science

Laughing Child

Laughing Child is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Laughing Child rather than just read about it. In short: Laughing Child is a 1958 Modernist portrait painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts his daughter Charlotte as a young girl, in a dress and with messy hair, laughing.

Key takeaways

Laughing Child belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Laughing Child to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Laughing Child from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Laughing Child is a 1958 Modernist portrait painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts his daughter Charlotte as a young girl, in a dress and with messy hair, laughing. Charlotte Brack said of the painting that "There's a message in the messy hair and the flying plait. For me it's about the chaos of being a child." Discussing portraiture, John Brack said "I am not interested in how she looks sitting in the studio, but in how she looks at all times, in all lights, what she looked like before and what she is going to look like, what she thinks, hopes, believes and dreams". The painting was exhibited at Australian Galleries in Melbourne in 1958, where it was purchased by collector Cara Black for 50 Guineas. In June 2020, Laughing Child sold at auction for $915,000 (hammer price $750,000). A representative of the auction house claimed the painting to be one of the "most compelling representations of childhood" in Australian art.

See also First Daughter, a 1955 portrait by Brack of his daughter Clara

References

Further reading Hoff, Ursula, Robert Lindsay and Patrick McCaughey (1987) John Brack A Retrospective Exhibition, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Grishin, Sasha (1990) The Art of John Brack, Oxford University Press, Melbourne Vol. 2 (illustrated)

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Laughing Child

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Laughing Child claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Laughing Child before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Laughing Child ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Laughing Child

In research: Laughing Child appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Laughing Child in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Laughing Child is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1958 paintings, 20th-century painting stubs, Australian culture stubs, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Laughing Child outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Laughing Child in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Laughing Child means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Laughing Child out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Laughing Child in simple terms?

Laughing Child is a 1958 Modernist portrait painting by Australian artist John Brack. The painting depicts his daughter Charlotte as a young girl, in a dress and with messy hair, laughing.

Why does Laughing Child matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Laughing Child?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Laughing Child.