Woman

Woman is a single-figure bijin-ga design by Utagawa Kunisada, the dominant Edo ukiyo-e designer of the nineteenth century, best known for his enormous output of yakusha-e but also a prolific producer of beautiful-woman prints. Kunisada's bijin-ga of this period typically present a woman either alone or against a minimal background, the focus concentrated on the elongated oval face, carefully made-up features, and elaborate hair appropriate to her social role - courtesan of the Yoshiwara, geisha, townsman's wife, or daughter of a samurai household. The robe is rendered with the dense patterning the Utagawa school used to display Edo's textile culture, while the small accessories - hairpins, fan, smoking tray, letter - become elements of narrative implication. Without a more specific title the present sheet illustrates how Kunisada absorbed the bijin tradition founded by Utamaro and Eishi and reshaped it for nineteenth-century taste, with bolder line, denser colour, and a heightened compositional confidence. The impression is held in the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria collection and indexed on ukiyo-e.org. Source: ukiyo-e.org / Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (https://ukiyo-e.org/image/aggv/dscn1949).