Child art

Child art is the drawings, paintings and other artistic works created by children. It is also referred to as "children's art" or the "art of children".

In its primary sense the term was created by Franz Cižek (1865–1946) in the 1890s.

The term "child art" also has a parallel and different usage in the world of contemporary fine art, where it refers to a subgenre of artists who depict children in their works.

Third connotation of "child art" implies art intended for viewing by children, say illustrations in a book for juvenile readers. Such art could be done by a child or a professional adult illustrator.

Premises for understanding of importance of art for children were laid by J.-J. Rousseau (1712–78), J.H. Pestalozzi (1746–1827), John Ruskin (1819–1900), and Herbert Spencer (1820–1903).

Agenda of art education for children was discussed at the International Conference of Education 1884, held in London at the Health Exhibition. The discussion framework was largely shaped by the widespread of schools of design for professional training of children and youth in the UK, beginning from 1852. Some of the conference participants underlined importance of creativity, imaginations and special methodology for development of children's artistic skills.Ebenezer Cooke (1837–1913) has pointed out that "if a child follows its bent and draws animals its own way, in action, and repeats them, outlines them, and colours them too, he will produce a drawing which may be comparable to the archaic period of more than one historic school." The proceedings of the conference, ed. by E. Cooke, were issued in the 1885–86 Journal of Education, published by the Society for the Development of the Science of Education.

First European exhibition of drawings by children was organized by Robert Ablett (1848–1945) in London, 1890. The first collection of 1250 children's drawing and sculpture pieces was assembled by (1858–1934), an Italian art historian.

Aesthetic appreciation of children's art as untainted by adult influence was extolled by Franz Cižek, who called a child's drawing "a marvelous and precious document". Discovery of the aesthetic quality of the unskilled visual expression by children was related to the aesthetics of modernism and, in case of Cižek, to the Vienna Secession.

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