THEIR EYES MEETING THE WORLD
by By Coles, Robert and Sartor, Margaret
Category: Psychology , General

"When I recall all those pictures I have seen drawn (and discussed), I am reminded, yet again, how earnestly and strenuously children struggle to comprehend the world, to seek out its beauties and mysteries and terrors."For more than three decades, the renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles has investigated the inner lives of children through their expressive words and pictures. His beautiful and revealing new book - his first devoted entirely to children's drawings - distills his insights into the ways children from all over the world disclose their deepest convictions, feelings, and dreams with crayon, paint, and pencil.The fifty full-color drawings in Their Eyes Meeting the World were created by boys and girls under ten from richly diverse backgrounds. Here is artwork by children urban and rural, Christian and Jewish and Muslim, children from the United States and from various other nations. In the company of Dr. Coles, we meet Helen, a ten-year-old dying of leukemia, and Ruby, the sole black child in a newly desegregated school. These are children who draw with profound seriousness and passion, and from their pictures Dr. Coles sensitively interprets what matters most in their lives, always attentive to the influence of race, class, region, and historical moment. Most important, he uses the visual worlds children represent to gain entry into their moral, religious, and spiritual lives.It was the poet-physician William Carlos Williams who offered the wisdom that guides Robert Coles's observations of children. "Look at them, looking," he gently advised, "their eyes meeting the world." In place of abstract analysis, Dr. Coles relies on the concreteness of art; he demonstrates with empathy and respect how eloquently children can use color and form to speak from the heart, mind, and soul.