Growing up in the 19th Century: Exhibition about Children, Art, and Society
A formal portrait of a boy dressed in his Sunday best. Complete with top hat, he looks like a miniature man. A painting of a girl picking flowers in a field, captured in the briefest of snapshots. Two very different artworks, both dating from the 19th century. With the rise of new ideas about education and upbringing, children鈥檚 rights, playgrounds, and the availability of the first vaccines, this was a century that saw a transformation in the way in which children were seen. For the first time in the Netherlands, these changes are to be displayed in an exhibition: Growing up in the 19th century. From 7 September 2019 to 5 January 2020, Teylers Museum in Haarlem will be showing dozens of portraits and genre paintings in which children play a leading role.
At the beginning of the 19th century, children were still seen as small adults. That was indeed how famous painters such as Jan Adam Kruseman, Adriaan de Lelie, and Charles Howard Hodges depicted them: standing upright, dignified, gazing directly at the viewer. Later, partly under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau鈥檚 book Emile: or On Education (1762), ideas about upbringing and education rapidly evolved. For instance, it was no longer considered self-evident that children should start work as soon as possible. Instead, they needed to be given time and space to grow and mature. At the end of the century, Anton Mauve, Jacob Maris, Georg Hendrik Breitner, and Jan Toorop depicted their own 鈥� and other 鈥� children in a completely different way. In their quest for mood and atmosphere, they often portrayed children as absorbed in their own world, whether at play or lost in thought, in intimate and touching images. Children were finally recognised as children.
Taking social themes such as education and upbringing, and the differences between rich and poor, as the framework, Teylers Museum presents a survey of Dutch paintings that cast children in the leading role. The exhibition displays glorious works by famous and less well-known painters, placed in their historical context. The artworks, ranging from Romantic to Impressionist and Early Modern, are drawn from several Dutch collections.
Recommended for you
A formal portrait of a boy dressed in his Sunday best. Complete with top hat, he looks like a miniature man. A painting of a girl picking flowers in a field, captured in the briefest of snapshots. Two very different artworks, both dating from the 19th century. With the rise of new ideas about education and upbringing, children鈥檚 rights, playgrounds, and the availability of the first vaccines, this was a century that saw a transformation in the way in which children were seen. For the first time in the Netherlands, these changes are to be displayed in an exhibition: Growing up in the 19th century. From 7 September 2019 to 5 January 2020, Teylers Museum in Haarlem will be showing dozens of portraits and genre paintings in which children play a leading role.
At the beginning of the 19th century, children were still seen as small adults. That was indeed how famous painters such as Jan Adam Kruseman, Adriaan de Lelie, and Charles Howard Hodges depicted them: standing upright, dignified, gazing directly at the viewer. Later, partly under the influence of Jean-Jacques Rousseau鈥檚 book Emile: or On Education (1762), ideas about upbringing and education rapidly evolved. For instance, it was no longer considered self-evident that children should start work as soon as possible. Instead, they needed to be given time and space to grow and mature. At the end of the century, Anton Mauve, Jacob Maris, Georg Hendrik Breitner, and Jan Toorop depicted their own 鈥� and other 鈥� children in a completely different way. In their quest for mood and atmosphere, they often portrayed children as absorbed in their own world, whether at play or lost in thought, in intimate and touching images. Children were finally recognised as children.
Taking social themes such as education and upbringing, and the differences between rich and poor, as the framework, Teylers Museum presents a survey of Dutch paintings that cast children in the leading role. The exhibition displays glorious works by famous and less well-known painters, placed in their historical context. The artworks, ranging from Romantic to Impressionist and Early Modern, are drawn from several Dutch collections.
What's on nearby
