A Family

This work expresses Japanese society at that time in which the pre-war view of life (represented by the mother on the right) and the post-war view of life (represented by the daughter on the right) confronted each other. Insho once said of this painting that the models were members of an acquaintance's family living in the suburbs of Kyoto and that he depicted women of different generations to express a parent-child relationship during the most ideologically confused post-war period. The contrasting aspects of the mother and the daughter suggest the confrontation of generations and values. The younger sisters caught between the two women appear worried. Insho expressed the instability of post-war society in this subtle psychological space.