Are large drawings signs of psychological expansion or effects of drawing skills? A critical evaluation of Wartegg drawing size categories in a Finnish sample

Soilevuo Grønnerød, J. & Grønnerød, C. (2010). Are large drawings signs of psychological expansion or effects of drawing skills? A critical evaluation of Wartegg drawing size categories in a Finnish sample. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 51, 63–67. In the Wartegg Drawing Completion Test, drawings which are larger than the norm size are interpreted as signs of the personality trait of expansion. The popular handbook by Wass and Mattlar (2000) includes a graphic presentation of the size norms. We scored 351 test blankets into the size categories small, normal and large following these norms. Only 14% of the drawings fitted into the category of normal size, while 13% were small and 73% were large. We also evaluated the test blankets according to drawing ability into five categories and found a high correlation between large size and drawing ability. The results show a need to re‐evaluate the direct link between large size and expansion, as well as a need to modify the size norms.     

Bazin,an Early Late Modernist

This article argues that there are inflections of modernism in André Bazin's realist aesthetics and that he should be considered an early champion of post–World War II modernism in cinema. Within classical film theory, which took its point of departure in the silent cinema era, modernism is taken to be incompatible with realism. Moreover, both modernism and realism are seen to rely on the principle of medium specificity in this context, whereas Bazin argued that aesthetic progress in cinema is intrinsically related to the medium's capability to be impure. Recently, we have seen several attempts at connecting Bazin's aesthetics with high‐modernism in the visual arts. However, I argue that it is more instructive to focus on their differences. This comparison is relevant for developing a deeper understanding of the form of modernism at stake in Bazin's aesthetics, especially when it comes to the question of the spectator's role in the constitution of meaning. Furthermore, Bazin's proto‐modernist aesthetics must be discussed with an eye to his ardent support of what he considered a new avant‐garde in narrative cinema and his lasting, but often misunderstood, interest in ambiguity as an aesthetic category.