INTRODUCTION

THE sight of a child not only pleases the eye, it also touches the heart. It is difficult to look at the painted image of a child without being moved by associations and sentimental memories, even by intellectual speculations. Somehow, the picture itself is apt to get lost in the reverie which its subject matter has set in motion. Consequently, the child as a subject for painting is a dangerous one. It can easily envelop the work of art, and thus defeat it as such. Or the winsomeness of the subject can so ingratiate itself with the spectator that he is easily fooled into believing an inferior work of art better than it really is.

Yet the inherent dangers in the subject matter are also its fascination. The great master at once exploits and transcends his subject. So, for the spectator, the way in which an artist paints children becomes almost an acid test of his greatness.

It is not surprising that painters have been attracted to the subject throughout the centuries. Aside from the emotions the theme of childhood arouses, the child is an obviously “paintable” subject. The radiance of his skin, unmarred by lines, the clear eyes, the silky hair, the rounded contours of the abbreviated anatomy, the mobility of the face—these are appealing to a painter. Challenging, too, are the unconsciously graceful and mercurial movements of the child, his strangely remote concentration, and his unverbalized but swiftly expressive reaction to the world around him. Creatures who delight the eye of any adult, they are irresistible to the more sensitive eye of the painter.

Every artist, of course, reflects the conscious and unconscious thinking of his time—not only in the way he paints and what he paints but also in the attitude he reveals toward his subject. No clearer indication of changing points of view can be found than in a survey of the paintings of children. Besides revealing the nature and goal of painting, such a group discloses the relationship of the child to his environment and the attitude of his elders toward him. The twenty-four paintings in this Album have been selected, therefore, to show how artists of significance have handled this tantalizing theme and to point up how social, educational, and emotional attitudes at once affected, and are revealed by, the artists who painted this varied gallery of boys and girls, the first of whom was born over 1800 years ago and the last of whom would be just reaching middle age today.