Childhood as a Modern Invention The Metropolitan Museum of Art is featuring an exhibition of Goya’s four portraits of members of the Altamira family. In walking through the exhibition’s small room last Friday, Goya’s paintings of the children and their accompanying labels reminded me of a book I read last year. In The Erosion of Childhood, Valerie Polakow examines the evolving meaning of childhood through time, using text and imagery to explore its changing value. In her early chapters, Polakow asks: Is childhood itself a social invention or is […]

Categories: Alexia Raynal, ZiR • Tags: art, childhood, children, gender, Goya, Metropolitan Museum of Art