Chardin's 'Young Schoolmistress' and the Ethics of Pedagogy

In an essay published by Afterall as part of ArtSchool 2020, Ewa Lajer-Burcharth analyzes Jean-Siméon Chardin's painting 'The Young Schoolmistress' (c. 1737, exhibited at the Salon of 1740) to explore the ethics of pedagogy. The painting depicts a reading lesson where an older girl uses a knitting pin to point at a book on a tall cabinet, while a younger child of indeterminate gender follows with a finger. Lajer-Burcharth argues that Chardin emphasizes the child's interiority and subjectivity, contrasting with the oral emphasis of contemporary reading manuals. The cabinet acts as a physical barrier, symbolizing the opacity of the child's mind. The schoolmistress's 'astonished withdrawal' (as described by René Démoris) acknowledges the child's separateness. The essay connects this to an ethics of painting that respects non-transparency, responding to the 18th-century 'regime of the eye'—the rise of public exhibitions, criticism, and connoisseurship. Lajer-Burcharth suggests the painting offers a model for contemporary virtual education, advocating for a pedagogy based on respect for the unknowability of others.