Differences Shown In Children’s Art

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 2

Differences Shown In Children’s Art

Young children use a universal method when they first begin to use paints but when they are older they are more discerning and they are influenced by their own surroundings, Miss M. Ruddle, senior art supervisor for the Canterbury Education Department, told the monthly meeting of the Japan Society.

Many of the 100 paintings by the Japanese children aged 11 and 12, which were displayed in the Robert McDougall Art Gallery were very different from work by New Zealand children of the

same age, said Miss Ruddle. Members of the Japan Society had viewed the exhibition earlier in the evening. Miss Ruddle said that she had noticed that the children had been directed to a large number of different’ materials and different media. In this respect they were more fortunate than the children in New Zealand of the same age.

Although some of the paintings, such as the one entitled “Circus” which showed stick men watching a circus, still used “universal schema” and could have been painted by any child—most of the paintings showed certain noticeable characteristics.

In the subject matter, there was an enormous emphasis on industry whereas in New Zealand the emphasis would be on landscape. The Japanese children had used a terrific amount of detail and decoration, far more than New Zealand children. Their emphasis was on subtle colouring, which was more attractive than the colouring in the six paintings by New Zealand children of the same age which Miss Ruddle produced for comparison. There was also a discernible emphasis on outdoor sketching. Many of the paintings were so similar, that it was clear that they were painted from the same scene, “The children had obviously been taken to the factory or the railway yards for their art lesson.”

Literacy Drive.—All illiterate prisoners serving sentences of more than six months in West Pakistan are to be taught to read and .write.—Lahore.