The Image of Divinity in Children’s Perception. Social, Cultural and Artistic Influences

Abstract

This research is a case study on how children aged 6-15 years represent the image of Divinity. Previous works and studies of various researchers have shown that the way in which children perceive the image of God is influenced by a range of social and cultural factors that may be highlighted in the artistic creations of small drawers. Our work is a research applied on the artistic creations of a total of 100 Romanian children of different ages, from different social backgrounds. The diversity of artistic representations - besides the usual anthropomorphisms, symbolic or abstract images being also represented -, as the numerous ways of perceiving the image of God at this age, underlines the importance of educational, cultural, artistic and religious formation of children. However, our study tries to find out some explanations on how the social and cultural context to which children belong, or how the artistic and religious education influences their creativity, their imagination and social manifestation. In this respect, the study also aims to underline how society affects the creative personality of children, enhancing it or inhibiting it, and how a religious environment can define a certain type of perception in respect with the idea of divinity.