A Ball, from the series Twelve Subjects of Children

One print from the series Twelve Subjects of Children (子供十二題), a thematic set in which Hasui depicted objects and activities associated with childhood. Within this series, individual prints focus on toys, games, and play, treating each subject with the same compositional care he brought to landscape work. A ball as subject invites attention to form, color, and the quality of surface—its curvature modeled through flat planes of color and careful key-block registration rather than Western shading. The series as a whole reflects the shin-hanga movement's engagement with Japanese daily life and seasonal custom alongside the meisho-e and kacho-e subjects more commonly associated with the revival. Publisher Watanabe Shozaburo was instrumental in developing such thematic series for the domestic and export market.