Art for children

"Art is the signature of civilizations." — Beverly Sills

Every now and then, one starts looking for causes of general insensitivity to art, or ignorance of it, among ourselves. And almost always one begins to wonder if, among other things, something is not amiss with the manner in which we approach, or do not approach, the subject of art with children, whether at home or in school. For that, truly speaking, is where it must all begin: at a young and impressionable age when minds are still open and curiosity at its keenest.

And yet, what we most often do is either to attach no importance at all to the role that art can play in fashioning lives and enriching them, or enter that world in so perfunctory and stodgy a manner that minds remain untouched and art begins to feel like a burden to be carried. The result? Whole generations — coarse and unfeeling — are growing up for whom art holds no excitement, culture opens no vistas.

The pity of it is that there is remarkably little thinking that we do on the subject. At least in our own land. Or else, by now, meaningful approaches would have been developed, perhaps even a sizeable body of literature produced. True that after a heavy dragging of feet some art was introduced (‘smuggled in’ might be the right word) in some course books in schools, but what children learn from them are dry, cliched statements about a few objects.

And everyone learns the same stereotyped things about the same few objects, so as to be able to reproduce these in answer books.`A0True also that one might discern on the horizon an occasional spark of interest in the subject of art and children — a learned seminar, a conference of a few concerned minds — but not a fraction of what needs to be done is being done. Art remains on the periphery of awareness, essentially an alien theme.

I know that the situation is materially different elsewhere, having seen for myself museums all over the world working honest-mindedly towards bringing art to life for the young, and having heard the buzz of excited conversations as parents guide their children through packed galleries. It is against this background that I was suddenly drawn the other day to a volume that lay in the bookshelf of my daughter whom I was visiting in Switzerland. How to Talk to Children about Art was the title. Written originally in French by Francoise Barbie-Gall, and translated into English, it is certainly not the only book on the subject, and I could see that it addresses itself only to the art of painting and that too in the western context.

But within its carefully defined ambit, it had something of great interest to offer, and had things that one could learn from. For one thing, the structure of the book to begin with. "The aim of this book", the author states at the outset, "is to help people who enjoy paintings and wish to share that enjoyment and talk about it with their children, but don’t really know how to go about it. The idea is simply to provide a few pointers. It assumes no previous artistic or historical knowledge, or teaching experience. It is not an art history textbook...". That, for me, is a good beginning.

From this point onwards, Francoise proceeds to share, and not instruct, with parents and children her own perceptions as to how to approach the subject. She sees children of different age groups having different interests or levels of curiosity: Those from the ages of five to seven like bright colours, for instance, strongly contrasting shapes, pictures of people and movement, clear expression of emotion, and so on. Those between eight and 10 years respond more to pictures with a story behind them, situations of conflict where good triumphs over evil, clearly drawn character types, images depicting daily life etc. And those from 11 to 13 years show interest in the artist’s personality, the illusion of depth, the technique used by the artists, the time it takes to complete a picture, symbols, comparisons, prices and the like.

Based upon these groupings, the author reminds parents and teachers about what not to forget while sharing works with children: that some stories need to be brought in, including those of the artists, that some pictures embarrass children, that visual reference points from daily life need to be established. Some basics are explained: what, for instance, are portraits, landscapes, mythological or religious pictures, allegories. But everything is done in an easy, accessible manner: no preaching, no high grounds to be taken, no shying away from saying ‘I do not know’, etc. And the writing is fluent, almost racy.

Finally, the book has some 30-odd famous paintings on which very perceptive notes are given, anticipating what might interest the children, what questions they might ask, how to relate the world of art with the world around ourselves.

There are some finely worded statements about how an artist "edits" nature and natural appearances, for instance, or how a contemporary work is often not an end in itself but something like a stage, a moment: "like a word in the middle of a sentence, or a stone in a wall". Things like what role frames play in paintings, why painters sometimes leave pictures untitled, are brought in to impact the understanding of things. This is meaningful, exciting stuff.

One of the pictures brought in — the famous painting of two laundresses by Edgar Degas (1884) — can serve as an example of what kind of questions can be asked by children about this work, and answers are suggested: not as definitive statements but as the direction in which to go. Questions range from "Why are they not using machines or are yawning?" to "Why did Degas paint them if they did not pay for the work?" to as sharp a question as "Why doesn’t the paint cover the whole canvas?" or "Why does the picture look unfinished?" Gently, very gently, one gets deeper and deeper into the picture. And a different world begins to unfold before the young mind.

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