A arte como expressão na infância: uma abordagem psicológica

Abstract

This dissertation takes as its starting point the theories of authors in the field of psychology (chapters 1 and 2), such as Jean Piaget, Carl Jung and Lev Vygotsky, investigating the main ideas about cognitive and personality development in children. Then, the concepts of children's artistic and aesthetic development are explored (chapter 3), based on the theories of Viktor Lowenfeld and Abigail Housen. The intention, in this part, is to understand the different moments of child development processes from the mentioned domains. Based on these psychological theories, we approach some of the main artistic movements of the 19th and 20th century avant-gardes and, in particular, naïve art, in the field of art history (chapter 4). The purpose is to understand these artistic movements, most focused on naïve art, from the psychological knowledge and stages of child development. This dissertation concludes with a case study (chapter 5), using two children of the same age in order to apply and test the theories analyzed. This case study is based on an instrument that enables the analysis of the child's cognitive level in the aesthetic and artistic domains, based on the theories of Lowenfeld & Brittain and Housen. The practical application reinforced the importance of these studies, demonstrating that some characteristics of the children's universe may be present in works of art from different artistic movements. The objective of this dissertation was to investigate the importance of psychological studies as an instrument to develop a better understanding in the fields of history and criticism of art. Psychological theories not only allowed us to understand the movement of naïve art in a different light, but also to analyze its most representative works of art in a different depth, and propose a potential application.