Valentine 1874

This Valentine, by Kate Greenaway, is currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Valentine card, with it's delicate imagery, emerges from a Victorian context deeply influenced by the Industrial Revolution and a nostalgic yearning for an idealized, pre-industrial past. Greenaway presents a world of innocence, childhood, and romantic love, themes that resonated with the Victorian sensibility. Yet, these representations often glossed over the harsh realities of industrial England with its strict social hierarchies. At the center of the image are two children whose rosy cheeks and refined clothing speak to a particular social class, while the fairies that dance below them seem to invoke an imagined bucolic and carefree existence. The poem tells of a love increasing each hour, a sentiment both naive and optimistic. Greenaway's art invites us to consider how representations of love and childhood are shaped by both personal desires and broader societal conditions.