122 - Keishu: Beauty with Lantern

 

Takeuchi Keishu: Beauty with lantern

This is a bijinga, Beauty with lantern by Takeuchi Keishu (1861-1942). The print is from 1900-1910. Keishu's teacher was the great Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.

116 - Kosetsu: Two biljin walking in a Cherry orchard at dusk

Kosetsu: Two biljin walking in a Cherry orchard at dusk

This is a print by a less known artist, Miseuchi Kosetsu, active in the 1920s. The print is probably from 1924, It's a bijinga with two bijin looking at cherry blossoms (sakura).

111 - Tsukimaro: Painting

Tsukimaro: Painting

Kitagawa Tsukimaro (1804-1836) was Utamaro's student. This is a beautiful painting (colour on silk) in a style where ukiyo-e has absorbed some Western and Chinese elements. A rare combination.

The girl is not Japanese, but clearly Chinese. Probably it is Yang Guifei, concubine of the Tang emperor Xuanzong, who ruled China 712-756. She was known as China's most beautiful woman. The emperor is said to have neglected his empire for her sake, which caused Tang China to decline. She ended up executed by strangulation after the An Lushan rebellion. Her life is the subject of a large number of Chinese dramas and poems.

97 - Eishô: Front of Chojiya Pleasure House

Eishô: Front of Chojiya Pleasure House

Front of Chojiya Pleasure House is a triptych by Chôkôsai Eishô. It is from 1798.

94 - Hokuba: Bijinga

Hokuba: Bijinga

This is a painting on silk, a kakemono, by Teisai Hokuba (1771-1844). A beautiful bijinga from the 1830s.

Hokuba was one of Hokusai's best students.

90 - Chikanobu: A group of bijin look out over a snow-covered garden

Chikanobu: A group of bijin look out over a snow-covered garden

A beautiful triptych by Toyohara Chikanobu, A group of bijin look out over a snow-covered garden, from 1893. It is a combination of bijinga and landscape.

87 - Harunobu: Woman Visiting the Shrine in the Night

Harunobu: Woman Visiting the Shrine in the Night

Another bijinga from one of the greatest ukiyo-e masters, Suzuki Harunobu.

84 - Eisen: Ono no Komachi – A Shy Girl

Eisen: A shy girl

 
Keisai Eisen (1790-1848) is especially known for his okubi-e. With him, the style is changing. Classical bijinga is over, and he enters new realms. The pictures become less ethereal.

This is an okubi-e, a print from about 1820: Ono no Komachi – A Shy Girl.

76 - Eishô: Motozue of the Daimonjiya

Eishô: Motozue of the Daimonjiya

This is an okubi-e by Chôkôsai Eishô (active approximately 1780-1800) - Motozue of the Daimonjiya, from the series Contest of Beauties of the Pleasure Quarters (Kakuchû bijin kurabe), from 1795-1797.

Eishô created several beautiful bijinga in the form of okubi-e. This picture, a portrait of a courtesan, is made extra interesting by the addition of a cat as a contrast to the face.

75 - Chōshun: Beauty in the Snow

Chōshun: Beauty in the Snow

Miyagawa Chōshun (1683-1753) founded the Miyagawa school. He and his students did not create woodblock prints; they exclusively painted.

This painting is Beauty in the Snow. The composition is typical for certain forms of East Asian art, where emptiness is used as an active element of the composition.

68 - Koryusai: Fisherman Waving to Girl on Shore

Koryusai: Fisherman Waving to Girl on Shore

A bijinga by Isoda Koryusai. Fisherman Waving to Girl on Shore. It is Summer from a series of Four Seasons from 1770-75. Note that this is an ordinary girl, not a geisha or courtesan.

60 - Kiyonaga: Actor Onoe Matsusuke Playing the Shamisen, with a Courtesan and a Kamuro

Kiyonaga: Actor Onoe Matsusuke Playing the Shamisen, with a Courtesan and a Kamuro
1782

When Torii Kiyonaga (1782-1815) became the head of the Torii School, he changed ukiyo-e by fusing different traditions. Mainly the Katsukawa School, Harunobu's style, and, of course, his own Torii School. He summed up ukiyo-e so far and set the direction for its development in the following years.

His style appears naturalistic, but in a graceful manner. Kiyonaga is one of the really great woodblock masters, especially when it comes to bijinga. But of course he also made kabuki prints, yakusha-e. The Torii school nearly had monopoly on printed matter for the kabuki theatres.

This print from 1782 is Actor Onoe Matsusuke Playing the Shamisen, with a Courtesan and a Kamuro.

