Images as representations: visual sources on education and childhood in the past

The challenge of using images for the history of education and childhood will be addressed in this article by looking at them as representations. Central is the relationship between representations and reality. The focus is on the power of paintings as representations of aspects of realities. First the meaning of representation for images as sources for the history of education and childhood - mirrors of realities, complex symbol systems or representations - is explained. A distinction is made between images of real people and images of patterns of human behaviour and the value of the phenomenon of historical sensation as a methodological instrument for insight in that relationship is dealt with. Second, a specific genre of paintings from the seventeenth century, namely portraits of dead children, will be described and analysed to make clear that their value for the history of education and childhood can be studied adequately only by using those images as representations and by interpreting them within the cultural rules and regulations of time and place. This analysis results in the conclusion that images should be considered in their function as representations of aspects of educational and childhood reality.