Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children’s Drawings by Howard Gardner (review)

Books 157 Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict. Peggy Guggenheim, Universe Books, New York, 1979. 396 pp.. illus. $17.50.ISBN:0-87663337 -8. Reviewed by Joan B. Altabe* This is not an altogether new book, in spite of its publication date-the first half being published in 1946as Out o f This Century and the second half in 1960 as Confessions o f an Art Addict. Thirteen pages of ‘conclusion’, while expressly written for this publication, remain a dubious rationale for the new edition. As for the book’s first half, I can do no better than to quote Katherine Kuh’s review of the original printing wherein shecalled it a “relentlessly honest compulsive recital of her own decadent life”. Proof of this honesty is the fact that Ms Guggenheim included this review in her ‘updated’ edition. Included, too, was an Everett McManus review (of the original printing of Confessions o f an Art Addict) to which I subscribe; that is, that the book “is not the autobiography of an art connoisseur”. Indeed, a more apt title might have been Confessionsofan Artist Addict, because Ms Guggenheim’s interest in art is not nearly as well described as her interest in the several artists (writers as well as painters) with whom she had liaisons. Numerous lover’s quarrels are noted, while her attention to art, perse, remains inexplicably brief; e.g. “Htlion gave a very moving lecture”. Not a hint of what the lecture was about. Moreover, although she says that her “most honorable achievement” was promoting Pollack’s works, when asked to write a piece on Pollack, she wrote she “never felt up to it ...” this, in the light of her exhaustive documentation of her private life! It is the book‘s gossipy aspect that renders it virtually useless to artists and teachers. Artful Scribbles: The Significance of Children’s Drawings. Howard Gardner. Basic Books, New York, 1980. 280 pp.. illus. Cloth. ISBN: 0465 -00451-2. Reviewed by G. W.Granger** The author wants to determine why children’s drawing follows its characteristic course, the relations between drawing and other aspectsof psychological development, and the aesthetic status of children’s drawings. In Chapter 1 he tells us that the basic scaffoldingfor hisstudy was firmly established by 19th century pedagogues who quickly “discerned strikingly similar development across thousands of miles and dozens of cultures” (p. 10).These developments include scribbles during the second year, geometric forms and patterns (including the ‘enigmatic mandala’) by the third and fourth, a ‘pivotal moment’ during *421 West Olive St., Long Beach, NY 11561, U.S.A. **University of Durham, Durham, DH1 3LE, U.K. the third, fourth or fifth when “rhe[my italics] child achievesfor the first time a recognizable depiction of some thing in the world-in most cases, the ubiquitous ‘tadpole man’ who stands for Everyman” (p. 11). After reaching a ‘summit of artistry’ by the end of the preschool period, uninhibited graphic expression begins to wane, as the child becomes preoccupied with language, games, social relations-or a desire to achieve photographic realism. Only in a select few, either blessed with special talent or possessed of no alternative means for self-expression, does “the exhuberant high point of earlier years” resurface. All this has been a description of children’s drawings which most experts endorse. The snag is that this description doesn’t ring true, as the author acknowledges in Chapter 6. What is surprising in a book which seemingly intends to be scientific(cf. p. 14,p. 257) is that the author does not reach this negative conclusion from a critical analysis of published evidence, but from a chat he happened to have with Alexander Alland, a cultural anthropologist, who challenges the ‘universal picture’ of children’s drawings offered by experts like Rhoda Kellogg. Alland “finds no evidence for such purportedly ubiquitous elements as mandalas and circles; by the same token, the age norms generally reported bear little resemblance to those uncovered on his own expeditions” (p. 159). What is even more puzzling is that, having apparently accepted that “many generalizations about children’s art seem suspect” and, by implication, that his basic scaffolding is shaky and...