Girls’ and Boys’ Day Celebrations

A study in contrasts, this diptych portrays the two Children’s Day festivals that are held every year in Japan. Zeshin has painted the Girls’ Day celebration, also known as the Dolls’ Festival or Hina matsuri, in a peasant’s thatched cottage. The brown leaves on the tree, the straw piled up after the rice harvest, and the yellow chrysanthemums in the vase are all associated with autumn, the season in which the festival was historically celebrated. A young girl entering the house with her grandmother looks at the traditional display of beautifully dressed dolls and the fruits of harvest arranged on a tiered stand carpeted in red, created in prayer for her good health and strong growth. Her parents pound sticky rice (mochi) outside the hut, making a sweet treat for the celebration.

By contrast, Boys’ Day, or Tango, is being celebrated in a magnificent villa set before a garden pond in which carp leap and irises bloom, both symbols of strength and bravery. A carp streamer filled by the wind flutters near the roof, and guests in court dress are arriving with gifts for the celebration. The focus of the day is the infant held in the arms of a woman seated to the right of the formally-dressed father with her back to us.