Habit, too, continues to assert its dominion. The tendency noticeable
now and again, even among English children, to treat the feet after the
manner of the hands illustrates this. Habit is further illustrated in
the tendency to a transference of forms appropriate to the man to the
animal; or, when (owing to the interposition of the instructor) the
drawing of animals is in advance of the other, in the reverse process;
as when a cat is drawn with two legs, or a horse is given a man’s face,
or the human form develops a horse’s ears, or a bird’s feet. With these
may be compared the transference of a bird-like body and tail to a
quadruped in Fig. 45 (_i_), p. 377. The accompanying two drawings by a
child of six show how similar forms are apt to be used for the man and
for the animal (Fig. 52).
[Illustration:
Man. Bird.
Fig. 52.
]
But the really noticeable thing in this later sophisticated treatment is
the bringing into view of what in the original is invisible, as the
front view of the eye as well as both eyes into what otherwise looks a
side view of the face, the two legs of the rider and so forth. Here, no
doubt, we may still trace the influence of technical limitations and of
habit. The influence of the former is seen in the completing of the
contour of the head before or after drawing the hat: for the child would
not know how to start with the lines which form the commencement of the
visible part of the head. The influence of habit is also recognisable
here. A child having learned first of all to draw the front view of the
eye, the two eyes and the two legs side by side, tends partly as the
result of organised hand-trick, partly in consequence of ‘association of
ideas,’ to go on drawing in the same fashion in the new circumstances. A
specially clear illustration of this effect of habit already alluded to
is the introduction of the front view of the nose in the mixed scheme.
These cases are exactly paralleled by the Egyptian drawing in which
while one shoulder is pulled round the other is left in square front
view (see above, p. 369, Fig. 39 (_b_)). Still, habit does not account
for everything here. It does not, for example, explain why the child
brings into view three sides of a house. The technical deficiencies of
the small draughtsman, his want of serious artistic purpose, seem an
insufficient explanation of these later sophistries. They appear to
point plainly to certain peculiarities of the process of childish
conception. We are compelled then to inquire a little more closely into
the characteristics of children’s observation and of their mental
representation of objects.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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