Children's Artistic Abilities: Fact or Fancy?

Abstract

Summary The decline of children's art at adolescence is a well-established occurrence, as is the ferment of artistic activity among young children. The question under consideration is why children's art declines. The two major theories are, first, that society's teachings during early childhood or adolescence are repressive and, second, only adolescents gifted with a high degree of creativity have the capacity to continue their artistic development into adulthood. A corollary of the latter view is that artists' productions differ only in degree, not in kind, from art produced by young children. A third view is introduced which argues that early expression of art forms is functional to instrumental aspects of cognitive maturation and that persons who become artists differ from young children in six significant behaviors: critical ability, cognitive and perceptual flexibility, relational cognitive style, strong goal orientation, mature moral development, and an unusually close relationship to nature.