Conceptual Content and Spatial Characteristics in Boys' and Girls' Drawings of Fighting and Helping

Abstract

A number of studies have been executed over the past century which have investigated children's preferences for subject matter in art expression (Anastasi & Foley, 1936; Ballard, 1912; Kellog, 1969-70; Lukens, 1896-97; McCarty, 1924, Roberts 1916). Of particular interest is the way in which certain subjects become central to a child's thinking and are examined with such frequency and intensity as to emerge as dominant themes. Subject matter can be thought of as becoming thematic when it becomes focused in a very decisive way and is the locus for repeated examination. This tendency on the part of all people involved in artistic activity to identify significant thematic matter and explore it as a part of self expression is common enough, but when it appears in the work of young children, it seems to play a particularly strategic position in the child's search for ego development. Although not all children examine the same themes, nor with the same intensity, it appears that there is a developmental evolution which occurs, and this evolution seems clearly sexrelated (Lark-Horovitz, Lewis, & Luca, 1967). Oedipal and post oedipal boys are strongly attracted to the monster and dinosaur theme as well as vehicles and space ships; females of the same age vigorously play out their fantasies through the manipulation of kings and queens, princes and princesses. The horse theme, a most popular and long sustained one, is dominantly female and sometimes extends itself well into the adolescent period (Fein, 1975). Clearly no single subject remains only within the province of a given sex for individuality dominates, but the relative exclusivity of these themes from a sex vantage point is striking. Boys rarely examine horses and royalty; girls rarely select monsters or vehicles for major exploration. In a recent paper, Combat in Child Art (Feinburg, Note 1), the theme of war in the art work of young boys was examined, and the nature and evolution of this particular subject matter documented by a longitudinal study of the work of one boy (See also Feinberg, 1975). The elements of war pictures remain quite constant: situations of combat, usually depicting hordes of men, planes, bombs, ships, artillery, etc., and always the threat, if not the reality, of life threatening danger. The notion of contest between opposing forces, replete with issues of good guy/bad guy, winning and losing, etc. manifests itself primarily between the ages of six and twelve years of age, although it is at its height during the mid-elementary years and seems to emerge on the heels of the monster stage. The war theme serves the child in a