus, depicts the Flemish art education of apprentices in the late 16th century. This piece serves as a documentation of studio learning as well as an advertisement for the master's studio.
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Odoardo Fialetti's etching of five apprentices diagrams the art education in the early 17th century in Italy. The students are practicing observational figure drawings from casts of body parts, presumably focusing on formal skills such as placement and proportion.
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Jan Steen's piece, The Drawing Lesson, shows evidence of formal art instruction between an apprentice and a master in the latter half of the 17th century in the Netherlands.
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Rudolph Topffer published the first book with chapters dedicated exclusively to child art. In this text he proffers that "the apprentice painter was less an artist than the young child who has received no formal instruction in art" with the supporting argument that creativity is lost in conventional skill.
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Artists, Critics, Pedagogues and Poets all support that:
The child is a natural artist in need of no formal or conventional instruction.
The genesis of child art is from "deep down inside" and resembles an organic unfolding of creative energy.
It is a form of abstraction of light, mass, and color.
It is similar to primitive art and an avenue for expression. -
Modern Artists and Critics establish the foundation for the grand narrative of art education.
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Courbet presents childhood spontaneity and creative power in this "tableau clef" painting. Courbet has been attributed for the association between child art and modernism. This piece is also accepted as the first documentation of childhood originality.
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Corrado Ricci discovers drawings by children on walls in the city of Milan. He perceived the drawings done by older children as "crude," and the drawings of the youngest children as "characterized by a greater decency."
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Pedagogues and Poets champion the creativity, crudeness, and individual expression of child art.
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Ricci publishes the first book entirely dedicated to child art.
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Franz Cizek observes the drawings of children on a wall in Vienna and proceeds to provide children with supplies to make more art with. In comparing the art of Italian children and Bohemian children, Cizek concludes that children's drawings evolve according to natural laws.
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In 1897, the "father of art," Franz Cizek establishes a juvenile art class where the motto "let the child create" thrived.
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Partridge publishes the first chronological visual account of developmental stages children's art.
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Kerschenstein publishes thousands of works of art by children along with relevant data.
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Thomas Munro critiques Cizek's methodologies and concludes that through "language, motivations, instructions, guiding techniques and processes" Cizek "robs and restricts the student."
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Lowenfeld provides theoretical justification for the pedagogy of Cizek and the creativity of children.
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Lowenfeld succeeds his first publication with another book focusing on the importance of art therapy and space for creative and mental growth in child development.
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Penn State research supports Lowenfeld's ideology that children's art was, in fact, creative.
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Kandinksky comments on the "cosmic and spiritual forces" that are illuminated when artwork is devoid of convention. He continues to debase the efforts of adults to direct children's' artistic endeavors.
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Child art and youth visual culture are social constructs.
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Arthur Efland analyzes the art taught in schools and delineates two primary functions, "to provide behaviors and products that have the look of humanistic learning," as well as a "morale-boosting function."
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George Boas publishes a The Cult of Childhood questioning the assumptions of childhood naivety and innocence, and positioning developmental models of psychology as cult-like.
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This project triggered the question of whether or not adults use the art of children to promote the agenda's of adults.
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David Thistlewood explore the argument for the intrinsic genesis of child art and its counterargument of culturally-generated child art.
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Fineberg publishes a book exploring the influences that child art has on practicing artists. He glorifies "the freshness of vision that children posses and how often it 'innocently' reveals profound insights." He cites the practicing artist's desire to be free from societal norms as a link between child art and modern art.
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Rudolf Arnheim poses the question of whether or not post modern children are losing the occult spontaneity cherished in the modernist perception, and whether or not this matters in the postmodernist perception.
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Wilson and Wilson claim that every piece of child art can be traced back to aspects of pop cultures, thus eliminating any notion of originality.
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Kindler and Darras conclude that "young peoples' development in the realm of visual culture is nonlinear, non hierarchical, multidimensional, and multipurposeful."
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Takashi Murakami proffers that the future narrative of art will be a compilation of many intersecting narratives fused into one.
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Wilson classifies three stages of child art development. Preconventionality being pre-art education, conventionality being the acquisition of technical skills, and postconventionality being the invention of something new.