58 - Nobukazu: Beauties Viewing Moon

Nobukazu: Beauties Viewing Moon, about 1890

A bijinga in the form of a triptych by Watanabe Nobukazu: Beauties Viewing the Moon, from about 1890.

55 - Eizan: Hanaôgi of the Ôgiya

Eizan: Hanaôgi of the Ôgiya, 1806-1808

The widely underrated Kikugawa Eizan (1787-1867), completed and ended the development of classical bijinga, which leads in a straight line from Haronubu, via Koryusai, Kiyonaga and Utamaro, finally to peak with Eizan. Both Koryusai and Eizan are often overlooked, but they certainly deserve attention as the masters they were.

This is Hanaôgi of the Ôgiya, from the series Women of Seven Houses (Shichikenjin), a pun on Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove. Eizan created this print sometime between 1806 and 1808.

50 - Harunobu: Bijinga

Harunobu: Bijinga

Undoubtedly, Harunobu was one of the earliest, greatest, and most innovative of the ukiyo-e masters. In his best works, primarily bijinga, the female figures possess an elegance few other artists have been able to achieve.

Here he displays a bijin sitting on the back of an ox. A peculiar and precarious position, yet the figure has not lost anything of its gracefulness.

46 - Eizan: Geisha Playing the Hand-Game Kitsune-ken

Eizan: Geisha Playing the Hand-Game Kitsune-ken

Kikugawa Eizan (1787-1867) studied under Utamaro and in certain circles he is seen as a plagiarist of his master with little originality of his own. This is not true. Although Eizan builds on Utamaro's style, he developed it further. With him, classical bijinga reaches its peak and its end; what's coming after him introduces new artistic elements, alien to original ukiyo-e.

The picture is a triptych, Geisha Playing the Hand-Game Kitsune-ken, from about 1820.

Kitsune-ken is a game similar to rock-paper-scissors. From left to right we see Village head [庄屋 shōya], which wins over the Hunter; Fox [狐 kitsune], which wins over the Village Head; and Hunter [猟師 ryōshi], which wins over the Fox.

41 - Sadanobu II: Bijinga

Sadanobu II: Bijinga

This bijinga is a painting by Hasegawa Sadanobu II (active between 1867 and the 1880s). It is signed “Ho Utamaro Sadanobu”, which means “Sadanobu imitating Utamaro”. That probably refers to the style. The painting is unusual and beautiful.

38 - Koryusai: Sagi musume - The Heron Maiden

Koryusai: Sagi musume - The Heron Maiden

Here we have one of my personal bijinga favourites, “The Heron Maiden” [Sagi musume], a woodblock print by Isoda Koryusai (1735-1790).

The Heron Maiden is a character in a Japanese folk tale, and often a motive in pictorial art. Briefly, this is the story:

A young man finds a wounded heron, which he takes home and tends until it is healed. When it is, it flies away.

After some time, the man meets a girl, falls in love with her and they get married. They are happy, and to earn a living the wife weaves a precious brocade which the husband sells. But there is one constraint: the man may never watch his wife while she weaves. When he cannot resist to take a look, he sees a heron at work. In front of his eyes, the heron is transformed into his wife. But the spell is broken. When the man has seen her secret, their life together must come to an end and she must leave him. She bids him  goodbye, joins a swarm of herons and disappears.

35 - Kaigetsudō Ando: Bijin and Attendant

Kaigetsudō Ando: Bijin and Attendant, 1710

Painter Kaigetsudō Ando (1671-1743) founded the Kaigetsudō school, and some of “his” works might very well have been painted by his disciples. He belongs to the few ukiyo-e artists who never made woodblock prints but restricted his work to paintings.

As many East Asian paintings, Bijin and Attendant is painted on silk. That gives the picture a special lustre.

The musical instrument is a shamisen. It has three strings and its closest western relative is the banjo.

28 - Moronobu: Beauty Looking Back

Moronobu: Beauty Looking Back

The picture this week is “mikaeri-bijin” [beauty looking back] a painting by Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694), who was the first true ukiyo-e artist. He set the norm for bijinga, a norm to a large extent still defining bijinga as a genre. But his “beauty looking back” is not only artistically interesting, it has also influenced the Japanese language.

見返り美人 – mikaeri-bijin - became a Japanese term for a beautiful woman looking back. But in modern Japanese it has a more special meaning. It is a girl or woman looking beautiful from behind, but, when she turns around, proves to be ugly from the front. The concept contains a degree of disappointment. I don't know of any other language having a special word for this.

There is no reason to believe that the name connoted ugliness or disappointment for Moronobu. That came later.