The Hülsenbeck Children

1805–06

Oil on canvas, 131.5 × 143.5 cm. Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg

Three small children play outdoors on the edge of Hamburg. The Kunsthalle sees the picture as a turning point for the way German painters portrayed the young.

The sitters are three of the five children of Friedrich August Hülsenbeck, a business partner of the painter's brother Daniel.
Look at the horizon: church towers mark Hamburg, seen from the family's house in Eimsbüttel, then outside the city.
The viewpoint is set low, at a child's eye level, so adults look across at the sitters rather than down.
The children stand for stages of awareness, from a baby grasping at things to an older sister keeping watch. Childhood is treated as a state with its own worth, not as adulthood in miniature.
Given to the Kunsthalle in 1862 by Richard Hülsenbeck.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain (PD-Art)