by Lucian Freud trusted to look at his own infant child with the same intense eye that he turned to his pictures of adults. The giant child’s skull – a lumpy punch of brown, cream and gray – is a portrait of Bella Freud from 1961. In fact, it’s big enough to lure you down a long gallery at Chatsworth House and magnetically draw you towards it. to see how the ridged, red and scrunched up features are rendered larger than life while Bella sleeps on the couch, fist clenched formidably. His left eyelid is very slightly open, revealing a yellow eyeball.
It might sound counterintuitive, but Bella is a powerful ball of life. You feel that the artist is amazed by the independence, energy and will that this little creature shows. She is a giant in their eyes. Infancy, toddlerhood, youth, adolescence – they slip by so quickly, as we try to discover the miracle of the ever-changing human being. Picturing Childhood, the title of Chatsworth’s eye-opening show spread through its vast baroque halls and rooms, is what we mostly do today with our phones. How lucky to be a Freud, able to portray your child with such depth.
More than 300 years earlier, the Flemish artist Cornelis de Vos did something similar. He also painted his young daughter, but when Freud’s child sprawls nameless and unsociable on the sofa, Magdalena de Vos stands up straight in a fine red dress with a wide lace collar, looking at her father with faint intelligence as she stand patiently.
It’s a contrast that seems to establish simple, well-worn clichés about the ways in which children are depicted in art, and how youth has been socially defined, for centuries. In the old days, we are told, kids weren’t allowed to be kids. They were seen and treated as little adults, fiercely disciplined to fulfill their future roles in the social order. Picturing Childhood shows that it is not so simple. Yes, De Vos is dressed in a child’s version of a 17th century adult costume, but a grin seems about to break out and the artist is clearly happy with his cheeks and hands: not a person she is grown but the joy. Her precocious manners emphasize the playfulness of her innocence. She is cute, in a word, and the artist wants us to know that.
From the earliest works in this show, it’s clear that there never was a time when adults didn’t see children as children. Where would Renaissance paintings of the Virgin and Child be without knowledge of how children behave and interact with their mothers? An extraordinary drawing by Raphael proves that Renaissance artists gained that understanding through close observation. In 1512 or 13, he made a delicate sketch of a young woman with a book in one hand while she cuddles a small child with the other. She is absorbed in her reading while the infant stares at us. The woman may be reading aloud to the child. Or maybe she’s reading to herself, a lower-class woman looking after someone else’s child who needs the distraction. Either way, this masterpiece of metal point drawing is an incredibly intimate snapshot of real life over half a century ago.
The Tudor youth doesn’t look like it either. Lady Arabella Stuart, painted in 1577, may have been dressed in adult clothing for her portrait but was allowed to hold her favorite doll. And it is just like the Queen of the time, Elizabeth I herself. Is this like giving a girl a gifted Barbie?
Even in the troubled 17th century, when religious anxiety and revolution rocked Britain, children were recognized as children. In a painting of an unknown family by William Dobson, done just before or during the Civil War, the husband and wife appear to be Puritans, clad in black, but their four children are dressed more brightly, and with the permission of a pet rabbit, fruit and flowers.
So it might seem that youth is eternal and unchanging – but that’s not true. A real change is coming in the 18th century when much more spontaneity is allowed for portraits of young people. In a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, raises her hand to playfully mirror her little daughter who has both arms raised wildly. Their eyes meet in loving communication as Reynolds captures what anyone would recognize as a natural mother-child moment. Nearby, the daughters and sons of the Earl of Bute are shown by Johan Zoffany in the 1760s playing in the garden, climbing a tree, jumping on a bench, sporting a bow and arrow.
There is even a rare remnant of this 18th century childhood cult: a children’s carriage designed by the architect William Kent, in the shape of a giant scallop shell with sculpted snakes entwining around it. It was designed to be pulled by a goat as a young godlike Devonshire child surveyed the estate.
As an exploration of youth, this exhibition could be attributed to being a very privileged social history. Not only the ancestral buggy but most of the art, including the Raphael and the Freud, belong to the Duke of Devonshire who owns this site. But Chatsworth delights many with its vast gardens, as well as a 300-year-old water fountain that children still splash in, I’m sure this exhibition is partly an attempt to bring indoor family fun too , bringing younger visitors. interactive entertainment amidst the formal interior of the house: it includes soft furniture that you can lie on to look at the painted ceilings, guessing food smells in the dining room, and an optical device by artist Abigail Reynolds that allows you to see the Painted Hall scan through the eyes of a hawk.
They will have to watch the children like a hawk if they expect their play to be as neat as a Tudor child’s ruff. But this is an exhibition full of life and insight that opens up art and history to everyone. It’s funny and exciting and you’ll want to have a house full of painted children too.
• Picturing Childhood, at Chatsworth House, runs from 16 March-6 October
