3-011-770 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Age of Innocence", by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in the South Kensington Museum, 1864. The charm of this picture '...resides in its unobtrusive truth, its delicate feeling, and the perfectly harmonious simplicity both of the conception and execution. It is merely a little toddler, with hair confined only by a simple fillet, and no trace of ornament or the mode about its spotless white frock, sitting after its own infantine fashion on the grass, with hands folded in pretty unconsciousness across its innocent bosom, looking at the silvery dewy light, as of dawn, along the horizon, with an expression of unruffled angelic purity and content. The chaste yet beautiful colour, the total absence of display in the execution, contribute to that perfect unison of simplicity and truth so aptly suggested by the title. We have said it is "merely" thus and thus; but it is for being what we have endeavoured to describe, neither more nor less-for being as far from affectation on the one hand and uninteresting puerility on the other- that its excellence is so rare and precious; and it is this which elevates the picture into the region of the best and highest art'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.