Two Beauties Dressed as Komuso Priests (Komuso sugata no ni bijin)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
This print depicts two women dressed in the distinctive costume of komuso — wandering Zen monks of the Fuke sect who played the shakuhachi flute while wearing large woven-straw basket hats (tengai) that concealed their faces completely. The komuso costume, which made the wearer unidentifiable, was sometimes used as a disguise, and two women adopting it creates a scene of playful or perhaps serious concealment. The [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) format makes feminine beauty visible even as the conceit of anonymity frames the composition.
![A Low Class Prostitute (Gun [teppo]), from the series “Five Shades of Ink in the Northern Quarter" ("Hokkoku goshiki-zumi") by Kitagawa Utamaro](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/ed82be98-8a83-4163-ccc4-e2f7210cce55/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
c. 1794/95
Color woodblock print; oban
c. 1793
color woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Two Beauties Dressed as Komuso Priests (Komuso sugata no ni bijin) was created by Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿).
Two Beauties Dressed as Komuso Priests (Komuso sugata no ni bijin) depicts bijin-ga.
