Little girls have long captured the imagination of artists of many disciplines. Their features have been immortalized on canvas just as their exploits have been recorded for our fascination and enjoyment.
The arts give us the rare opportunity to look into the eyes, indeed into the very mind and soul of a wide range of young objects and protagonists, and in so doing deepen our understanding and appreciation of the little angels we encounter daily in our real lives.
Here we examine some of the works of art which best illuminate the many facets of girlhood which we so deeply admire.
Arts
Paintings and Sculptures
Information about the paintings and sculptures that have caught my eye over the years.
Escape from the Shadows
A review of Giorgio de Chirico’s 1914 painting The Mystery and Melancholy of a Street that examines the painting through the eyes of the girl running with the hoop.
Album Art
I actually got the idea for this page from T.R., who pointed out that there is quite a bit of album art that features young girls. Here are a few. If you know of others, feel free to send in suggestions and an image if you have one.
Elisa’s Illuminated Alphabet
Eleven-year old Elisa takes us on an interesting journey through the alphabet with her illustrations, drawn somewhere high above the Atlantic Ocean.
Books
by Alessandro Baricco
Paperback: 112 pages
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375703829
(August 1998)
Silk
Hervé Joncour sets off to Japan to buy silkworms to save the French silk industry. When he arrives there, he finds himself in love with the young mistress of his Japanese host. He returns each year for several years, each time experiencing a new chapter of this impossible love. A masterfully woven tale of forbidden love defying the society that attempts to deny it.
by Gabriel García Márquez
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Penguin USA
ISBN: 0140256369
(June 1996)
Of Love and Other Demons
An old legend comes to life in this novel by the Colombian Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez as he explores the effects of superstition, colonialism and religious intolerance on the life of a young girl and the priest charged with exorcising the demon she is believed to be possessed by. Though set in the eighteenth century, this timeless love story rings relevant even today.
Still She Haunts Me
What was the cause of the rift that finally separated Charles Lutwidge Dodgson from Alice Liddell? In her first novel, Katie Roiphe gives an account of the special relationship that arose between Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, and the girl who inspired him to write Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Innocents
What would happen if a teacher were allowed to run away with his teenaged student lover to a different city and begin a new life with her? Cathy Coote, just nineteen herself when she wrote this book, explores the possibility.
by A.N. Wilson
Paperback: 218 pages
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393319938
(March 2000)
Dream Children
Upheaval promises to return to Wagner Rise as Oliver Gold prepares to get married. Will the occupants of the house, four women and a young girl, who have gotten used to the palliative effect of Gold on the household let him leave without a fight? And will the secret reason why he is leaving them become known?