What does a baby see?
What Does a Baby see?
Because I am taking care of my grandson on a regular basis, I've gotten to think about what he sees through his big bright eyes. He notices everything, even the smallest detail, but doesn't have the mental filing cabinet we have, to categorize what he sees. At 19 months, the world must be an endless stream of attractions and interesting places, faces and brightly colored objects. He does respond to the primary colors, which is why baby things are so often made in those hues. Perhaps a sign of toddler maturity is that he is showing more interest in intricate things, sometimes in more muted colors.
I've been wondering how he is seeing the world around him and what he does to interpret it without a whole lifetime's worth of experience. Maybe he sees the truth of things without preconceptions, without knowing that some things are considered "beautiful " and other things are "ugly". He just looks and sees things as they appear in his visual cortex without judgement.
Imagine if we looked at the world in the same way. We would see what is, not what we're supposed to see or not see.
Later, he'll develop that filing cabinet and the societal judgements of beauty. He has already learned that some things are dangerous, like hot things or sharp things. He has learned there are objects that are not toys, but things adults don't want him to have. Naturally, he wants those objects even more!
From an artist's point of view, I'm curious about the way he sees. Does he see the difference in marks that a red crayon makes as opposed to a blue one? I know he understands that crayons are powerful as a way of expressing something. If you press it onto the paper, you can make marks that match what you're feeling and that's a new experience! Perhaps those early marks are the way art originally developed. The excitement of making a mark that didn't exist before, and now it's something real. A line, a scribble, a new expression!
I approach Art these days in a similar way. I turn off, as much as possible, the decades of judgement and indoctrination of what's pretty and what's not, the idea that there are "proper" subjects to paint or draw. I'm pretty sure that a young child doesn't look at the world like an adult.
To that child, everything is interesting. I do detect slight preferences, for instance in the way he responds to a flower. His eyes open wider, and he reaches for the bloom tentatively, as if he knows it is fragile. He doesn't show the same reverence for the TV remote, however. So, there is evidence of picking and choosing, a sense of delicacy and wonder versus the more emphatic grab for the remote. He may have picked some of this up from us adults, but I like to think he sees a big difference between the two.
Watching my grandson has shown me a way of seeing, without quickly putting things into files that sort them into good and bad, instead, I just focus on the wonder of what is.
Because I am taking care of my grandson on a regular basis, I've gotten to think about what he sees through his big bright eyes. He notices everything, even the smallest detail, but doesn't have the mental filing cabinet we have, to categorize what he sees. At 19 months, the world must be an endless stream of attractions and interesting places, faces and brightly colored objects. He does respond to the primary colors, which is why baby things are so often made in those hues. Perhaps a sign of toddler maturity is that he is showing more interest in intricate things, sometimes in more muted colors.
I've been wondering how he is seeing the world around him and what he does to interpret it without a whole lifetime's worth of experience. Maybe he sees the truth of things without preconceptions, without knowing that some things are considered "beautiful " and other things are "ugly". He just looks and sees things as they appear in his visual cortex without judgement.
Imagine if we looked at the world in the same way. We would see what is, not what we're supposed to see or not see.
Later, he'll develop that filing cabinet and the societal judgements of beauty. He has already learned that some things are dangerous, like hot things or sharp things. He has learned there are objects that are not toys, but things adults don't want him to have. Naturally, he wants those objects even more!
From an artist's point of view, I'm curious about the way he sees. Does he see the difference in marks that a red crayon makes as opposed to a blue one? I know he understands that crayons are powerful as a way of expressing something. If you press it onto the paper, you can make marks that match what you're feeling and that's a new experience! Perhaps those early marks are the way art originally developed. The excitement of making a mark that didn't exist before, and now it's something real. A line, a scribble, a new expression!
I approach Art these days in a similar way. I turn off, as much as possible, the decades of judgement and indoctrination of what's pretty and what's not, the idea that there are "proper" subjects to paint or draw. I'm pretty sure that a young child doesn't look at the world like an adult.
To that child, everything is interesting. I do detect slight preferences, for instance in the way he responds to a flower. His eyes open wider, and he reaches for the bloom tentatively, as if he knows it is fragile. He doesn't show the same reverence for the TV remote, however. So, there is evidence of picking and choosing, a sense of delicacy and wonder versus the more emphatic grab for the remote. He may have picked some of this up from us adults, but I like to think he sees a big difference between the two.
Watching my grandson has shown me a way of seeing, without quickly putting things into files that sort them into good and bad, instead, I just focus on the wonder of what is.
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