Three Children

Three Children, a color woodblock print by Hatsuyama Shigeru held in the Art Institute of Chicago (https://www.artic.edu/artworks/146609), exemplifies the artist's lifelong devotion to the imagery of childhood. The composition arranges three small figures across the sheet in the flat, decoratively balanced manner of Hatsuyama's picture-book illustration, with simplified bodies, gently rounded heads, and clothing reduced to broad areas of color. There is little perspectival depth; instead, the children are organized rhythmically against a quiet ground, with each figure given its own pose and chromatic identity so that the trio reads almost as a small theatrical tableau. Hatsuyama had spent much of his early career as one of Japan's most prolific illustrators for magazines and children's books — including covers for the magazine Otogi no sekai and contributions to Kodomo no Kuni — and that training is everywhere apparent here, in the clarity of silhouette, the gentle handling of color, and the warmth of the figures' presence. By the time he made Three Children, however, Hatsuyama had also fully entered the world of independent sōsaku-hanga (creative prints), designing, carving, and printing each block himself in the manner required by the movement. The result is a print that occupies an unusual position: a fully realized independent artwork that still carries the imaginative, child-centered ethos of his magazine work. For collectors of Hatsuyama Shigeru, Three Children is a representative example of how he positioned children — not as decoration, but as the central subject of a serious adult printmaking practice.