The Mind of the Beholder: Some Provisional Doubts about the U-Curved Aesthetic Development Thesis

Abstract

al artists. Some of these observers concur that as children get older, they produce visual art in which there is a decline in features commonly associated with aesthetic quality, for example, expressiveness, spontaneity, and originality of output. These same observers agree that the art work of some mid-to-late adolescents shows a resurgence of these same aesthetic features. However, other observers, such as Smith (1976), insist that young children's artwork and that of mature modern artists have little in common. The U-Curve Theory Tested Davis, (1991 and in this issue) conducted an experiment wherein American artistjudges, who were trained to use an aesthetic scoring protocol, found that young children's drawings and those of adolescent and adult artists achieve comparable aesthetic effects. Davis organized a cross-sectional study consisting of some 140 individuals from Massachusetts. The age range varied from pre-school to adult. There were seven equal-sized experimental groups: 5, 8, and 11-year-olds and artistically inclined and non-artistically inclined adolescents and adults. All subjects were asked to make four drawings: one of "happy", one of "sad", one of "angry" (see Arnheim,1969), and one control drawing. The drawings were scored by two judges with a background in art and trained to use a specific scoring procedure. The scoring procedure followed a protocol based on an analysis of the "symptoms of the aesthetic" (Goodman,1976), described by Davis. These are the aesthetic dimensions on which the drawings were scored: 1) overall expression (as possession and as either metonymic or metaphoric reference between symbol and referent); 2) overall balance; 3 ) use of line as agent of expression; and 4) use of composition as agent of expression (Davis, 1991). Davis found that across several formal dimensions, the aesthetic scores awarded to the drawings of young children and artists were significantly higher than the scores awarded to the drawings of other groups. This study confirmed that Western judges with backgrounds in art do in fact see a u-shaped curve in the developmental mastery of some features of aesthetic expression in drawings by individuals of different ages. Criticisms of the U-Curve Thesis The u-curve thesis is not without its critics. Wilson and Wilson (1981) and Korzenik (1995) suggested that the u-curve in aesthetic development might be a cultural artifact. Gardner and Winner (1982) envisage this possibility in the conclusion of their discussion of the u-curve: We wish to note...the relativity entailed in any discussion of artistic development....A comparison of child and adult art would hardly have been taken seriously 100 years ago, for the kinds of art prized by adults differed so strikingly from those produced by children, that few individuals would cast a second glance at children's drawings. (p.166-167) There is good reason to look for alternative factors in explaining this artistic-developmental phenomenon. In an early critique of Gardner's claims, Duncum (1986) argued that the u-curved description of children's aesthetic development is heavily colored by formalist and modernist notions, especially those associated with Abstract Expressionism. That is, if one believes that Abstract Expressionist art is of high aesthetic quality then one is very likely to see the careful, rule-bound artwork of children in their middle elementary years as lacking in aesthetic qualities. Korzenik (1995) reiterated this point, and suggested that Gardner's enthusiasm for Abstract Expressionism led him to formulate the aesthetic version of the u-curve hypothesis. She wrote that because "Gardner ...was enamored with the idea that children painted like Abstract Expressionists, [he] saw in the 9-12 year stage the nadir of creativity, the deepest dip in what he labelled the artistic u-shaped curve" (p. 5). In his comprehensive critique of Gardner's hypothesis about aesthetic development, Duncum ( 1986) reviewed much of the then current material. …