你去朋友家做客，冰箱上貼著小孩的涂鴉。你可能看不太懂畫的是什么，但千萬不要以為小孩們沒有想法。不要小瞧他們的一個點、一條線、一個圓，他們的畫是很多抽象畫大師的啟蒙。繪畫也是孩子自我表達的途徑：畫中有莫扎特，畫中有安徒生，每幅畫都是他們想象的后花園。

By Isabel Fattal 柒月 選注

A parent might place his daughter’s tadpole drawing on the fridge out of a love for his child rather than for the funky-looking image, but for many people, that tadpole art is actually quite exquisite. In fact, adult abstract artists were often inspired by children’s drawing. Observers have found similar patterns in modern abstract art and kids’ drawing; one example is the “X-ray” drawing, or a drawing in which the “inside” of a person is made visible (like a baby shown inside a woman’s stomach). For the museum-goers out there who tend to point to a piece of modern art and say, “My kid could have made that!” it’s worth remembering that often, that’s actually just what the artist had in mind.

Lucky accident or artistic prodigy, acknowledging that young kids aren’t as intent on producing a realistic rendering helps demonstrate what the drawing experience means to them. For many kids, drawing is exhilarating not because of the final product it leads to, but because they can live completely in the world of their drawing for a few minutes. Adults may find it hard to relate to this sort of full-body, fleeting experience. But the opportunities for self-expression that drawing provide have important, even therapeutic, value for kids.

Even simple scribbles are meaningful. Now it’s been shown that when children are scribbling, they’re representing through action, not through pictures. Liane Alves, a prekindergarten teacher, recalled a student who presented her with a drawing featuring a single straight line across the page. Alves assumed the child hadn’t given too much thought to the drawing until he proceeded to explain that the line was one of the mattresses from The Princess and the Pea, one of the fairy tales they read in class.

Maureen Ingram, who’s a preschool teacher at the same school, said her students often tell different stories about a given piece of art depending on the day, perhaps because they weren’t sure what they intended to draw when they started the picture. “We as adults will often say, ‘I’m going to draw a horse,’ and we set out... and get frustrated when we can’t do it,” Ingram said. “They seem to take a much more sane approach, where they just draw, and then they realize, ‘it is a horse.’”

Ultimately, what may be most revealing about kids’ art isn’t the art itself but what they say during the drawing process. They’re often telling stories that offer a much clearer window into their world than does the final product. Asking them what their drawing is “supposed to be” wouldn’t yield as many answers, either; some have even argued that kids might be naming their work because they’re used to the ritual of their teachers asking them to describe their drawing and then writing a short title on the piece of paper. Studies suggest that kids will create an elaborate narrative while drawing, but when telling adults about their work they’ll simply name the items or characters in the image.

And what about those odd or scary-looking drawings? Does that mean kids are telling themselves stories that are odd or scary?

It’s hard to say, but it’s rarely a good idea to over-interpret it. Ellen Winner, a psychology professor at Boston College, pointed to parents who worry when their kid draws a child the same size as the adults, wondering whether she’s suffering from, say, a feeling of impotence —a desire to feel as powerful as older people. But the likely reason is that the child hasn’t yet learned how to differentiate size in his or her representation; the easiest solution is to just make all the figures the same size.

What’s most important to remember is that “children’s art has its own logic,” Winner said. “Children are not being crazy.”

Vocabulary

1. scribble: 亂涂亂畫。

2. 一個家長可能會把他女兒的蝌蚪畫貼在冰箱上，這是出于對孩子的愛，而不是因為畫本身有多獨特。但是對于很多人來說，這幅畫確實是一件相當棒的藝術品。tadpole: 蝌蚪；funky: 獨特的；exquisite: 精美的。

3. 對于那些經(jīng)常去博物館參觀，并且總愛指著一幅現(xiàn)代藝術作品說“我家孩子也會這樣畫”的人來說，我們需要記住的是，創(chuàng)作這幅作品的藝術家心里其實也是這么想的。goer: 常去……的人。

4. 無論是巧合還是藝術上的奇跡，承認孩子們并非要制造現(xiàn)實的翻版可以幫助我們了解繪畫對于他們來說到底意味著什么。prodigy: 奇跡；rendering: 翻譯，表現(xiàn)，realistic rendering是“對于現(xiàn)實的翻譯或再呈現(xiàn)”，這里指孩子的畫加入了很多想象成分，并不是基于真實的描繪。

5. exhilarating: [?ɡ'z?l?ret??] 令人愉快的。

6. relate to: 了解，有共鳴；fleeting: 短暫的，轉瞬即逝的。

7. therapeutic: 治療的，治愈性的。

8. prekindergarten: 進幼兒園前的。

9. mattress: 床墊；“The Princess and the Pea”: 《豌豆公主》，出自安徒生童話。

10. revealing: 有啟迪作用的，揭示秘密的。

11. yield: 產生；ritual: 慣例。

12. impotence: 虛弱，無力。

13. differentiate: 區(qū)分，辨別。

(來源：英語學習雜志 編輯：董靜)