1. Anne Geddes and Her Babies:
Kitsch and the Aesthetics of Cuteness
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14. cute
1. Acute, clever, keen-witted, sharp, shrewd.
2. Used of things in same way as cunning. Applied to people
as well as things, with the sense ‘attractive, pretty, charming’;
also, ‘attractive in a mannered way’.
Editor's Notes
French School, LOUIS XIV KING OF FRANCE AND NAVARRE AS A CHILD
Van Dyck, Anthony, The Children of Charles of England. 1636, Oil on canvas.
Diego Velázquez, InfanteBaltasar Carlos on Horseback. 1635. Oil on Canvas.
1788-1789 – Master Francis George by Joshua Reynolds
Angels
Children with animal pets
In her photography, Anne Geddes presents both defintions of cuteness to the viewer. The photographs are clever and sharp because Geddes exaggerates the traditional conventions of the natural and Romantic Child to the point these conventions become funny and Ironic. It’s attractive in a mannered way because for centuries now, the viewer has grown to love to look at innocent pudgy babies. We have received a visual pleasure from the baby’s chubby flesh that dates back to the Renaissance.
Childhood innocence opposoite of adult sexuality, runs the danger of becoming alluringly opposite, enticingly off-limits/ Innoncence suggests violation. If childhood is undestood as a blank slate, then adults can freely project their own fantasies onto children, whatever those fantasises may be – James Kincaid. Children dressed up in special costumesMadonna and ChildMiniature adultsChildren with animal petsangels
