Page 388 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

tive in the realm of artistic imagination. The courtesan's long, uncoiffed hair suggests that she has
just returned from the bath and is perhaps preparing for a sexual liaison. The light brown obi is loosely
knotted in front, the usual practice for courtesans. She is seated on a sugoroku board, used for a back-
gammon-like game, and we recall earlier paintings in the tradition, such as the Hikone Screen, in which
the game board is associated with interaction between men and women. Her nearly recumbent posture,
defying gravity, conveys an understated sensuousness. In the geometry of desire underlying the painting,
the triangular arrangement of the courtesan in relation to the accoutrements of leisure works against
the diagonals of the folding screen, imbuing the work with an ever-so-slight sense of libidinal chaos.

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I M A G E S O F The painted screens and hanging scrolls just described serve as excellent indicators of the talents and
Y O U T H F U L B E A U T Y priorities of early ukiyoe artists, but we should remember that they were created for comparatively
wealthy patrons and were limited in number and circulation. In contrast, ukiyoe produced by means
of woodblock prints, in editions ranging into the several thousands, were easily affordable even by a
person of limited means. The earliest prints, such as those produced during the age of Moronobu, were
produced from a single woodblock. Among the incunabula of Edo printmaking, coloring, if attempted
at all, was by the inefficient means of hand painting.
In the 17605 publishers began to experiment with using multiple blocks to produce polychrome
ukiyoe prints. The central figure in this revolution was the print designer Suzuki Harunobu. His first
designs were privately commissioned picture calendars that were circulated in very limited editions
among literary or artistic circles. An example is the image of a wakashu (an elegant young man) pre-
sented as the deity Ebisu, one of the gods of good fortune (cat. 248), who is usually depicted as a fat
old fisherman. That this print was designed as a calendar picture is evidenced by the numbers of the long
months of 1765 cleverly interwoven in the design of the fish.
18
This image by Harunobu is an example of a "transpositional print," or mitate-e. The wakashu in
effeminate garb appears with identifying attributes of the deity, including a fishing pole and toy sea
bream (tai). Harunobu was a master of such delightful if not outrageous juxtapositions of opposites —
turning old into new, male into female, sacred into profane. Other excellent examples of this technique
of parody in mitate-e can be seen in Harunobu's depiction of another god of good fortune, Daikokuten,

as a woman (cat. 247) and in his imaginative resituating of the Heian poet Ono no Komachi in a
contemporary setting with modern dress (cat. 252). Traditional themes are cleverly recast, often
reaffirming cultural icons and classical motifs while making eye-catching, even humorous, visual
jabs. Mitate-e became increasingly popular through the late Edo period, at least in part because
of an increased availability of popular editions of Chinese and Japanese literary classics.
Once Harunobu perfected his formula for depicting feminine beauty, either in mitate-e or in
images of Edo demimondaines, he used it for the rest of his career. His portrayal of women completely
eschews the statuesque, robust presence of a Kaigetsudó or Choshun woman for a more diminutive
and delicate feminine presence. Harunobu's figures have tiny hands and feet, perhaps symbolizing a
powerlessness to resist male advances. Bodies are fragile, almost weightless, and seemingly prone to
inertia. The women's oval faces are stereotyped, completely devoid of individuality, and they betray little
evidence of age, experience, or emotion of any sort. Yet as Harunobu experimented with composition
and color schemes over about five years, he turned these unassuming young female figures into players