Modern viewers often perceive repressed sexuality in these images, with the ideal middle- and upper-class Victorian girl viewed as womanly and the perfect adult female seen as girlish and innocent. There was a darker side to Victorian images of young girls, as evidenced in the photographs and paintings of unclothed girls found in the possession of L EWIS C ARROLL, who is perhaps best known as the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Due to the inventions of photography and various photomechanical means of reproduction, the Victorian era was flooded with prints, books, and paintings, all of which circulated countless images of decorative, pious, and pretty girls who obediently served the needs of males. Many modern stereotypes of gender owe their origin visually to the separate spheres and expectations produced in Victorian imagery. Their titles alone communicate the signal importance placed on educating a child to exemplify high moral and religious conduct.
Such didacticism is particularly evident in the paintings by the Irish artist William Mulready, which include Train Up a Child (1841) and A Mother Teaching Her Son (1859).
Genre paintings capitalized upon themes inspired by contemporary daily life, and many scenes depicted fictionalized domesticity while reinforcing middle-class beliefs. Underlying these representations of young protagonists were adult values that clearly demarcated and endorsed gendered constructions of childhood, whether of demure girls or mischievous boys. In addition, numerous illustrators–particularly K ATE G REENAWAY, B EATRIX P OTTER, Arthur Rackham, and Walter Crane– achieved fame for their contributions to a flourishing market in CHILDREN' S LITERATURE. Among the most significant painters of the time was the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais, who produced numerous landmark images of young protagonists such as My First Sermon (1863), a pair titled Sleeping and Waking (c.
Their range of subjects– from the sentimentalized girl to the young urban worker– was quite vast. Countless artists tackled the theme of childhood, which was popular throughout Queen Victoria's long reign and especially during the years 1850–1880. In the realm of the fine arts, Victorian images appeared mostly as prints, paintings, and illustrations in magazines and books. The period witnessed a significant increase in the volume of paintings, books, toys, advice manuals, and other things designed specifically with children in mind. The Victorian era (1837–1901) in Great Britain marked the advent of a new kind of childhood, at least for the privileged classes, and when compared with the less child-friendly eighteenth century.
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