Page 390 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

Among images of "beautiful" young men from the late eighteenth century is a sensitive inter-
pretation by Katsukawa Shunchó of one elegant youth, wearing a sword tucked in his sash, meeting
another who smokes a long-stemmed pipe by the riverside (cat. 253). The scene of young men alone
is suffused with homoerotic imagery: pipe, swords, fans, and irises (associated with Boy's Day) act as
phallic signifiers in a sexual reading of the image. Finally, as in Moronobu's compositions of a century
earlier, water becomes an important symbol of the "floating world," transient emotions, fleeting affairs,
passing time, and in an ironic sense, the aging process.

UTAMARO'S Among artists of the late eighteenth century who broke new ground in the depiction of female beauty 389

S T Y L I S H was Kitagawa Utamaro. Though best known to posterity and in his own day as a print designer, he was
C O U R T E S A N S a skilled painter as well. In a painting on silk mounted as a hanging scroll, a young woman in summer
A N D G E I S H A attire peers intently into a small hand mirror as she repairs her makeup (cat. 254). Her understated
summer robes are set off by a green obi. In the fashion of the day playing something showy against
a subtle ground was the essence of good taste. Something as flashy as that seen in early examples of
bijin painting by Kaigetsudó Dohan or Miyagawa Choshun would have been considered gaudy.

Closer examination of the image, however, reveals a small exposed section of the bright red
underlining of her robes — a hint of eroticism. In this regard the painting may be seen to embody the
aesthetic ideal of "stylish chic," iki, associated with bordello culture in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. One of the most elaborate explications of the concept of iki is found in The
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Structure o/Edo Aesthetic Style ("iki" no kózó) by Kuki Shüzó, published in i93o. Kuki discusses at length
the aesthetic priorities of the floating world, including Yoshiwara, the kabuki theaters, and the popular
arts that derived inspiration from them. In great detail he chronicled the customs, fashions, literature,
and cultural artifacts associated with the pleasure quarters. He did not see Yoshiwara culture as a
symbol of Edo decadence or debauchery but rather viewed it as displaying admirable pluck and resis-
tance. Most germane here is Kuki's perceptive documentation of changing criteria of feminine beauty
during the late Edo period. For instance, "Saikaku expressed the ideal of voluptuous beauty during
the Genroku period when he said, 'The face in fashion today is slightly rounded.' In contrast, Kaseiki
[late eighteenth/early nineteenth centuries] favored the refined elegance of an oval-shaped face."
Kuki's observation extended to the preferred female figure: "slender, long and willow-waisted is
thought to be one of the objective expressions of iki. The one who proclaimed this with the faith of a
fanatic was Utamaro." 21
Utamaro was an innovator in another late eighteenth-century development in the ukiyoe

tradition: half-length and bust portraits. Influenced by western categories of portraiture, such images
have in turn been highly admired by European and American connoisseurs. These portraits complete
the process of removing human figures from their environment; not only is a solitary figure isolated,
but anything extraneous is eliminated so that attention is concentrated on the face and upper body.
A classic example of Utamaro's half-length portraiture style is the print The Fancy-Free Type, which
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captures a young women just finishing her bath (cat. 255). The print belongs to a series entitled Ten
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Types of Female Physiognomy (though only five designs were produced). In them the artist seems to
be advertising himself as an expert with special insight into female personality. But how does he cap-
ture the inner essence of the women he depicts? Not through specific facial depiction. All of his women