Page 394 - Edo: Art in Japan, 1615–1868

of his prints went into second editions. If his prints were not selling in early 1794, publishers would not
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have allowed him to go on creating designs through the end of the year. Whatever the reason for his
abrupt resignation from the Edo art scene, Sharaku's actor portraits were rediscovered by European col-
lectors early in the century and now rank among the most cherished ukiyoe prints.

N I N E T E E N T H - Since the turn of the century most western aficionados of ukiyoe have tended to view Utamaro's works

C E N T U R Y as the culmination of the bijinga tradition and everything that followed as evidence of a degeneration
C O N S T R U C T I O N S O F in the skills of both designers and printmakers. They argue that the overproduction of prints led to a
C O U R T E S A N S decline in the overall quality of prints of beauties and that the only category of later prints worthy of 393
admiration are the landscapes of Hokusai and Hiroshige. Yet such a view stubbornly clings to a narrow
view held by certain early connoisseurs who perhaps felt uncomfortable with a less idealized view of
feminine beauty presented by late Edo ukiyoe artists. In fact, if we retrace the history of the reception

of Japanese prints in the West, we discover that among the print designers who had the greatest impact
on European artists of the late nineteenth century were Keisai Eisen and Utagawa Kunisada.
Both Eisen and Kunisada (the latter, some say, in reaction to Eisen's innovations) started to
develop a style of bijin print using angular, sharp-edged outlines for facial features and garments in
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about the 18205. The hunched shoulders and crouched stance become more pronounced after this
time. From the svelte, artificially elongated women of Utamaro, we find a less flattering but probably
more realistic portrayal of courtesans whose postures were ruined by a paltry diet and constant kneel-
ing and crouching on the floor in service of patrons. 28
In considering Eisen's portraiture style, it is interesting to compare one of his images of a high-
ranking courtesan or oirán (cat. 271) to a painting of a Japanese courtesan by Vincent van Gogh that it
influenced (fig. i). Eisen uses the relatively unusual format of a vertical print diptych to capture the
aloof presence of a courtesan bedecked in robes with a bold design of a dragon soaring over swirling
waves against a black background. Van Gogh's courtesan faces to the left rather than the right, as in
Eisen's design, because his inspiration was not the actual print but a cover illustration of Paris illustré
(May 1886, "Le Japon"), which published the image in reverse. Apparently Van Gogh made a tracing and
a grid sketch of the magazine cover and then transferred the sketch in enlarged form to canvas. The
fanciful border painting surrounding Van Gogh's courtesan — a pond with water lilies, reeds, and bamboo

interspersed with figures in a boat, toads, and cranes — seems to be a composite of images borrowed
from less well known Utagawa-school artists of the late Edo period. 29
Van Gogh was fascinated by Japanese culture and by 1886 had begun to collect Japanese prints
in earnest while in Paris; at one point he toyed with the idea of dealing in prints to raise extra cash. It
was during this period that he created a handful of oil paintings based on Japanese prints — including
this portrait of a courtesan and two images derived from Hiroshige's series One Hundred Famous
Views of Edo, namely Plum Garden at Kameido and Sudden Shower over Ôhashi Bridge (cats. 146,149). 30