given, may be put one above the other as well as one by the side of the other, and both arrangements occur in the drawings of the same child. And much later, when greater attention to position is observable, there is a general tendency to put the group of features too high up—i. e., to make the forehead or brain region too small in proportion to the chin region (see Fig. 2).[1]
The want of proportion is still more plainly seen in the treatment of the several features. The eye, as already remarked, is apt to be absurdly large. In the drawing of Mr. Cooke's little girl, mentioned above, it is actually larger than the head outside which it lies. This enlargement continues to appear frequently in later drawings, more particularly when one eye only is introduced, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy in his seventh year (Fig. 5 a, and Fig. 4, b). The mouth is apt to be even more disproportionate, the child appearing to delight in making this appalling feature supreme, as in the following examples, both by
Fig. 5.
boys of five (Fig. 5, b and c). The ear, when it is added, is apt to be enormous, and generally the introduction of new details, as ears, hair, hands, is wont to be emphasized by an exaggeration of their magnitude.
Very interesting is the gradual artistic evolution of the features. Here, as in organic evolution, there is a process of specialization, the primordial indefinite form taking on more of characteristic complexity. In the case of the eye, for example, we may often trace a gradual development, the dot being displaced by a small circle or ovoid, this last supplemented by a second circle outside the first,[2] or by one or by two arches, the former placed above, the latter above and below the circle.
- ↑ M. Passy calls attention to this in his interesting note on children's drawings, Revue Philosophique, 1891, pp. 614 ff. I find, however, that though the error is a common one, it is not constant.
- ↑ In one case I find the curious device of two dots or small circles, one above the other within a larger circle, and this form repeated in the eye of animals.
