“Danish Golden Age Painting in a Sentimental Light: Pictures of Childhood”

"Danish Golden Age Painting in a Sentimental Light: Pictures of Childhood." Romantik. Journal for the Study of Romanticisms 13, no. 1 (2024).ISSN 2245-599X

Abstract: This article contributes to the revising and expanding of the concept of the Danish Golden Age by examining sentimentality in late Golden Age paintings of children. First, it delves into the concept of sentimentality in painting, focusing on Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), whose art heralds the sentimental. Children's portraits from the early Golden Age by Jens Juel (1745–1802), Constantin Hansen (1804–1880), and Wilhelm Marstrand (1810–1873) serve as a basis for the article's reception-aesthetic examination of sentimental child depictions in the late Golden Age by Peter Julius Larsen (1818–1852), Sophus Schack (1811–1864), and Christian Andreas Schleisner (1810–1882). Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann (1818–1881) is also included. Seventeenth-century Dutch Golden Age painting serves as an additional point of reference. The article concludes that the statuesque posture, low activity level, and placelessness in the image affect the perception of sentimentality, as does the theatrical mode of address (Michael Fried's concept).