In recent decades social scientists have taken a renewed interest in Western conceptions of the child, revealing often contradictory notions of children as either lacking or capable, innocent or knowing, vulnerable or dangerous. The fine-art photograph offers visual anthropology a way to explore these contradictions and shifts in attitude. This essay addresses the question through the changing representations of children in 19th- and 20th-century art photography. Reaching back to the work of Julia Margaret Cameron, it examines images of children by Lewis Hine, Edward Weston, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann, Anthony Goicolea, and the Russian collective, AES + F, arguing that in these photographs the child has increasingly been perceived as mysterious and threatening to adult ideas of sexual and social order. The essay concludes with the case of Jacques-Henri Lartigue, who among all the noted photographers of children was the only one who brought a child’s perspective to the portrayal of childhood experience. If contemporary photographers have persisted in conveying disturbing and idealized notions of childhood, it may require another Lartigue to restore the balance.

中文翻译：

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透过镜子的孩子

近几十年来，社会科学家对西方的儿童概念重新产生了兴趣，揭示了儿童要么缺乏或有能力、要么天真或知道、脆弱或危险的往往相互矛盾的观念。这张精美的照片为视觉人类学提供了一种探索这些矛盾和态度转变的方法。本文通过 19 世纪和 20 世纪艺术摄影中儿童形象的变化来解决这个问题。回到 Julia Margaret Cameron 的作品，它考察了 Lewis Hine、Edward Weston、Helen Levitt、Sally Mann、Anthony Goicolea 和俄罗斯集体 AES + F 的儿童照片，认为在这些照片中，孩子越来越像被认为是神秘的，对成人的性和社会秩序观念构成威胁。这篇文章以雅克-亨利·拉蒂格 (Jacques-Henri Lartigue) 的案例结尾，在所有著名的儿童摄影师中，他是唯一一位将儿童的视角带入描绘童年经历的人。如果当代摄影师坚持传达令人不安和理想化的童年观念，可能需要另一个拉蒂格来恢复平衡。