Opinions / Is this a work of art?
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Your support makes all the difference.BRIAN SEWELL, art critic: Like most modern art it's rubbish, but it doesn't look to me like a child's painting. It does not have the attack that children have. I take the cynical view that the mother, a freelance artist, had more than a hand in it. But it's pretty dreary rubbish whether by mother, child or the dog round the corner.
ANITA BROOKNER, novelist and art historian: It looks like a painting by a child of four: more a reflection on untutored modern art than on children's paintings.
TONY HART, TV artist: Yes, it most certainly is art. Young Carly is enthusiastic about her materials and this picture is a splendid piece of serendipity. The only time I'd call anything rubbish is when someone deliberately sets out to fool people. Children don't do that.
PETER BROOKE, Secretary of State for National Heritage: I could certainly contemplate responding to and even buying a work produced by a child, and not just because it was produced by a child. I bought a picture by a Russian child in the recent MENCAP show.
PAT NEVIN, footballer: The whole idea is hilarious. When my son starts producing pictures I shall stick them to the fridge door with those little magnets, like everyone else.
SIR HUGH CASSON architect, ex-president of the Royal Aacdemy: Children and artists have one thing in common. They all believe they are the centre of the universe. The lesson of Miss Johnson's success is that creativity exists everywhere.
FLOELLA BENJAMIN, children's entertainer: If you look at a picture and get an immediate impression in your heart then it's art.
CHRIS DONALD, editor, Viz: I spent a few weeks studying fine art at college. I left when the lecturer began nailing chairs together and calling it sculpture. Our publisher would probably have paid a lot of money for this picture - he has paintings that I could have done with a brush held between my buttocks.
YEHUDI SAFRAN, tutor at the Royal College of Art: Many of the great painters of the 20th century were connoisseurs of children's art, like Paul Klee. I don't see what the problem is.
PETER BLEGVAD, cartoonist: I guess it is art, but probably art brut or outsider art. Children, like mental patients, make art you can't judge by the same criteria you'd use if you were unlucky enough to be judging the Turner Prize.
BARNABY BLACKER, bought the picture for his cafe in a Cork art gallery: I don't know, but I do like it.
(Photograph omitted)
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