RoR: Forum

Still checking out this web site. To correct myself, she is not being fed anything. Here are some biographical facts from her website:

"Born underwater at home, on July 9, 1994, in Mount Morris, Illinois, to the atheistic stay-at-home Lithuanian homemaker mother, and an American father, culinary arts instructor, chef and dietary manager."

"At 4, had a life-changing spiritual
transformation, converting the family to Christianity."

Even more strange.

Post 1

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 6:52am

First, the postive. What a pretty little girl. And what fabulous, gorgeous, unbelievable painting. I am always floored by young kids with talent like this--hell, even adults like this. And there seems to be little doubt that talent like this can be in-born. Most artists have a flair and then develop their talent. For a child to be born with and talent like this, well, it is a wonderful accident of nature.

As for a 4 year old converting an atheistic family, eh, bullshit. Somebody fed this little girl religious junk, which she is parrotting.

Post 2

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 9:26am

Look at the paintings very closely, especially "prince of peace". There is great skill involved, subtlety regarding light and shadow, a careful study of what a face looks like. It takes years for a child to get from the finger painting stage to that. And some of the paintings show an adult grasp of psychology and character.

No eight-year old child painted them.

(The motives of whatever adult pawned this scam off are pretty obvious: money, publicity, child-touched-by-the-hand-of-God propaganda for their religion.)

Phil

PS, Child prodigies are possible, but usually in such areas as memory, mathematics, music. But not in the areas which require detailed knowledge of man, emotions, "the humanities". The reason is that you can't force feed or single-mindedly accelerate the vast integration needed....as you can quantitative or musical or memory areas.

Post 3

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 10:26am

Are you then suggesting creating music is easier than painting?

Post 4

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 10:39am

What of all the stories of the great composers writing operas and symphonies while still aged in single digits? Hootenanny?

Post 5

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 10:59am

Well, it's easy enough to prove, unless she does all her paintings behind locked doors...

Post 6

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 12:31pm

Underwater birthing ("Immediate Baptism") is a practice of some New Age Christian churches. I've never heard of it being done by Atheists. A 4-year-old who converts her Atheist family to Christianity? If you believe that....

Post 7

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 12:32pm

I see no reason to believe that Akiane hasn't painted the images. It appears that she often paints from careful life studies and photographs, which would explain some of the "grasp of psychology and character" that makes Phil so skeptical (it may just be that she has fairly accurately rendered human faces whose psychology and character would be conveyed by any fairly accurate rendering).

And there are many indicators that the work is that of a child. Go to her art page...

http://www.artakiane.com/akiane_art.htm#

...and you'll see that her sense of composition is quite lacking compared to her technical rendering skills, and she often chooses very childish subjects -- ponies, puppies and kitties, sparkly magic mountains, bible stories and other neverlands, etc.

And there have been a few young artists throughout history who could paint as well, if not better, than Akiane. I remember in particular having seen some of Millais' early work which, to be blunt, kicked Akiane's ass. He allegedly could draw like an adult artist at six or seven, and entered the Royal Academy around eleven or twelve.

J

Post 8

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 1:53pm

The more I read her Jesus stuff, the more I am convinced that Adam is correct--even if she is the artist, someone is putting words into her little mouth.

Post 9

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 3:10pm

Just in response to Adam, I have certainly heard of underwater birth and have a few friends who have done it - my pilates instructor just had one not long ago. It seems to me it is mostly done by the same type of holistic healthers who chose birth by midwife, natural childbirth, birthing in chairs and yoga poses, etc.

In contrast, I have never heard of it as a religous thing, and could find no reference to it on Google - the only thing I found for "Immediate Baptism" are references to the Catholic ritual of baptising infants very soon after birth.

I am not saying that Adam is incorrect, I just haven't heard of it, and from quickly searching online I found mostly references to water birth as a very secular choice...so I don't think that the Akiane water birth gives us any
information about the possibility that her family is religious or otherwise.

As for whether or not she is the actual artist, of course I have no idea. There are pictures on her website of her painting, but those obviously don't mean anything. Her site says there is a video of her painting process. I don't think it impossible that a child could have unusual artistic talent, but I don't really know enough about painting to form a real opinion.

Post 10

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 4:05pm

Jonathan, you raise thoughtful and intelligent points. So, while I dislike picking nits, this is interesting psychologically: On the idea that someone else already has shown work this good or better is possible at age 8, I looked at a website on the person you mentioned and I -did- see better work. Problem was he did it at age 20. If there was something better claiming to be at age -eight-, you'd still would need to know it wasn't a hoax, e.g., done by a parent. I'm sure it would not be the first time that a "child genius" was actually a hoax.

