ABSTRACT
The human image can arise in two different ways: depicting an internal representation, and copying a model. In child development, it is well known that younger children depict what they know, whereas older children depict what they see (Huth 2003: 36). All people form an internal idea of what a human person should look like, what the main criteria of a person are, where the landmarks of the body are situated and which relationships they have with each other. The internal representation is normally schematic and abstract (Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Sütterlin 2007: 56-58). Experimental studies with the Eipo in West Papua during the contact period, who were not used to seeing or producing human images, confirmed these principles. Upon being asked to depict a human, a man who had been asked to depict a woman and a boy asked to depict a man used the same principles: they drew a vertical line representing the body axis and then marked eyes, mouth and ears along the top of the axis. Arms and legs were represented as lines coming off the vertical line with five additional lines representing hands and feet. In addition, both added marks and symbols along the body axes to detail the identity of the depicted person: breasts, belt and the pubic region for the woman; arm bands, calves and a loincloth for the male individual (Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Sütterlin 2007: 58, fig. 56). With this kind of representation, the artists do not take notice of people in the immediate vicinity and do not compare the images to the real world.
