The visual arts as on-field experimentation

Starting from the seminal study by Massironi (2002) on the way in which a temporal dimension is conveyed by means of static images, we develop a general hypothesis, according to which the evolution of the representation of the time course in visual arts is mirrored in the evolution of the concept of time in children, who, according to Piaget (1946), undergo three stages in their ability to conceptualize time. We preliminary tested this hypothesis with an experiment where 40 children (aged 4-7 years old) were presented with the reproduction of two medieval paintings (and the respective line-drawing cartoon versions), which stand, according to our hypothesis, for an intermediate stage in the evolution of art. We hypothesized that only children who are at Piaget’s Stage II of time conceptualization should immediately understand the pictorial representation. Despite the small sample of children examined, results are consistent with the hypothesis. A follow-up on the same children was also run one year later. Results suggest that the study of the visual arts can help to distinguish between the perceptual and the cognitive constraints in the representation of the succession of events, as Massironi suggested.