Child-Life in Art E-Book

Estelle M. Hurll

• Herausgeber: Seltzer Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 82

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

With 25 black-and-white illustrations. According to Wikipedia: "Estelle May Hurll (1863–1924), a student of aesthetics, wrote a series of popular aesthetic analyses of art in the early twentieth century.Hurll was born 25 July 1863 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, daughter of Charles W. and Sarah Hurll. She attended Wellesley College, graduating in 1882. From 1884 to 1891 she taught ethics at Wellesley. Hurll received her A.M. from Wellesley in 1892. In earning her degree, Hurll wrote Wellesley's first master's thesis in philosophy under Mary Whiton Calkins; her thesis was titled "The Fundamental Reality of the Aesthetic." After earning her degree, Hurll engaged in a short career writing introductions and interpretations of art, but these activities ceased before she married John Chambers Hurll on 29 June 1908."

Leseprobe

the sistine madonna.—raphael.

CHILD-LIFE IN ART BY ESTELLE M. HURLL

published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA

established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books

Art books by Estelle Hurll:

Michelangelo

Child-Life in Art

Corregio

Greek Sculpture

Landseer

The Madonna

Millet

Raphael

Rembrandt

Reynolds

Titian

Tuscan Sculpture

Van Dyke

feedback welcome: [email protected]

visit us at samizdat.com

Children are God’s apostles, day by daySent forth to preach of love and hope and peace.Lowell.

BOSTONJOSEPH KNIGHT COMPANY1895

Copyright, 1894, By Joseph Knight Company.

ohn Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD IN IDEAL TYPES.

CHAPTER II.  CHILDREN BORN TO THE PURPLE.

CHAPTER III. THE CHILDREN OF FIELD AND VILLAGE.

CHAPTER IV. THE CHILD-LIFE OF THE STREETS.

CHAPTER V. CHILD-ANGELS.

CHAPTER VI. THE CHRIST-CHILD.

NOTES.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

PREFACE.

The subject of this little book is its best claim upon public favor. Child-life in every form appeals with singular force to the sympathies of all. In palace and in cottage, in the city and in the country, childhood reigns supreme by the divine right of love. No monarch rules more mightily than the infant sovereign in the Kingdom of Home, and none more beneficently. His advent brings a bit of heaven into our midst, and we become more gentle and tender for the sacred influence. Every phase of the growing young life is beautiful and interesting to us. Every new mood awakens in us a sense of awe before unfolding possibilities for good or evil.

The poetry of childhood is full of attractiveness to the artist, and many and varied are the forms in which he interprets it. The Christ-child has been his highest ideal. All that human imagination could conceive of innocence and purity and divine loveliness has been shown forth in the delineation of the Babe of Bethlehem. The influence of such art has made itself felt upon all child pictures. It matters not whether the subject be a prince or a street-waif; the true artist sees in him something which is lovable and winning, and transfers it to his canvas for our lasting pleasure.

Art has produced so many representations of children that it would be a hopeless task to attempt a complete enumeration of them, and the book makes no pretensions to exhaustiveness. The aim has been merely to suggest a convenient outline of classification, and to describe a few characteristic examples in each group. The nature of the undertaking has, of course, necessitated consulting the works of many standard authorities, to whom I gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness. The names of the most prominent are included in the bibliographical list. While faithfully studying their opinions, I have always reserved the right of forming an independent estimate of any painting considered, especially when, as in many cases, I have myself seen the original. I am under great obligations to my friend Professor Anne Eugenia Morgan of Wellesley for first showing me, through her philosophical art-interpretations, the true meaning and value of the works of the masters. From these interpretations I have drawn many of the suggestions which are embodied in the descriptions of the following pages.

While addressing lovers of children primarily, I have also hoped to interest students in the history of art. I have therefore added a few notes containing further details in regard to some of the subjects.

E. M. H.

New Bedford, Mass., June 1, 1894.

CHAPTER I. CHILDHOOD IN IDEAL TYPES.

O child! O new-born denizen Of life’s great city! on thy head The glory of the morn is shed, Like a celestial benison! Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand Thou openest the mysterious gate Into the future’s undiscovered land. Longfellow.

