Portrayed Children

If you take a close look at medieval (12th-16th century) paintings, including e-maki (picture scrolls) and byobu-e (folding screen paintings), you will see lively images of children shown among adults. These paintings are valuable resources to learn about the customs and manners of children at that time, who typically do not appear on the center stage of history. Let us see how children lived, played, and worked in the Middle Ages through these paintings.

During the Edo period (1603-1867), many paintings featuring children in everyday life were produced. In the latter half of the 18th century, when Suzuki Harunobu and others started to produce nishiki-e (multi-colored ukiyo-e), kodomo-e (pictures depicting children) appeared in the early stages and continued to be created until the end of the Edo period. The society was based on households in the Edo period, and children, the heirs to the family fortune, were called "treasured children" and were cherished as such. Nishiki-e depict all manners and customs surrounding children, such as events, home, play, and education, and shows the lively appearance of children in those days.

In the Meiji era (1868-1912), the modern system of education was introduced, and it was stipulated that all children of 6 and older should attend school. In addition, during the Taisho era, influenced by the new educational movements that began in Europe and America, a movement for more liberal education (the liberal education movement) that respected children's personalities and independence arose. It spread throughout the country under the influence of the Taisho democracy. Thus, during the Meiji and Taisho eras when interest in children's education increased, many works related to education, such as paintings depicting schools or created for the purpose of children's education, can be seen. In the field of art, as Western paintings were introduced to Japan, portraits of children started to be painted using ordinary children as models, following the trend of Western portraiture of the time.

Most of the children depicted in Western medieval paintings were images of the infant Christ represented by the Virgin and Child. It is thought that it was during the Renaissance period, around the 16th century, when the subject of paintings changed from the religious to the secular, that ordinary children began to appear in Western paintings, although still somewhat rarely. In the Netherlands, which early on established the basis of a modern civil society in Europe, children can be seen in portraits and genre paintings from the 17th century. In other Western countries, children began to be depicted in earnest in the mid-18th century, after the importance of children's rights and childhood was socially recognized, under the influence of "Emile, or Treatise on Education" by the French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Then, in the 19th century, the status of children in the family and society was firmly established, entering the golden age of child portraiture.

In ancient China, it was thought to be extremely joyous for the family to be blessed with many children and grandchildren, and to prosper. Also, children, symbols of such happiness, were frequently depicted in paintings and crafts as auspicious motifs for praying for the prosperity of offspring. Chinese paintings of children are characterized by this stylised motif, such as in "A Hundred Children'', in which a hundred children play together, and "Children Playing", in which children pick lotus flowers, a symbol of prosperity for offspring. Such Chinese paintings of children were brought to Japan and became very popular as motifs for ceramics and nishiki-e (multi-colored ukiyo-e) during the Edo period.