Process and Product in Children's Drawing

Aesthetic and expressive theorists have tried to understand what children's drawings represent. It is, however, a prior necessity to investigate the perceptual–cognitive mechanisms which permit the development of representational drawing, and to specify the role played by developing graphic and cognitive skills. In the first place it is argued that the concept of interpretation, as carried out by the child himself as well as by adults, rests on a dual basis consisting of perceptual processes and the recognition of conventions. Secondly some empirical examples of the problems of organisation with which the child has to deal are given. Through a critique of the model and the developmental taxonomy worked out by Luquet, the elements of a general model, embodying the concepts of interpretation and organisation, are put forward.