If you think that circuses are kind of creepy, Yasuo Kuniyoshi is doing nothing to change your mind.

But no surprise there, this is the guy who painted “babies and babies” because other people thought they were cute and he thought they were “otherwise.” Probably why he didn’t have any kids. Despite the smoggy clouds and those frilly red canopy things that we all understand as the saddest kind of decoration, this painting is tender. Mom is proud to be cruising around with her boy wearing matching tights and matching shoes. Lil kiddo still looks psyched to be holding mom’s hand and twinning with her. This is the one window in a boy’s life where he’s sweet and sensitive, Strong Woman and Child is an elegy to the potential for a mother to run the show and for a boy to not grow up into a misogynistic jerk.

Kuniyoshi probably saw these performers during his vacation to France the same year he painted this. You can tell it’s France from the architecture of the chateau in the bottom right, and also from the large French flags hanging over baby’s head.

Kuniyoshi was born in Japan, and though he spent the majority of his life in America he was always made aware of his outsiderness, usually by the US Government. That might be why he painted circus performers, cows, and ghost towns. His outside-ness gave him the kind of perspective to observe that “Americans are very naive, but they are very energetic.” He loved the energy and Americans loved him in return. Henry Poor called him the “most loveable” artists in America, and a New Yorker columnist dedicated a “talk of the town” to Kuniyoshi’s cred as an American treasure during WWII to defend his honor. Kuniyoshi turned that acceptance and care into this honestly cute painting. The colors are harsh, the forms are sharp and bulky, it’s dark. But look at their hands, pure affection.