Enfance, art, modernite et postmodernite

Abstract

This paper concerns the relational, educational, aesthetic, «democratic» impact of situations which, tending to become widespread in numerous countries by the world, place more and more the children «near artists» on the occasion of artists’ residences settled in schools or in educational centres. The study presents a double, historical and philosophical, dimension. Modernity and post modernity meaning is determined. The historical approach calls back the stages of the discovery of «the childhood feeling» that the Middle Ages had let dissolved (by the way, the art appears as one of the supports of this discovery). Criticizing the Chidhood new sociologists post modern positions, the philosophical approach reveals –in the considered aesthetic situations– a tension between the child/artist «equal to equal» relationship (possible illustration of post modern principle of symmetry) and the preservation of the adult artist peculiarity (condition of possibility of education, in a modern sense). The «near artists» child experience brings an interesting possibility in creating a new normativity (that of art making).