Studies of childhood / by James Sully.

  • James Sully
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Studies of childhood / by James Sully. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    362/544 (page 350)
    After the trunk has been added, the mode of insertion varies still more. In a not inconsiderable number of cases the arms spring from the bottom of the head-circle, and sometimes even from the median region, as before the trunk appeared {cf. above, p. 346, Fig. 14 {b)). In the last case the most grotesque arrangements occur, as if the arms might sprout at any point of the surface,^ In the majority of cases, however, and certainly among the better drawings, the arms spring from the side of the trunk towards the median level {cf. above, p. 341, Fig. 6 {a)). The length of the arm is frequently exaggerated. This adds to the self-expansive and self-proclamatory look of the mannikin, as may be seen in the accompanying drawings by boys of five and of six respectively (Fig. 20 {d) and [b)). This arrangement of the arms stretched straight out, or less commonly pointing obliquely upwards or downwards, continues until the child grows bold enough to represent actions. When this stage is reached their form and length may be materially modified, as also their position.^ 1 The tendency which appears in more than one child's drawings to put the right arm below the left is worth noting, though I am not prepared to offer an explanation of the phenomenon. On the treatment of the arm, see Perez, op. cit., p. 190: cf. Ricci, op. cit, pp. 6-8. I have met with no case of the arms being attached to the legs such as Stanley Hall speaks of, Contents of Children's Minds, p. 267.