As I have remarked, to the child bent on representing ‘man’ the head or
face is at first the principal thing, some early drawings contenting
themselves with this. But in general the head receives some support. The
simplest device here is the abstract mode of representation by two
supporting lines, which do duty for legs and body. These are for the
most part parallel (see above, p. 336, Fig. 2), though occasionally they
are united at the top, making a kind of target figure. This same
arrangement, fixing the head on two upright lines, meets us also in the
rude designs of savages, as may be seen in the accompanying rock
inscription from Schoolcraft (Fig. 10).[247]
-----
Footnote 247:
_Op. cit._, pt. iv., plate 18.
-----
[Illustration: Fig. 10.]
The comparative indifference of the child to the body or trunk is seen
in the obstinate persistence of this simple scheme of head and legs, to
which two arms attached to the sides of the head are often added. A
child will complete the drawing of the head by inserting hair or a cap,
and will even add feet and hands, before he troubles to bring in the
trunk (see above, p. 336, Fig. 2, and p. 342, Fig. 7 (_d_), also the
accompanying drawing by a boy of six, Fig. 11 (_a_)). With this neglect
of the trunk by children may be compared the omission of it—as if it
were a forbidden thing—in one of General Pitt-Rivers’ drawings, executed
by a Zulu woman (Fig. 11(_b_)).
[Illustration: Fig. 11 (_a_).]
[Illustration: Fig. 11 (_b_).]
From this common way of spiking the head on two forked or upright legs
there is one important deviation. The contour of the head may be left
incomplete, and the upper occipital part of the curve be run on into the
leg-lines, as in the accompanying example by a Jamaica girl of seven
(Fig. 12). I have met with no example of this among English children.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.]
The drawing of the trunk may commence in one of two ways. With English
children it appears often to emerge as an expansion or prolongation of
the head-contour, as in the accompanying drawings of the front and side
view (Fig. 13 (_a_) and (_b_)).[248] Or, in the second place, the
leg-scheme may be modified, either by drawing a horizontal line across
them and so making a rectangle, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy
of six, or by shading in the upper part of the space, as in the other
figure by a girl of five (Fig. 13 (_c_) and (_d_)). A curious and
interesting variant of this second mode of introducing the trunk is to
be found in the drawings of Von den Steinen’s Brazilians, where the
leg-lines are either kept parallel for a while and then made to diverge,
or are pinched in below what may be called the pelvis, though not
completely joined (Fig. 13 (_e_) and (_f_)).
-----
Footnote 248:
A drawing given by Andree, _op. cit._, plate ii., II, seems to me to
illustrate a somewhat similar attempt to develop the trunk out of the
head.
-----
[Illustration: Fig. 13 (_a_).]
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