Development of understanding of popular graphic art: A study of everyday aesthetics in children, adolescents, and young adults

Aesthetic development, having cognitive, social, and emotional aspects, is both complex and under-researched. To extend recent qualitative studies, the present paper reports a systematic and quantitative examination of age- and education-related differences in responses to a range of popular pictorial art. A total of 100 participants, ranging in age from 4 to 25 years, were asked to comment on examples of each of five genres: abstract, fine, modern, humorous, and cartoon art. Nine categories of response were identified; although most responses fell into the four categories of colour, subject matter, expression, and medium. The substantial age-related differences found in participants' responses to art were similar across all genres, and only art students responded in substantially different ways to different art genres. Analysis of the correlations among these age- and education-related differences suggests that development of aesthetic understanding is branching and multidirectional rather than stage-like, and heavily determined by individual interests and experience.