"The Golden Age" by Kenneth Grahame's Frontispiece
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Childhood- Playful and Inquisitive Innocence
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2016-12-16T13:04:40-05:00
Published in 1928, The Golden Age falls on the far side of the Victorian period. Illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard, the artwork varies distinctly from the early and other images from the earlier subsection. This particular image was included as the frontispiece within its original publication. Movement, play, exploration all feature in this images as the boy in the picture depicts the glory of childhood. When compared to the earlier pieces, we can see how differently the child is depicted. Both light and dark feature in this image, giving an innocence as well as an indication that children are neither good nor bad. We also can see in this positioning of the child, that he moves and frolics. By the simple shift in color tone, in simplicity, in the very nature of the story itself, we get an image of childhood as a blissful state, one that encourages playfulness, exploration, and being a child as we understand it today.
