Jokyū (Café Waitress)

Born to the family of a Confucian scholar in Edo, Shimazaki Ryūu grew up with a strong literati foundation of Chinese classical literature and calligraphy. He briefly studied oil painting in 1879 but soon switched to nihonga and sought instructions under Matsumoto Fūko and Kawabata Gyokushō, both well-respected painters active in Tokyo. Between 1885 and 1892, Ryūu was engaged in the design and printing work at the Ministry of Finance Printing Bureau. In 1890, he won his first major award for his painting at the third Domestic Industrial Exposition. In the following year, he founded Japan Young People’s Painting Association together with Terazaki Kōgyō and Kajita Hanko and soon began to achieve recognition at various painting exhibitions. During this decade, the Mitsui Dry Goods Store (later Mitsukoshi Department Store) commissioned Ryūu to research textile design and the yūzen dyeing technique. In 1900, Ryūu established Museikai with Yūki Somei and Hirafuku Hyakusui. His painting titled Saikaku no Onatsu (Onatsu by Saikaku) was accepted to the first Bunten held in 1907 while he won the second prize at the fifth Domestic Industrial Exhibition for Bion (Beautiful Melody) in the same year. Subsequently, he regularly showed at the Bunten through 1916. After the restructuring of Bunten to Teiten in 1919, however, he withdrew from public exhibitions and focused on teaching. Although a versatile painter, Ryūu was best known for his bijinga (paintings of beautiful women) with well-researched and consummate depictions of the kimono textiles that adorned the figures. Reflecting his scholarly upbringing, he was known as one of the best calligraphers among the nihonga artists of his generation and enjoyed a close friendship with Natsume Sōseki, the eminent novelist.

The first café waitress in modern Japan appeared in 1911 with the establishment of Kafe (Café) Purantan (Printemps in French) in Ginza, Tokyo. Modeled after a French salon and initially open on a membership-basis only, Kafe Purantan was frequented by famous writers and artists. Soon other cafés with less exclusive policies opened and gained popularity as fashionable gathering spots for the urban Japanese. They offered Western drinks, coffee, and light Western-style meals, served by young women, who wore a large frilled white apron over a traditional kimono.

In Ryūu’s painting, a café waitress, dressed in a blue kimono with a bold white pattern and a trademark Western-style apron, takes a momentary break during her work. Seated on a chair, she holds a handkerchief to her cheek, while resting her other hand on the table, where an ashtray and a collection of sauces are seen. Ryūu portrays her as a hard-working, innocent young woman, and not as a sexualized object, as some café waitresses would become during the late 1920s. Numerous bottled drinks imported from the West crowd elaborately decorated shelves in the background, conveying the exotic ambience of the Taishō-period café. 

Ryūu’s Bunten submissions represent his adherence to conservative style and themes drawn from Chinese and Japanese literature or the traditional customs and manners of his time. A café waitress, a cutting-edge contemporary subject and embodiment of Western cultural influence, is a pleasant anomaly in his oeuvre, and reveals a willingness to explore modernity by an artist generally known for his orthodoxy.

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