ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the bodies of the young considered as representational sites for the adult transference of conflicting anxieties about time, memory, sexuality, and desire. In order to make sense of paintings of naked children, popular in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, the author first speaks about a few paintings of children in clothes. He starts with a painting by the French master Renoir of a little girl, Mademoiselle Leclere, holding in one hand a little watering can and in the other a small bouquet of flowers. Auguste Renoir's picture connects childhood with spring and abundant life manifested in blooms. Hers is a life that on all accounts is carefree and, indeed, beautiful by being made beautiful to look at, principally by the rich palette exploited by Renoir. Renoir's image of childhood depends on the absolute social isolation of the subject.
