Objects of Beauty: Women in Ukiyo-e Prints
The concept of using female figures as the main subject in art mediums is timeless. Capturing female beauty can express a lot about a culture and its beauty standards at the time the piece was created.
There are two specific Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints housed at St. John’s Archive Collection created by notable Ukiyo-e artists, Hosoda Eishi and Kitagawa Utamaro. They were believed to be rivals during the 1700s but both artists flourished in creating similar portraits of beautiful Japanese women who spent time in brothels or pleasure districts of Yoshiwara. Both artists used water-based inks to print on washi paper to bring their woodblock prints to life. These prints allude to the importance of how women, as objects, are portrayed through art in Japanese society and how beauty and art reflect one another.
Ukiyo-e translates to “pictures of the floating world” and is one of the most influential art forms in the world. Bijin-ga, which refers to prints of beautiful women, is a particular ukiyo-e genre that embodies distinctive and artistic expression. It is also a form of advertising. Japanese women, specifically courtesans (or licensed prostitute) and actresses, were widely popular subjects and used as ‘muses’ of the art piece. Kitagawa Utamaro (1750–1806) and Hosoda Eishi (1756–1829), were known for creating bijin-ga.
Before we dive a little deeper into bijin-ga and the portrayal of female beauty shown in the works of Utamaro and Eishi, it’s important to understand how the history of ukiyo-e art started and why it is significant.
In the 1700s, Tokyo was called ‘Edo’ and during the Edo period, many artists created woodblock prints for theaters, restaurants, and teahouses. Ukiyo-e mostly consisted of the artistic technique of Japanese woodblock printing. Ukiyo-e prints are characterized by a rich and distinct color palette, flat graphic-styled illustrations, unconventional compositions, and indubitably Japanese subject matter.
Bijin-ga was considered a dominant genre of ukiyo-e. Early prints often depicted the daily mannerisms of famous courtesans who were equivalently seen as celebrities. Artists like Kitagawa Utamaro who created Komei Bigin Rokkasen, Six Selected Famous Beauties: The Window of Asahiya, portrayed urban women who were known for their beauty. This print can be found specifically under St. John’s Art Collection.
The portraits reflected not only changing standards of beauty in Japanese culture but the artist’s sensibility. Think of these portraits as capturing the image of an ideal ‘urban’ female. In the woodblock print above, Utamaro shows the woman, who is pictured without eyebrows, drying herself off with a towel. The shaving of eyebrows suggests that she is a married woman or has given birth. A technique known as kewari allows Utamaro to carve the individual strands of hair into the woodblocks. Sometimes these lines were as thin as a single millimeter and they help express realism and warmth in the portrait.
In the late 1700s, Utamaro’s figures were among the first to communicate the female subject’s personality and mood, therefore creating an individualized portrait. Utamaro started to break out of what at the time was considered the traditional style and he began to develop his own aesthetic. His figures were mostly thin but with proportionally long heads which lead to his work being known as “large head” portraits. Bijin-ga prints that were seen in hikifudas (Edo period newspapers) also depicted fashionable clothes that played the role of modern fashion magazines.
Another print in the St. John’s Art Collection is Itsutomi, from Selected Beauties Among Geisha Girls of the Gay Quarters which is a full-length image of a geisha, or courtesan, who has an instrument laying by her feet. This woodblock print was created by Hosoda Eishi, who mainly specialized in full-length portraits of women. You can see that her frame is tall and slender, standing with a shamisen plectrum in her hand.
Eishi’s version of bijin-ga in this portrait shows a simplistic representation with a limited color palette and an empty background. The details on her kimono suggest that clothing plays an important role in the beauty and appearance of the female form. His portrait is similar to Utamaro’s because of the elongated face shape and narrow features but uses more color than Utamaro. The rich colors and warm textures seen in both prints are brought to life by the washi paper. Eishi’s style and choice of colors used in the kimono reflect the aura of the geisha who “sells her art but not her body”.
Utamaro’s and Eishi’s bijin-ga portraits represent particular female beauties during the Edo period. However, these are mere interpretations of the artists’ perspective on how women should look and are not truly accurate depictions. Instead, the prints reflect the ideal of female beauty: a small mouth, widely spaced eyes, and a straight nose. Both of the prints featured above represent how beauty standards are defined in ukiyo-e prints. The Utamaro portraits also serve as a model for subsequent generations of woodblock artists. Geishas had soon become the new icons of feminine beauty and accomplishment by the 19th century. The recognizable and iconic style of gracefully illustrating female beauties in the ukiyo-e art movement is something that all artists can draw inspiration from.
For more prints of female portraits in different Asian art styles, check out St. John’s Art Collection.
References:
Anderson, Kelli, and Shovava. “The Unique History and Exquisite Aesthetic of Japan’s Ethereal Woodblock Prints.” My Modern Met, 2 Aug. 2019, https://mymodernmet.com/ukiyo-e-japanese-woodblock-prints/.
Liu, Hans. “Japanese Art: Everything You Might Not Know.” Japan Objects, Japan Objects, 20 Sept. 2019, https://japanobjects.com/features/japanese-art/#edo.
Meier, Anna Moblard. Beneath the Printed Pattern: Display and Disguise in Ukiyo-e Bijinga. 2013, http://repository.brynmawr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=bmc_books.
“Ukiyo-e Japanese Prints — Concepts & Styles.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/movement/ukiyo-e-japanese-woodblock-prints/history-and-concepts/.
Wanczura, Dieter. “Ukiyo.” e, Artelino GmbH, 13 Dec. 2018, https://www.artelino.com/articles/ukiyo-e.asp.
