The industrial revolution created sweeping changes in many aspects of society in Europe and the US. It's impact on the arts is clearly visible. It was a process of shifting workers from the fields to the factories and along the way it gave rise to an increasingly prosperous middle class. Many of the changes in the arts can be linked to the economic power of the middle class resulting in a shift to cater to its interests. One of the places that this is clearly visible is in the rise of what is known as genre painting. It focuses on the events of everyday life of ordinary people. Prior to the 19th C the only people who had money to spend on things like art and music were the aristocracy and the church. It is not surprising that artists usually focused on portraying their wealthy patrons in a flattering light. In terms of family life in the baroque period we get this less than cozy portrayal of Louis XIV and the trail of the aires to his throne.
Nicolas de Largillière - Louis XIV and His Family
150 years later brings us to the age of Dickens where the values of middle class family life had come to dominate. Queen Victoria became the personification of this era and her name has become closely linked to the values that we associate with this period. Now this is the sort of picture of idealized family life that is presented in both art and literature.
George Augustus Freezor - The Bath
The Victorian genre paintings might be considered to be the soaps of their day. They deal with a variety of personal and family events and crises. Some of the most entertaining ones that I have come across deal with children and that is what I want to focus on here. This is a happy view for the middle class market. The pictures don't portray children working in factories or begging on the street. There are a few of those to be found, but they did not sell well. Social realism did not really come into vogue until about the end on the 19th C.
Most of these pictures are by British painters. There are a few here by French painters. The London market for art and culture was a draw for continental artists.
Here is a young man taking care of his pets.
Henry Bacon - I Am A Child
Grandpa is giving the apple of his eye some spending money for her trip to market.
James Clarke Waite - Off to Market
Here we have a young man who is surveying his future dominion.
George Goodwin Kilburne - The Heir
Here with have two children who are being introduced to mysteries of the stable.
Erik Henningsen - In The Stable
This is a not exactly modest family tea party in the park. Hunt was one of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
William Holman Hunt - The Childrens's Holiday
Middle class families of course had expectations for their children's future. That meant making sure that they got an education. School is something that most children do not always experience as an obvious pleasure and they often chafe under the confinement which it imposes. Here is a series of paintings depicting school children in varying degrees of deportment and cooperation.
Theodore Bernard de Heuvel- The Teacher
Thomas Webster - A Dames School
Ralph Hedley - Barred Out
Theophile Emmanuel Duvarger - When the Cat is Missing Playing Mice
This last Victorian school picture is I think my favorite. It is by Elizabeth Adela Forbes. She and her husband Stanhope Alexander Forbes were both painters and among the founders of the Newlyn School. It takes its name from the fishing village in Cornwall where the group lived and worked.
Elizabeth Adela Forbes - School Is Out
The last picture is by Stanhope Forbes of a boy dutifully practicing his piano lessons.
Stanhope Alexander Forbes - The Young Pianist
The Newlyn School focused heavily on exploring the lives and experiences of the women and men who struggled to make their living fishing from the sea and it perils. I plan to explore their work in my next art history diary.
I hope you have enjoyed of the more pleasant aspects of Victorian childhood.