Utamushiro. Poem Party. Series: Fujin fuzoku Zukushi

From the series Fujin Fūzoku Zukushi ("Complete Customs of Women"), this sheet titled Utamushiro depicts a poetry gathering — utamushiro literally meaning the matted floor on which a uta-awase or composition party would be held. The series belongs to the bijin-ga tradition, surveying women across activities and social settings, and Gekko's contribution updated the genre for the late Meiji period by attending to costume, hairstyle, and interior detail with documentary specificity. The composition would typically arrange one or more women around the writing implements of the kaiseki and waka tradition: an inkstone, brushes, sheets of poem paper, perhaps a poem-card folded for exchange. Despite the landscape tag, the subject is principally figural and interior, with any landscape element entering through a shōji opening or a hanging scroll. Production followed full nishiki-e procedure, with attention to textile pattern blocks and bokashi shading on hair and garments. The series sat within the broad late-Meiji revival of bijin-ga that Gekko shared with Toshikata, Chikanobu, and the next generation of shin-hanga designers.