Fiche du document
1 juin 2017
- doi: 10.4000/books.pufr.4954
- isbn: 9782869062344
- eisbn: 9782869064836
https://www.openedition.org/12554 , info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
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Childhood Youngsters Pedology (Child study) Kids (Children)Citer ce document
Jennifer Milam, « The Art of Imagining Childhood in the Eighteenth Century », Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, ID : 10.4000/books.pufr.4954
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The Art of Imagining Childhood in the Eighteenth CenturyPablo Picasso once said “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist after growing up.” Such a connection made between childhood and creativity is so common place that we often forget it is a cultural construction. Only in a rare moment while thinking about the ‘natural’ creativity of the child do we stop to consider the point in history when this notion first developed and the manner by which it became widely accepted. Anyone who has read Philippe Ariès Centuries of Childhood recognizes the argument that the child was "discovered", or more correctly "rediscovered", during the Enlightenment, and that the progressive pedagogical philosophies of Locke and Rousseau are representative of this new concern for children and their world. What has yet to be fully considered is the impact that the visual arts had on this discernment of creative impulses in the state of childhood, earlier than might be expected, in the image of the eighteenth-century child. This paper considers Rococo representations of children playing and how these images contributed to the Enlightenment "discovery" of the child.