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#4

Prague
Haggadah (1526)
The woodcut figures represent adult types. The wicked "child"
is the soldier dressed in showy clothes with a feather in his ornate hat.
His body language expresses arrogant self-assuredness and almost bursts
the framework of the picture, while his black sword pierces the woodcut
frame at a threatening diagonal. This figure has effectively read himself
out of his people by assimilating to the military culture of Europe. By
contrast, the wise "child" is represented by an elderly scholar
whose body is smaller and weaker than that of the soldier. The simple
child submissively points and gazes downward while the questionless child
is wholy absorbed in the parent's story
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