And I didn’t say that simple drawings are necessarily condescending to children. I said that I dislike (am actively repelled by, in fact) the simple drawings that are condescending to children. I don’t consider their simplicity in itself to be a redeeming virtue in those cases (which does take us back to the OP). That’s different. Did you look at my two samples of simple drawings?
I’m not sure we really disagree. I appreciate simplicity; here is one example of an image that resonates deeply with me.
However, I also think there is a level of abstraction in certain “simple” illustrations—and Gomi’s strike me as being of this kind—that actually make them less accessible to children. There is a grammar, if you will, of such illustrations that could make them less pleasing to a young viewer than something more literal. We have to learn how to look at them; and then, if you ask me, there is much less to them than meets the eye.
As a young viewer myself, I treasured the pictures that could hold my attention for a long, long, long time, with much to see and marvel at. Some of the ones I spent the longest with were very old-fashioned engravings in a large storybook from my grandmother’s childhood (1890’s), when a certain contrived quasi-realism was the norm. (This sort of thing.) Even now, despite a natural maturing of taste, I can largely forgive their sentimentality and unabashed moralism for the sake of the way they held my youthful gaze with believable images.