The Van Gogh Museum has started long-term research into the portrayal of adolescence between 1875 and 1914, which will culminate in an exhibition and publication.
Adolescence is the period of transition from childhood to adulthood, approximately between the ages of 10 and 22. This is not solely a period of sexual maturation (puberty), but above all of cognitive development. It is in this significant period that individual identity takes shape. In the years ahead, the museum will research how and why adolescence is portrayed in the visual arts around 1900.
Adolescence holds particular relevance for the period upon which the Van Gogh Museum focuses: our current ideas on this stage of life stem from the last quarter of the 19th century.
Around the fin de siècle, an unprecedented awareness of and focus on adolescence began to inform scientific discourse, education, norms surrounding parenting, and cultural expression. In this period, the modern individual took shape and the adolescent was increasingly foregrounded in the visual arts. In these turbulent times of sweeping changes, (European) people experienced both unbridled confidence in themselves and progress, alongside an anxious unease about what the future held in store.
Adolescence is an exquisite metaphor for this paradox, and is used in countless art forms around 1900. Accordingly, social reality and artistic expression constantly interacted.
In order to understand why adolescence became such a prominent theme in the visual arts between 1875 and 1914, the research has socio-cultural foundations. The research focuses on subjects including:
- adolescence as a socio-cultural ‘invention’ of the late 19th century;
- ideas regarding raising adolescents found in pedagogical publications, youth magazines and exhibitions of the time;
- the portrayal of adolescent daily life: diverse experiences of boys and girls, of poor and rich;
- early self-portraits and the search for identity and style;
- the adolescent offspring of the Impressionists, as depicted in genre paintings and personal documents;
- Vincent van Gogh’s portraits of adolescents;
- vulnerability and unease in figurative portrayals of the adolescent body;
- youth as an allegory for renewal and transience.
The project kicked off in 2024 and will result in the first major exhibition exploring this subject.
Contact
Lisa Smit (Curator):
l.smit@vangoghmuseum.nl
