When do children and their games enter art history?
Children were depicted in artworks from the 15th century on. It’s the Renaissance that pays attention to children for the first time. Children are depicted in earlier times but they are not shown as children; they are not shown playing. So the child as a theme comes very late in art history, mainly in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. And even then, it’s more as an allegory of life or one stage of life. For the early modern period, there is a very circular and static idea of history or the circle of life; childhood is a very defined moment in the order of the world, in the cycle of life. For the early period as well the Middle Ages and the early modern period, the child is actually a small adult. The child would have been considered deficient in the qualities that define an adult or an adolescent. All the qualities are there but they’re still weak so their qualities and characteristics have not developed, although it would be inappropriate to use the word develop because that’s a late
