Question 2B: Using ADAM ANT, choose ONE primary source to answer the question, "Describe how your chosen source could be useful to an historian investigating how children were treated in Shogunate Japan"
Hanabusa Itcho was a Japanese artist in the early Tokugawa period. He was known for painting ordinary daily scenes of life in the streets of Edo. We can view this theme in his traditional Japanese ink painting, ʻPuppeteersʼ which was painted somewhere in the period during his life 1653-1724 as the date of the painting is unknown. It was found in Itchoʼs zatsu-gacho (sketch book) along with 36 other artworks. As we don’t know his intended audience we have to assume from his job as an official government painter that his art was aimed at the wealthier members of the public. His official role could have also have restricted his subject matter. The ʻPuppeteersʼ shows two adult puppeteers and 4 children interacting in the street with one child carrying a baby on his/her back. They are wearing traditional kimonos. Another child is looking out at the action in the street from a barred window giving the feeling that the child is in prison. This reflects the division in the Feudal class system where upper class children were kept under stricter and more controlled environments compared to the children from the lower classes that were allowed to wander around more freely. Also from research we can determine that the child with the baby on its back is a servant or brother or sister. Historical research from this time tells us that the people believed that it was healthy for babies to be outside in the fresh air on the backs of their brothers or sisters or servant. In this source Itcho has portrayed a happy, festive atmosphere, implying that children still enjoyed their childhood in the form of play, games, songs and folktales, travelling entertainers and shrine festivals (selling sweets and paper toys), despite the tensions between the classes. From our source “Puppeteers” we can determine that children’s lives were greatly impacted by the strict class system of Feudal Japan. While the children of peasant and merchant families had freedom to roam the streets, those of the upper and ruling classes couldn’t mix outside their class and were brought up with stricter rules. From these deductions we can state that this source would be useful to an historian investigating how children were treated in Shogunate Japan. However, as the painting only depicts a glimpse of children interacting in the street life in Edo we see more of the actions of peasant/merchant children, who tended to have jobs and were involved in helping their families, than the hidden world of upper class children.
Primary source 'Puppeteers' by Hanabusa Itcho