CHILD ART AND MODERNITY

This paper is the result of a long standing puzzlement over the almost mystical fascination of art educators over the notion of child art and the uncritical adoption of teaching practices stemming from it. Almost 30 years after the advent of post modernity which suggests a plurality of interpretations of works of art, if not of the concept of art per se, and examines the social basis of imagery, romantic notions of individual creativity free from cultural constraints seem to still inform art practice in contemporary schools. This paper is an effort to examine the child art theory by unraveling its assumptions and exploring their historical trajectory in the history of ideas. Because the idea that children are innate artists, contrary to what its adherents want us to believe, has a history, in fact one that exhibits its limits as a theoretical assumption. The historical identity of the notion of child art is informed by the simultaneous appearance of modernity in western culture and its accompanying concept of individual self expression free from pre existing conventions and artistic constraints. From a contemporary perspective, we are able to look back on that era which marked the discovery of child art and see it in a more informed way. Child ar