From the 16th through the 19th centuries, only children from the upper classes had their portraits painted. Children born into lower castes of society were usually only depicted in genre scenes, often at work alongside their adult counterparts where the child's need for protection and compassion are notably missing from the composition.
By the 19th century, depictions of children tended to emphasize the differences between children and adults.
This form of distancing turned the child into a symbol of society's lost innocence in the new industrial world. In the 20th century, with the transition to a more critical and skeptical age, the nostalgia for innocence gradually was replaced by a more realistic approach, which also sought to probe the depths of the children's psyche and harsh realities.
Highlights: "Age of Innocence" features approximately 40 paintings, drawings, photographs and sculptures by such artists as Lewis Carroll, Max Liebermann, and Pablo Picasso. Highlights include:
* a painting from the School of Hieronymous Bosch, The Conjuror, after 1480, which shows the child as one of the crowd watching the conjuror
* Lewis Carroll, Xie Standing, 1875, a typical example of the 19th century romanticized image of the child as a symbol of innocence
* Max Liebermann's Kindergarden (1879), painted in his realist style sheds a harsh light on the everyday life of children of the lower classes in a kindergarden
The exhibition will be on view through July 30, 2007.
Exhibition Organization: " Age of Innocence" is curated by Shlomit Steinberg, the Hans Dichand Curator of European Art at the Israel Museum, and Sivan Eran from the Department of Prints and Drawings. -- www.imj.org.il
Posted January 16th, 2007 by ruzik_tuzik
