The examples which have been selected to fill the medallions given in
this article comprise illustrations of children's heads contained in
some of the most celebrated pictures in the world. It is impossible
in a limited space to give an adequate idea of the beauty and charm
with which the old masters have immortalized childhood--or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say babyhood, since the great majority are
representations of the Child with the Madonna, and, though varying in
age from a few weeks upwards, the infant is seldom shown as older than
a year or two at most. These studies of what may, in a double sense,
be called the divinity of childhood differ widely according to the
nationality of the painter. As we shall see presently, in some of the
examples given in these pages farther on, we can enumerate among the
artists of this country certain painters, such as Gainsborough and
Reynolds, who as delineators of child-life and character are not easily
excelled. There are those, however, who would say that in this respect
the Italian masters have never been surpassed. Raphael's child-head of
Christ from the painting entitled the "Madonna Aldobrandini," which
is reproduced in the first medallion above, will through all ages
illustrate, perhaps without a rival, the mission of the eternally
beautiful--the dignity of innocence, the holiness of love. Bernardo
Strozzi, later than Raphael, painted a human child in the arms of the
Holy Virgin. It is reproduced in the right-hand medallion above. The
childish charm and smile are most alluring. Here we find an allegory
of Christianity; but it is not, like the child's head in Raphael's
"Madonna Aldobrandini," an allegory of the divinity.
[Illustration: "HIDE-AND-SEEK."
_By Fred Morgan._