Kinder, Kinder!
Few subjects reflect a society’s values and norms, and how they change over time, as clearly as depictions of children. The exhibition Kids! Between Representation and Reality, at the Bucerius Kunst Forum, focuses on the portrayal of children in art from the 16th to the 21st century. Approaching the topic from different perspectives, six chapters present not only paintings, but also photographs, works on paper, media art and sculptures.
The starting point for the images of children in the exhibition are depictions of the Virgin Mary and Child, which still characterize social perceptions of mother-child relationships today. The portrayal of children has had various functions over the centuries. Created in circles of the high nobility around 1500, portraits of children were intended to underpin the continuity and claim to power. Against this backdrop, portraits often depicted young boys in armor as small adults. In this way, they were prepared for their future role as generals and rulers. A playful variant is the portrait historié, in which, for instance, children were clothed in pseudo-historical dress and poses ancient gods. Particularly in the 17th century Dutch and Spanish genre painters picked up the motif of poor children, which survives to this day. The artists were not necessarily concerned with adopting a socially critical stance. After all, it is not uncommon to see children from financially disadvantaged and often precarious backgrounds smiling. Child labor was not fundamentally rejected, either. Rather, it was viewed as a valuable way for children to contribute to their family's income.
The exhibition presents a wide range of images illustrating how the portrayal of children has changed over the centuries. Today, for instance, there are no longer any portraits depicting deceased children. In earlier times, however, this was a way to preserve the memory of the little ones . Nowadays, this remembrance is rather captured in lifelike portraits, for example in photographs that show children in happy life situations. The most significant change, reflecting a different understanding and definition of childhood, took place at the end of the 17th century and in the 18th century. Children should develop on their own terms – preferably in nature and away from the adult world.
As a result, childhood as a subject is still one of the most popular pictorial themes in the visual arts today: Testing oneself, pushing boundaries, drawing, playing and togetherness are formative experiences for this most important of life phases.
This exhibition presents works by artists such as Titian, Anthony van Dyck, Thomas Lawrence, Joshua Reynolds, Gerrit van Honthorst, François Boucher, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Oskar Kokoschka, Gerhard Richter, Rineke Dijkstra and Nobuyoshi Araki.
For more information please visit Bucerius Kunst Forum.
