WEDNESDAY: An Artwork Analysis

A few weeks ago, my cousin came to my house holding a piece of paper. Curious, I asked what it was but he turned in embarassment. After some persuasion, however, I was able to take this drawing off him.

William Zhang. 'Young Boy about to Hit a Tree.' 

c. 2010 Crayon on paper. 30cm × 42cm (11.7 in x 16.5 in)

I see nothing here to be embarassed about. This artwork is an aesthetic triumph far beyond the range of any average six-year-old. In an attempt to dissect its brilliance, I will analyse this artwork, section by section.

Firstly we have the artist's representation of the Sun. He switches to warm primary colours that contrast with his well-chosen artistic medium (blue and white printing paper). The sun is a traditional symbol of life-giving and here, it can be taken to represent the parental figures of the artist's life. While there is softness here in the gently swirling colours, there is a tone of aggression, with the sharp, angled light rays. It seems the artist is making a poignant statement about being the child of parents who can be loving, yet harsh. Perhaps he has the troubled mind of a child who has been spanked by mummy one too many times.

Here, we have the artist's depiction of a house. Striking, at first, is the stunning minimalism. The house has only a door, a bed, a chimney and some stairs. There is charming childish innocence at work here. After all, what more does a house need than a door to enter, a place to rest, and a few homely touches. Yet the genius of this image comes from the artist's mischievous manipulations of perspective. He has chosen to draw it in lead pencil, placing it firmly in the background and giving an illusion of depth. More alarming though is the fact that both walls of the house are visible. This distortion of perspective adds a touch of cubism. By placing it within the otherwise realist framework of his painting, he is perhaps parodying this old concept, giving it again the feeling of avant-garde it once afforded.

Finally we have this curious figure (we shall call him 'the skater'), who appears to express fear as he is about to collide with a tree. One thing I did not point out in the house-drawing was the letter 'Z' arranged in a drifting pattern above his body. Here, he repeats this with the letter 'A' bursting out of the the skater with the addition of two more lines to emphasise noise.

Will Eisner once commented that the distinction between words and images is arbitrary. We see this concept demonstrated here, where words are used as abstract visual symbols of noise. Another clever abstract device is the smudging of the crayon to suggest movement. One could be forgiven for pointing out that this is a very basic visual language feature; but remember, the artist is only six years old.

A perplexing decision here is the use of the colour red. It could be argued that the artist simply did not have flesh-coloured crayons available and made do with his favourite colour. However, if this were the case it would be far more appropriate to swap red for orange, which is closer to skin colour.

So is this an artistic failure of the artist? I think not. As I stated before, red is most likely is favourite colour and as such, the skater serves as an avatar of the artist; a projection of who he would like to be. This becomes clear when we think of the qualities of this skater. He is reckless, daring and about to get into a whole lot of trouble. Is this not, after all, what all young boys aspire to be?

The overall effect of this artwork is transformative yet humbling. With rudimentary visual devices, the artist has put so much of himself in to this drawing, one can only speculate on the hidden depths within this visionary six-year-old boy. After seeing the world through the eyes of a pure unblemished child, we cannot help but to look to our own lives with a fresh, revitalising perspective. To my dearest cousin, I thank you for your art and I wish you the very best for your future artistic pursuits.