Untitled (baby in bassinet with open mouth, plants and birdcage behind) c. 1940

Paul Gittings made this photograph, a four by five inch print of a baby in a bassinet, sometime in the twentieth century. The child, mouth open, is positioned beneath hanging plants and a birdcage, against a background of blinds. The photographic studio emerged in the nineteenth century, and Gittings was part of a later generation that professionalized the practice of portraiture. How did the act of documenting family life through images change the nature of familial relations? This image seems to stage the infant within a domestic setting, as if framing the child’s life as a kind of theater. The open mouth suggests a cry, but the plants and birdcage also suggest a kind of natural harmony. To understand the image better, we might want to look into the history of portrait studios, and think about how they catered to the desires of families in particular times and places. What needs and desires were being expressed through these visual languages? We must ask these questions to understand better the social conditions that shaped artistic production in the 20th century.