This paper argues that, because young children's response to the world is primarily sensory and aesthetic, early years curriculum should give due attention to the arts. There is an urgent need to better conceptualise ways of working with young children in relation to the arts. The paper is based on three key and permeating ideas: first, that human beings need the arts for holistic development; second, that there have been many attempts to integrate the arts with other areas of learning in the early years; and third, a more robust and clearly articulated conceptualisation of arts-based learning in the early years is needed. The paper critically reviews the international literature relating to these three key areas and concludes that: early childhood education must pay due regard to the innate human need for aesthetics in the design of curricula; on the whole, young children's experience in the arts has not been nurtured in ways which support their artistically-attuned development; and arts-based learning in the early years are not clearly conceptualised. The paper reports an example of arts-based learning involving professional artists working with children and aged six months to five years in preschool settings in England an outcome of which was a conceptual framework for arts-based learning. The paper identifies the need to provide children with greater "recognition" of their efforts in the arts and more adult "models" or users and makers of art. It further concludes that where arts-based approaches to learning are derived from research, and refined through embedded practice, children are able to learn in ways which are naturally suited to their human condition and therefore better equipped to take part in cultural and artistic elements of life as identified in the United National Convention on the rights of the child. (Contains 7 figures and 3 notes.)