Upodobania obrazowe dzieci w wieku przedczytelniczym w zakresie ilustracji książkowej

Abstract

The subject of child’s perception of visual transmissions being the book illustration is connected with changes in perceiving the world in which we live. The assumption of the very work is a statement that together with one’s changing environment, he/she must also change his/her perception of reality as well as his/her self-perception in this environment. Thus there was an attempt to decide if in case of changing reality a natural perception changes and what is shaped in an individual is a typical one, being the result of a contemporary omnipresent image culture shaping predilections within the scope of perceiving visual images constituting a book illustration. As a result of explorations undertaken the author of the article made an attempt to define preferences of a child these days with reference to visual images constituting illustration for a literary text. The explorations undertaken derived from interests developing on the margin of at least several academic fields and disciplines: sociology, pedagogy, psychology, culture studies, aesthetics, visual communication and visual art, thus theoretical foundations of considerations were implied by the assumptions of such academic disciplines and directions of thought they included. However, a multitude of problems and diversity of overlapping points of view required a specification of the direction of analyses conducted. Hence, all considerations were presented from the perspective of contemporary culture of a visual image, plastic sign and word, as well as book illustration in the context of child’s predilections. Although the research problem dealt with, in view of references to several disciplines of knowledge, is a complex phenomenon and far from clear-cut decisions, the author’s intention was to combine many motifs from theoretical knowledge and research actions in order to find out what to do in order to make an illustration in a literary book for the youngest reader treated as a visual image/plastic realization and in accordance with his/her preferences, and constitute a space for shaping sensitivity to real values in overaestheticised reality permeated by multitude and diversity of culture texts. The publication opens with deliberations on visual culture, illustrating its polysemic nature and highlighting the phenomenon of iconicity referred to image formation. Subsequent chapters concern the explication of the notion of image in the context of the means of conveying narration and aesthetic experience as well as the phenomenon of perception of visual transmissions in the form of a plastic image. Further on, an interdisciplinary nature of the notion of sign was presented and the phenomenon of image and word from the point of view of visual reality was described. Also, an attempt was made to describe an illustrative image in a literary book for a child receiver. Basic visual qualities of the illustration, its functions and tasks in books for readers at the pre-reading age were presented and child image preferences in terms of a book illustration in the light of studies and analyses conducted so far were discussed. The research part presents the theoretical-methodological conception of the research as well as image preferences of the youngest readers on the basis of subjective child choices received in the explorations under investigation. Thus, a description of child reader predilections for a book illustration was made on account of the areas of image realization and dominants of imaging with reference to the image plan and the analysis of verbal motivation of the valorization of drawing, painting and graphic illustrations in a subjective perspective of a child at a pre-reading age was presented. Such a perspective allowed for noticing general regularities in the sphere of child image preferences and constituted a basis for working out both a frame illustration profile in a literary book for a child reader and implications for educational practices.