Abstract abrasion

Artistry can develop at a very early age. In Japan, a one-year-old girl’s abstract paintings are exhibited at the Decameron gallery in the Kabukicho red-light district of Shinjuku, Tokyo.

The artworks of the baby painter dubbed Thumbelina (not her real name) are selling for 33,000 yen in her first solo exhibition.

Thumbelina’s paintings appear as smudges, but gallery director Dan Isomura told Agence France-Presse that her free-form creations are legit artworks.

The baby’s Ukrainian refugee mother helps her daughter paint at home, but only by giving the color she demands and opening the tube, as well as giving her a fresh piece of sheet when she’s done.

Children may also develop interest in art by exposing them to paintings, sculptures, and the like at a very young age, so some parents bring them to a gallery or museum.

A Dutch kid was among the visitors to the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands, last month. The child was particularly interested in an abstract painting by American artist Mark Rothko and touched it.

Rothko’s Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 -- described by the museum as an example of color field painting, which is characterized by large blocks of flat, solid color spread across a canvas -- was damaged when the child scratched its lower part, BBC reports.

A spokesperson for the museum told BBC the damage was “superficial,” but the painting, worth 50 million, requires restoration that the parents of the child may have to shoulder.