Genroku Beauty

Led by Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962), the most important and successful publisher of woodblock prints in modern Japan, the shin hanga movement sought to revitalize the ukiyoe tradition but also to distinguish it from the older art which had been produced as commercial art for the popular masses. In 1930 and 1936, two major shin hanga exhibitions were held at the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. The two bijin prints created by Hakuhō and published by the Watanabe Print Shop in 1932—Yuagari (After a Bath) and Kagami no mae (In Front of a Mirror)—were exhibited at the second Japanese Contemporary Print Exhibition at the Toledo Museum of Art in 1936, and were well received. They still remain popular among collectors today.

Genroku Beauty is a painting by this accomplished artist whose full scope of activities is yet to be known. Here Hakuhō presents a woman wearing a distinct hairstyle and boldly patterned kimono, both typical in some ways of the Genroku period of the late seventeenth century, but more boldly representative of the patterns so popular in the Taishō and Shōwa years. Holding a hair ornament in her raised hand, she twists her body sideways as if to cast a glance at somebody, possibly an admirer. She is obviously pleased with her stylish kimono that features so many of the distinct patterns prevalent at the time. A striped kimono with undergarment of red peaking from her sleeves is accented by an obi with the Chinese yin/yang design while a musical instrument, the koto, wraps itself around her neckline highlighting a final accent, her silk checkered scarf, another popular pattern of the day.

Hakuhō’s works are in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo.

Click on any image for an enlarged view.