John Willats
Drawing psychologist
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Willats (died April 2006)[1] was a British psychologist and artist known for his research on pictorial systems of depiction and perspective, which included a taxonomy of the methods of visual projection used by various artists.[2] He was considered an expert on children's drawings and how children develop drawing abilities.[3]
University of Birmingham
Polytechnic of East LondonJohn Willats | |
|---|---|
| Occupations | Psychologist, Sculptor |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Royal College of Art |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | Loughborough University
University of Birmingham Polytechnic of East London |
Biography
Willats studied sculpture at the Royal College of Art. He had degrees in mechanical sciences and psychology. He worked under the supervision of Richard Wollheim at London University.[4] He was teaching sculpture and drawing at Walthamstow School of Art when along with Fred Dubery, he published his first book, Drawing Systems[5] Willats was an Honorary Research Fellow at the Polytechnic of East London[6] and was an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Birmingham.[7] He was a professor at Loughborough University.
In 2000, Willats completed a sculpture celebrating the millennium in a former hometown of Bradford-on-Avon, England. The sculpture is a life-sized representation of a mill girl, known as "Millie", that celebrates the town's history.[8]
Research
In Perspective and other drawing systems (1983), Willats and Dubery defined formal categories for pictorial systems, which they called projection systems.[9][10] Willats posited that people have an innate capability to understand the grammar of pictorial depictions, which is related to Chomsky's theory of universal grammar.[11] In Making sense of children's drawings, Willats proposed that children learn drawing in a manner comparable to language learning, by picking up increasingly complex rules of depiction.[5]
Books
- Dubery, F. & Willats, J. (1972). Drawing systems. Studio Vista.
- Dubery, F. & Willats, J. (1983). Perspective and other drawing systems. The Hubert Press.
- Willats, J. (1997). Art and representation: New principles in the analysis of pictures. Princeton University Press.
- Willats, J. (2006). Making sense of children's drawings. Psychology Press.
Representative papers
- Willats, J. (1977). How children learn to draw realistic pictures. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29(3), 367–382.
- Willats, J. (1981). What do the marks in the picture stand for? The child's acquisition of systems of transformation and denotation. Review of Research in Visual Arts Education, 7(1), 18–33.
- Willats, J. (1987). Marr and pictures: an information-processing account of children's drawings. Archives de Psychologie, 55(213), 105–125.
- Willats, J. (1992). The representation of extendedness in children's drawings of sticks and discs. Child Development, 63(3), 692–710.
- Willats, J., & Durand, F. (2005). Defining pictorial style: Lessons from linguistics and computer graphics. Axiomathes, 15(3), 319–351.