Koinobori Carp Streamer

At first glance, this watercolor appears to be an illustration for children. However, it contains a number of morbid details that lend it an eerie dimension. The skull on which the little girl at the center of the work is sitting is a kind of memento mori. In this way, the viewer is reminded of his or her own anguish at the inevitability of death. The hands sticking out of the water, reaching for the sky, probably belong to drowning victims and reinforce the morbid character of the work. In this way, Koharutie depicts childhood through the prism of the anguish and suffering that can agitate this imaginative period.