The U-curve going Dutch: Cultural differences in judgements of artwork from different age and expertise groups

The U-curve model of graphic development posits a decline in aesthetic production in middle childhood. This theoretical model has been criticized for having an underlying Western and modernist bias and a number of empirical studies have tried to confirm or disprove its assumptions. This study is a partial replication of previous research that was done to challenge U-curve findings in order to show that the model reflects cultural-specific aesthetic judgements, rather than universal trends. To demonstrate this, artists and art educators from different cultural backgrounds judged a cross-cultural collection of drawings by children from different age groups (5-, 8-, 11- and 14-year-olds), adult non-artists and artists. The results indicate that differences in the cultural background of the judges generated different developmental patterns in aesthetic production.