Book from Giorgio Vasari.
"I am convinced that anyone who will discretely ponder this matter will agree with me, as I said above, that the origin of these arts was Nature herself, that the inspiration or model was // the beautiful fabric of the world, and that the Master who taught us was that divine light infused in us by a special act of grace which has not only made us superior to other animals but even similar, if it is permitted to say so, to God himself. And if in our own times (as I hope to show a little further on through numerous examples), simple children, crudely brought up in the woods and prompted by their liveliness of mind, have begun to draw themselves, using as their models only this beautiful pictures and sculptures in Nature, it is not much more probable and believable that the first men - being much less further away from te moment of their divine creation, more perfect, and of greater intellect, taking Nature as their guide, with the purest of intellects as their master, and the world as their beautiful model - originated these most noble arts, and, improving them little by little, finally brought them from their humble beginnings of perfection?...:" (pp. 3, 4)
ABOUT GIOTTO (here the idea of the child as an artist is that of the precocity of the talent of the future artist, so, not a 'commodification' of the naturalness of children as artists)
"And when he reached the age of ten, after having shown an extraordinary liveliness and quickness of intellect in all his actions even while still a child - so that he delighted not only is father but everyone there at the farm and beyond it who acquainted with him - Bondasse gave him some sheep to watch ove. And while they wandered about the farm, grazing in one place or another, Giotto, led on by his natural inclination towards the art of drawing, would continually sketch something from the world of nature or something he had imagined upon flat // stones or upon the ground or sand. One day Cimabue* was going about his business between Florence and Vespignano, and he came upon Giotto who, while his sheep were grazing, was sketching one of them in a lifelike way with a slightly pointed rock upon a smooth and polished stone without having learned how to draw it from anyone other than Nature. This caused Cimabue to stop in amazement, and he asked Giotto if he would like to come to work with him. The young child replied that if his father would allow it, he would willingly do so. Cimabue therefore asked Bondone, and he lovingly gave his consent and allowed Cimabue to take Giotto to Florence. After his arrival there and in a brief time, helped by his natural talent and Cimabue's teaching, not only did the young boy equal the style of his master, but he became such an excellent imitator of Nature that he completely banished that crude Greek style and revived the modern and excellent art of painting, introducing good drawing from live natural models, something which had not been done for more than two hundred years. And even if someone had tried it, as I said earlier, none of them had succeeded as happily or as completely as Giotto." (pp. 15, 16)