NOSEBLEED OF CHILDREN IN PAINTING

In 13 paintings and drawings, dating from the preclassic period in anc ient Greece to the present day, representations of children with noseb leed could be detected in museums, churches, galleries and art-books. Children and adolescents were bleeding from their noses because of mec hanical injury, infectious diseases, or hemorrhagic diathesis. Some ar tists depicted nosebleeding in a very realistic manner, others represe nted this symptom in a more abstract or caricaturistic way. Nosebleed stood as a symbol for human failure, as a sign of the loser, the suffe ring and tortured child, and as a sign of death.