Areas of Comparison

Abstract

We had to rely on children’s drawings even for our analyses of the simplest scribblings. Their relationships to our material are not to be reduced to a formula. There can be no doubts about the similarities in the portrayals of the human figure, which is so often chosen as an object of comparison, but this similarity has nothing to do with mental illness, only with inexpertness. Untrained adults also by and large draw childishly. For us, however, realistic depiction, which is dependent on numerous hardly controllable factors, is less fascinating than the kind of objectless, unordered scribblings on which very little research has been done. The only work which asks the same question we do is the one by Krötzsch, Rhythmus und Form in der freien Kinderzeichnung (Rhythm and Form in Free Drawing by Children).³⁴We have some conceptual and terminological reservations about this book, but at least Krötzsch takes drawing for his starting point and studies the rhythmic progress of strokes, which are at first simply the expression of the psyche before they are subordinated to any other aim. His investigation is not determined by methodology; he knows from the start what is important. He describes the artistic development of children as follows. At the beginning there is simply the joy of movement, followed by the joy at the appearance of lines. Slowly the rhythm, at first rather generous, becomes more refined. No definite forms are intended yet, nor are existing ones interpreted. The first attempts at naming have nothing to do with similarities but use accidentally known words. Only when the world is mastered verbally does form become the bearer of certain concepts, and only then do children look for similarities. They discover complete forms, objects begin to predominate, and the scribbling stage is concluded. The free moving rhythm is consequently changed into the movement of writing, copying, and decorating. This development took place rather rapidly in the particular child under analysis, ending in his third year. The observations of Krötzsch, which are crucial for us, refer to the state of “diminished consciousness” which expresses itself equally in children and adults, namely as a regression into the early stage of childhood. Once again rhythmic movement is dominant and we observe the repression of form, the interpretation of similarities, and the surfacing of an intention to give form which, however, is again submerged or broken off in rhythm. “An absence or weakness of the will and tiredness express themselves in the playful paintings by the strong predominance of a rhythm of movement without formal configuration. Continual appearances of movement rhythms without a will to the composition of forms or continual deflection from formal configuration into movement rhythms indicate an inner disturbance.”