One is struck by the flat top of the young child’s head, his upright posture, and his arms clasped about himself almost painfully tightly. The figure is made so that if the pedestal it stands on were extended upward, it would just fit neatly into it, almost as if Hashimoto had unearthed an infant entombed in such a prism. The artist himself said of this work: “It is a celebratory expression of the nature of an infant around his or her first birthday, right on the borderline between a wild beast and a human being.” (Hashimoto Heihachi, Junsui chokokuron, Shoshinsha, 1942) Do not miss the infant’s charming expression when seen from the side.