BOOK OF ABSTRACTS 42 Aesthetic education and children’s literature: Analysis of Paper Cut by Rébecca Dautremer

Aesthetic competence identifies in humans a complex capacity, in which perception, emotion, attention, a self-reflective component, and a comparison with an “otherness” (the aesthetic object, so to speak) come into play,according to a polar dynamic of activity and passivity. It is a dense and layered human trait, on the threshold between biological predispositions and cultural acquisitions. Research in psychological and neuroscientific fields hashighlighted the potential of beauty and the experience of beauty in influencing individual well-being. Beauty in thissense is considered a holistic and all-encompassing experience involving emotions, cognitive abilities, reflectivecapacities, and socio-relational skills. As Morris Weitz argues, “ aesthetic education concerns the child as a developing total human being it is an implication about the whole child that his body, including his senses as wellas his physical movements, is as important as his mind” (Morris Weitz, 1972). Educating aesthetic sense in children means creating conditions for them to enrich their imagination and engage in artistic creation, while simultaneously developing their sensitivity and aesthetic preferences. Children’s books and their iconic narration offerprecious opportunities to enrich young readers’ perspectives by cultivating an aesthetic gaze. The book is simultaneously an art form (Marciano, 2023), with its multiple choices of narrative techniques, devices, and stylisticaspects of existence as aesthetic behavior (Macé & Cavarretta, 2017). In children’s literature, in recent decades,there have been converging lines of experimentation leading to a greater performative dimension of the book. Thishas led to increased attention to materiality, interactive or three-dimensional nature, the relevance of design, andthe use of different languages, as well as strategies that seek to provide the reader with an artistically significantexperience. Among the various examples of experimentation, we find “object books” (Ramos, 2017) such as cut-out books, which allow young readers to cultivate imagination and nurture aesthetic sense through the experienceof exploring “emptiness.” These works, through their cutouts, offer readers openings in their pages, spaces thatallow exploration and discovery. In some cases, these openings traverse the entire book, fostering textual playbetween the pages. Gaps that allow for a better understanding of characters, provide information, and multiplytheir functionalities, giving these works a markedly engaging character for the reader. The contribution focuses onthe relationship between “object books” and the experience of beauty education, analyzing two works by the artistRebecca Dautremer: “Il piccolo Teatro di Rebecca” and “Ti aspetto.” These “die-cut books”, akin to theater booksor dioramas, offer a physical and emotional journey through Dautremer’s creative universe