Preparing Tea at Miyako Odori Festival

The third Suizan print of the Miyako Odori tea-preparation theme likely completes a series of related variants, each capturing a slightly different phase of the ceremony or a different participant — perhaps a young maiko handling the chashaku, an older geiko bowing as she presents the bowl, or a moment of stillness before the matcha is whisked. The repetition of the subject across multiple prints reflects both audience demand and the artist's own deep engagement with Gion's cultural rituals; Suizan, working within walking distance of the Kaburenjō theater, would have directly observed these performances. Technically, the print is a nishiki-e pulled by baren on washi, with the layered translucent pigments characteristic of shin-hanga production yielding the soft skin tones and lacquer-like blacks of a maiko's hair. Within Suizan's wider body of work, these tea-ceremony bijin-ga occupy a central place: they unite his nihonga training under Takeuchi Seihō, his commitment to recording Kyoto's living arts traditions, and the broader shin-hanga revival of bijin-ga as a serious genre alongside Western-influenced painting.