Imayo (Modern) 19
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Japanese Art Open Database
$500–$3,000. Common prints: $500–$1,000. Key value factors: Okamoto's colorful landscape prints are modestly priced and accessible to beginning collectors.
The nineteenth entry in Okamoto's Imayo (Modern) series, this [oban](/glossary/oban) woodblock print engages with the concept of imayo, a Japanese term meaning contemporary or fashionable that historically referred to popular songs and styles of the Heian period. Okamoto reactivates the word for his own era, applying it to images of women who embody a specifically modern sensibility. The numbered series format allows him to explore variations on this theme without narrative constraint, each print standing as an independent study in contemporary femininity filtered through traditional woodblock technique. The tension between the historical medium and the modern subject gives the series its particular energy, rooting present-day beauty in centuries of Japanese visual tradition.
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Imayo (Modern) 19 was created by Ryusei Okamoto (岡本隆生).
Imayo (Modern) 19 depicts figures and bijin-ga.
