This image represents the Romantic in a number of ways. For starters, it shows a young boy kissing a girl. This perpetuates a romanticized idea of heterosexuality. It looks normal to us, because this boy is supposed to want to kiss girls. The image of a boy and a girl automatically make us think couple, dating, engagement, marriage, having kids, being in love. A boy kissing a girl makes us think of the American Dream, and we impose this sort of narrative onto their relationship that assumes this image as evidence to true love.The fact that these two love birds are so young create this idea that love and relationships are not socially constructed. Looking at an image of two very small children engaging in such an act as kissing, it shows the idea of love as though it were human nature. These two kids couldn't have possibly been taught to sit there so close, and have such a comfort with each other that even a kiss is acceptable; therefore, we assume that this image shows the bud of true love manifested through the bodies of toddlers.
The clouds that ominously hover in the sky, under which these kids sit calmly as though natural weather is of no worry, gives the viewer a counter point to the serenity felt through the relationships of the young ones. Nature becomes a force that happens around love. This image does not show nature as something that could possibly harm these kids, but rather a moment of beauty in which these two find comfort through each other.
I argue that this image glosses over any idea of cultural change. It represents a future of heteronormativity and a future of love as something biologically natural. This image could be taken in the 1920's, and the same ideology would be shining through. When people look at this image they find serenity; they find ease; they find reassurance that love is real. Believing that this love is a real thing traps us as subjects in a cyclical pattern, where one common normalcy is a reoccurring theme that keeps us stuck thinking the same way we've been thinking for centuries.
I like that you bring up the fact that this image is supposed to make you think love is natural and has no age. And this picture does represent love as being a part of human nature, what else would explain it? It also kind of shows where love comes from in the first place because they establish that it is 'manifested through the bodies of toddlers,' but what exactly is it that makes this boy, you, everyone, express this love in the same way? It seems kind of odd if you think about it; why would a young boy decide, 'you know what, I think I like her, I am going to put my lips against her and see what happens.' These ideas came from somewhere, but its supposed to be natural. Love should just happen, like this. And that is what makes it so romantic.
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