Maiko

Dated 1977, this oban woodblock print portrays a maiko, an apprentice geisha, in the elaborate regalia of her training period. Shimura Tatsumi renders the young woman's distinctive white makeup, elaborate hair ornaments (kanzashi), and the trailing obi that marks her apprentice status with extraordinary attention to detail. The maiko occupies a unique position in Japanese visual culture as a figure of studied beauty, every element of her appearance prescribed by tradition. Shimura's late-career treatment of this subject balances reverence for the maiko tradition with the observational precision of an artist who has spent decades studying how women present themselves to the world.