Primary Source - How children were treated
This ancient Japanese ink painting was painted by Hanabusa Itchô. Hanabusa Itchô was a Japanese artist in the start of the Tokugawa period (1600-1868). Itchô was best known for his genre of painting scenes of ordinary life. This black and white ink painting shows two puppeteers making a play and entertaining the children. This painting is a great example of the genre that Hanabusa Itchô paints and represents his way of painting ‘ordinary life’. Sometimes Itchô includes children (like in this picture), animals, street entertainers and other characters to bring more life and humour to his ink paintings. Hanabusa created this image sometime in between the years 1562-1724 but the exact date is unknown. This ink painting was painted for a public audience and could also be used in History classes to discuss the life style of children, women and Ancient Japanese Society. The message of this painting is to describe and show the nature of the children and how they were treated. Children in ancient Japan had strict rules but if they were obeyed they had a lot of freedom and time for playing. This is shown in the ink painting by Hanabusa where the children are running towards the puppeteers who are about to perform a play for the children who have just finished their chores and now have entertainment to reward them for their hard work. Hanabusa Itchô created this painting because he was an artist who wanted to express the beauty within ordinary life. He created this black and white ink painting to show the simple lives of the adults and children of ancient Japan. He also created this to pursue her career and love for art and the messages it can show like the genre she liked to create which was ‘simple life’. The nature of Itchô’s source is a ‘snapshot in time’. It was a black and white ancient Japanese ink painting and captures a moment in time many years ago. The techniques used to convince that this primary source would be helpful for historians investigating how children were treated are the use of space and placement of the characters in the painting. The placment of the kids running towards the adults shows that they are excited and was treated well because they aren’t scared of the adults. The facial expressions on the children and puppeteers are also very happy which shows that everyone was kind and was treated fairly.