A recurring leitmotif of much recent art is a vision of childhood as paradise lost, in which toys, stuffed animals, and even children themselves seem to have run amok. Often the impetus for this kind of work appears to be a kind of mourning for a collective loss of innocence: a longing for something irretrievably destroyed, presumably by “modern life.” Yet this kind of work is sometimes generated by much more complicated and interesting emotions and ideas. Brett Reichman’s paintings of elfin characters, for instance, may exude a palpable melancholy, but a closer examination of these profoundly