Maiko in front of a light

The maiko, an apprentice geiko of Kyoto, is a long-standing [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) subject. Placing the figure in front of a light — likely a paper lantern or andon — sets up a backlit silhouette, where the sitter's hairpins (kanzashi), darari obi, and patterned kimono are read against an illuminated ground. This tonal play recalls the chiaroscuro of late nineteenth-century European poster art, particularly Toulouse-Lautrec, whom Oda admired, translated into mokuhanga's flat-color logic. The subject belongs to the bijin-ga genealogy stretching from Utamaro through to Taisho-period bijin printmakers like Hashiguchi Goyo and Ito Shinshui, a tradition Oda's scholarly writings on [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) took seriously as art history. As a founding [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) figure, his approach to bijin-ga would stand somewhat apart from the contemporaneous [shin-hanga](/glossary/shin-hanga) commercial production that then dominated the genre, favoring graphic flatness over decorative finish.