From the Divine Child to l’enfant terrible: a brief history of childhood in western painting

Abstract

The present work is aimed at discussing, from the perspective of art history, the main issues regarding the evolution of the idea of childhood in Western Europe. From the 15^th to the 20^th century the representation of children is the expression of the symbolic function of the child. In every image, childhood is a metaphor of the divine, of power, of patriotism or a metaphor of the artist himself. The political thought of the Age of Enlightenment, the new education theories and the modern nostalgia for paradise lost would shape a new image of the child, the eternal stranger.