Looking as if She Wants to Go for a Walk: The Fashion of a Married Woman of the Meiji Era (Yūho ga shitasō, Meiji nenkan saikun no fūzoku), from the series Thirty-two Appearances of Fashion (Fūzoku sanjūni sō)
- Source:
- Harvard Art Museums
From his celebrated 1888 series Thirty-two Appearances of Fashion (Fūzoku sanjūni sō), this woodblock print by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi presents a married woman of the Meiji era in modish daytime dress, captured at the moment of stepping out for a walk. The phrase that gives the sheet its title, 'looking as if she wants to go for a walk' (yūhō ga shitasō), exemplifies the gentle psychological characterization that distinguishes the entire series, in which each design pairs a female type with a distinctive verbal expression of mood or desire. Yoshitoshi arranges the figure against a softly muted ground, her kimono pattern and obi rendered with the meticulous attention to contemporary textile design that defined late Meiji ukiyo-e bijin-ga. Where earlier nineteenth-century beauty prints emphasized stylized allure, Yoshitoshi's women feel observed from life, their gestures specific and their faces individualized. The Thirty-two Appearances series, designed in the same period as the artist's major project One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, is now widely regarded as one of the finest cycles of beauty prints from the Meiji era. It also documents the rapid social transformation taking place around the artist, including the appearance of Western fashions, parasols, and timepieces alongside traditional dress. This impression is preserved at the Harvard Art Museums, where catalogue information can be consulted at harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/199385.
1888
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Color woodblock print
Meiji period, circa 1878-1882
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink, color and gauffrage ("blind" printing) on paper
Looking as if She Wants to Go for a Walk: The Fashion of a Married Woman of the Meiji Era (Yūho ga shitasō, Meiji nenkan saikun no fūzoku), from the series Thirty-two Appearances of Fashion (Fūzoku sanjūni sō) was created by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年).