Preschool Children's Understanding and Perception of Illustrations of Picture Books

Beauty and aesthetics are the most controversial issues in philosophy and art calling for new ideas and challenging the old ones. However, texts show that adults are more concerned with aesthetics than children.  The present article has tried to inquire the validity of the above-mentioned claim in childhood and in childhood experiences simultaneously. Thereby, we are concerned with children’s aesthetic perception of pictures drawn by picture book illustrators. This article falls within qualitative paradigm and the sampling method is based on maximum variation sampling strategy. The data collection method is based on deep and semi-structural interviews with children. The analyzing method is content analysis. Finally, content analysis showed that not only children can consider subject matter, they can identify all visual elements (such as color, emotion, act, size, texture, background color) in pictures and they consider a specific hierarchy to judge a picture.