On the idea of doing it from a photo or a drawing, that would be very different...and if that were the case, yes, perhaps a second grader might be able to do it. On the point that "she often chooses very childish subjects", that's why I selected one that wasn't.

Robert and Scott, on the music vs. painting issue, I already gave some reasons in my PS; although it was brief, it was understandable. If you want to deny them, you have to address what I said.

Post 11

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 4:07pm

Phil: �Look at the paintings very closely, especially "prince of peace". There is great skill involved, subtlety regarding light and shadow, a careful study of what a face looks like...�

Technically, these are very skilful paintings for such a young child, but their content is generic and horribly kitschy. They�re the sort of thing cheap department stores sell by the truckload.

A child who is skilled at drawing could possible imitate these styles, but if this girl has real talent, she needs to be rescued from the awful influences she has been exposed to so far, and immersed in some real art.

Brendan

Post 12

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 4:12pm

Regarding musical prodigies versus art prodigies: The difference is that music deals with patterns, not concepts. A musical prodigy can rearrange sounds, but can an artist spontaneaously come up with religious themes without having first absorbed them from the environment? In that case, why are the "revelations" Christian and not Hindu or Muslim?
(Edited by Joe Maurone
on 11/11, 5:45pm)

Post 13

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 4:12pm

     I have no problem re her apparent talent, but...

    "...atheistic stay-at-home Lithuanian homemaker mother, and an American father, culinary arts intructor, chef and dietary manager"? Who wrote that stuff? Her?

    ...and...

    "At 4, had a life-changing spiritual transformation, converting the family to Christianity"? Why not at 2?

    As Adam says, "If you believe that..."

    Yeah, r-i-g-h-t...it is s-o believable. She can paint, so, she can evengelize at 4.

     Not that it's to the point, but, 'underwater-birthing' was a fad a couple decades back (more oriented around the placidity of the process lessening potential 'trauma' primarily to the child, but also to the mother); hadn't heard of it being done lately, 'til now.

     Sorry I missed the OPRAH show; I'd have been VERY interested in the responses of the parents, especially about just why they 'converted', if the question was ever asked.

LLAP
J:D

(Edited by John Dailey on 11/11, 4:17pm)

Post 14

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 4:21pm

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO OPRAH

Re: the Oprah Connection: It all makes sense now:

�I quote Aaron Mcgruder, "we should all be afraid of Oprah�

Post 15

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 5:46pm

Regarding Oprah, they didn't ask - 'of course it's a gift - what else could it be?'...

You claiming composing is not conceptualizing?

And Phil - you're skirting the question - you imply music is easier than painting, but you not answer yes or no...

(Edited by robert malcom on 11/11, 5:50pm)

(Edited by robert malcom on 11/11, 5:53pm)

Post 16

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 5:56pm

In the case of savants, it's debatable...often it's not a deliberate, conscious composing. And if we're talking instrumental music versus programmatic music, we aren't talking concepts like "religion" in the way Rand discussed in ROMANTIC MANIFESTO (her claim that music cannot deal with "specific emotions). And then there's the whole "tabula rasa" argument...a musical savant isn't presenting abstract concepts like religion, but this girl is claimed to present religious abstractions...

Post 17

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 6:01pm

Are you saying Mozart did not conceptalize his works when a child?

Or Saint-Saen?

(Edited by robert malcom on 11/11, 6:03pm)

Post 18

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 6:15pm

Hmmm...Robert, I was going to ask if Mozart claimed divine inspiration for his work...but obviously many composers have done so (notably Handel with his MESSIAH). Which raises a point: when a composer has "musical inspiration", it seems like a subconscious process is writing the music, it's less deliberate. It's possible because the mind is playing with auditory forms, which might be an analogy to visual shapes. But what is a musical prodigy conceptualizing, form or ideas? Yes, I realize that this could suggest the possibility of the brain having innate, "archetypal" forms built in, that the mind imposes form in some Kantian manner...I don't think a savant could play something complicated without at least first hearing it, it's not coming into the mind ready made. But then are they really conceptualizing or merely imitating? Either way, there is still the difference between musical conceptualizing versus the symbolic representation in the girl's paintings (she's not merely painting shapes, but ideas, specifically religious ideas...I could accept that she painted archetypal ideas, but not specific Christian ideas without having been exposed to them first.)

But you raise a good question, Robert, that I can't answer definitively.

Post 19

Friday, November 11, 2005 - 6:39pm