If we could gather into one great gallery all the paintings of child-life which the world has ever produced, there would be scattered here and there some few works of a distinctly unique character, before which we should rest so completely satisfied that we should quite forget to look at any others. These choice gems are the work of those rare men of genius who, looking beyond all trivial circumstances and individual peculiarities, discovered the essential secrets of child-life, and embodied them in ideal types. They are pictures of childhood, rather than of children, representing those phases of thought and emotion which are peculiar to the child as such, and which all children possess in common. In their presence every mother spontaneously exclaims, “How like my own little one!” because the artist has interpreted the real child nature. Such pictures may justly take rank among the highest productions of creative art, having proven their claim to greatness by their unquestioned appeal to universal admiration.

In work of this kind one name alone is prominent, a name which England is proud to claim as hers, but to which all the world pays honor,—the name of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Prince of Child-painters. A simple-hearted man, of sweet, kindly disposition, the great portrait-painter, bachelor though he was, possessed in rare measure the mysterious gift of winning the confidence of children. The great octagonal studio in Leicester Square must have often resounded to the laughter of childish voices, as he entertained his little patrons with the pet dogs and birds he used in their portraits, and coaxed them into good nature with a thousand merry tricks. Although the greater number of these little people belonged to the most wealthy and aristocratic families in England, their pictures do not in any way indicate their rank. Still less do they show any distinguishing marks of the artificial age in which they lived. Dressed in the simplest of costumes, of the sort which is never out of fashion and always in the best taste, and posed in the natural attitudes of unconscious grace, they are representatives of childhood, pure and simple, rather than of any particular social class or historical period.

A list of Sir Joshua’s child pictures may suitably begin with one which, in his own opinion, is among the best and most original of all his works. This is the Strawberry Girl, exhibited in 1773, and repeated many times by the painter,—“not so much for the sake of profit,” as Northcote explains, “as for improvement.” The model was the artist’s pretty niece, Miss Theophila (“Offy”) Palmer, who was named for his mother, and whom he loved as an own daughter.

The little girl stands with head slightly drooping, in the sweet, shy way so natural to a timid child. The big eyes are lifted to ours half confidingly, half timidly, while a smile hovers bewitchingly over the mouth. A long, pointed basket hangs on one arm, and the plump hands are folded together in front like a little woman’s. The child wears a curious round cap on her head, under which, presumably, her hair is gathered up in womanly fashion, for there are no stray locks to be seen except the two soft curves on the forehead. Altogether, the figure presents just that odd commingling of dignity with childish timidity which we so often notice in our own little maids, and which makes them at once so lovable and so womanly.

the strawberry girl.—reynolds.

Some fifteen years after Sir Joshua’s niece posed as the Strawberry Girl, her own little daughter, another “Offy,” served the artist uncle as the model for Simplicity. The great-niece was as lovely a child as her mother had been, and critics agree in placing Simplicity among the best works of the painter. The setting is a landscape, in the foreground of which the child is seated, with her lap full of flowers. The sweet face is turned aside in a somewhat pensive poise, and the exquisite purity of its expression is exactly represented by the title. Of a similar character is the Age of Innocence, which portrays a little girl looking out into the world with wide eyes and parted lips, a complete embodiment of the innocence of childhood on the threshold of life. The face, which is presented in profile, is finely cut, and charmingly framed in short, clustering curls.

In looking for ideal types among the child-pictures of Sir Joshua Reynolds, we need by no means be confined to those which bear fancy titles. His portraits are as truly interpretative as his imaginative subjects, and each typifies a distinct element of child-life. The little Miss Bowles sitting on the ground hugging her dog, and Master Bunbury looking out of the canvas with breathless eagerness, arouse a universal interest, which is entirely independent of their individuality. Miss Frances Harris, the serene, and Miss Penelope Boothby, the demure, will be loved as child ideals long after their names are forgotten.

 A protégé of Reynolds from the first, Lawrence became his successor as Painter-in-Ordinary to the King, and in process of time rose to the proud honor of the presidency of the Royal Academy. Holding thus the two positions which Reynolds had graced so many years, it may be said that the master’s mantle fell upon him more truly than upon any other follower.

In technique his painting is criticised by connoisseurs as deficient in that harmonious blending of the flesh tints with the background which so delights us in other artists. Then, too, his insight into character was far less penetrating than that of his predecessor. Nevertheless, his best work has much of the beauty and animation which we so admire in the paintings of Reynolds.