Sunday Feature: Painting Lolita

Laura Cumming explores the history of the child nude and asks whether our panic is largely a recent phenomenon. She considers the image of the child in a range of artworks from antiquity to the present day, by Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Lewis Carroll, Balthus, Tierney Gearon and Nan Goldin, among others. She looks at what we can learn from these images about our changing attitudes to childhood, to censorship and to art. How do we square our desire to protect children from exploitation with our belief in freedom of expression?