Abstract :
The general developmental changes observed in human figure drawings of modernday
young children in western societies are reviewed in this paper. Differences in
style over historical time and in other societies throw doubt on the notion of a fixed
and universal pattern of development. Even so, children’s drawings seem to become
more westernised as schooling has spread to more and more remote, rural societies.
In Australia, however, the Warlpiri Aboriginal people have continued to use their
traditional pictorial symbols in their paintings, sand drawings and school books;
Warlpiri school-children use and develop both the indigenous and the westernised
styles of drawing.
