Woman in a Summer Kimono

We continue our special month with the Toledo Museum of Art—enjoy!  : )

Though Edo period (1615–1868) images of beautiful women, leisure activities, and kabuki actors—known as ukiyo-e (pictures of the Floating World)—are the best known examples of Japanese woodblock prints, those from the early 20th century are perhaps unparalleled in their technical virtuosity. They show the ability of many artists to absorb Western influences while retaining the earlier traditions of Japanese prints. In Woman in a Summer Garment, for example, Hashiguchi Goyō treats the traditional intimate view of a woman at her toilette with a greater degree of Western-inspired realism and spatial volume than is typical of Japanese ukiyo-e print aesthetics.

At age 35, Goyō was already a well-established artist when he produced his first print with the well-known publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō. After the print failed to meet the level of quality that Goyō demanded of his work, he decided to employ his own carver and printer and to publish his prints himself. This allowed him to maintain control over his work and to pursue a technical proficiency higher than anything produced in Japan at that time. Dying at the early age of 41, however, he produced only twelve prints over three years.

Here Goyō has depicted his model and lover Nakatani Tsuru, a waitress at Osaka's Icho restaurant, kneeling before a mirror as she holds closed her sheer summer robe and gazes out at the viewer. Created at a time when rapid changes concerning women in Japanese society threatened the established notions of appearances and roles, the print seems to bring the past and present together. The woman is a tantalizing beauty in the manner of ukiyo-e images, yet has a presence and a sense of self-possession that seem entirely modern.

P.S. See the beautiful autumn moon in Japanese woodblock prints here. <3