Letter

A woman with a letter — the fumi or tegami — a compositional subject with enormous resonance in bijin-ga. Letters in the courtly and townspeople's cultures of Japan were the medium of romantic correspondence, of news from distant family members, of social obligations and pleasures. A woman with a letter might be reading it in absorbed attention, turning it over in puzzlement, or simply holding it — each attitude suggesting a different emotional state and narrative context. Hanko's treatment of this established subject would have explored its psychological dimensions with the subtle expressiveness characteristic of his mature style.