INNOCENCE AND CORRUPTION - CONFLICTING IMAGES OF CHILD ART

For more than a century, theoretical discussion of child art within ps ychology, education, and art history has been largely structured by tw o schemas of innocence and corruption. Each appeals to a conception of a pure mode of vision, yet in two contrasting ways. The visionary sch ema dismisses linear perspective as a perversion by the adult culture of the child's imaginative vision. The perceptual schema regards persp ectival art as the one natural mode of representation, and the distinc tive art of the child as the sign of early corruption. Furthermore, de spite their contrasting emphases, their conflicting ideals of art are equally and essentially anti-developmental and anti-historical. This p aper traces the careers of these schemas, and their influence upon and paradoxical relation to the recent literature, including the most wid ely held account of the artistic achievements of autistic children and the claims of experimental researchers that young children are capabl e of drawing in perspective. The paper closes by drawing attention to Luquet, an early theorist widely associated with the schema of percept ual innocence, yet whose work has been radically misinterpreted. It is argued that Luquet was, in fact, beginning to define a new theoretica l space beyond each of these conflicting and highly problematic schema s of innocence.