Comparing the Charms of Five Beauties (Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe)
Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe
About This Series
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Comparing the Charms of Five Beauties" (Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe) is a defining bijin-ga set of the artist's middle career, gathering five celebrated teahouse waitresses and Yoshiwara figures into a comparative okubi-e roster. The series was published by Tsutaya Juzaburo around 1795-1796, in the final phase of the partnership that had shaped much of Utamaro's most ambitious work, and presents each beauty in the half-length close-up format that the artist had pioneered earlier in the decade. The five women include the most celebrated teahouse beauties of the period, among them Naniwaya Okita of the Asakusa teahouse and Takashima Ohisa of the Ryogoku stand, alongside leading courtesans of the Yoshiwara, and the comparative format invites the viewer to read across the roster as a survey of the leading public female celebrities of mid-1790s Edo. Each sheet is issued in oban tate-e format, with the figure drawn at near-life scale against a plain or mica ground that concentrates attention on the modulation of facial expression. The cartouche identifies each woman by name, and the costume is patterned with the seasonal motifs and identifying devices that the contemporary viewer would have read for their references to the teahouse or establishment. The series operates simultaneously as a fashion record, a public advertisement for the celebrated beauties it depicts, and an aesthetic statement of the okubi-e bijin-ga at its mature register. Impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, where the series consistently figures among the central documents of Utamaro's Tsutaya-era output.
Frequently Asked Questions
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Comparing the Charms of Five Beauties" (Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe) is a defining bijin-ga set of the artist's middle career, gathering five celebrated teahouse waitresses and Yoshiwara figures into a comparative okubi-e roster. The series was published by Tsutaya Juzaburo around 1795-1796, in the final phase of the partnership that had shaped much of Utamaro's most ambitious work, and presents each beauty in the half-length close-up format that the artist had pioneered earlier in the decade. The five women include the most celebrated teahouse beauties of the period, among them Naniwaya Okita of the Asakusa teahouse and Takashima Ohisa of the Ryogoku stand, alongside leading courtesans of the Yoshiwara, and the comparative format invites the viewer to read across the roster as a survey of the leading public female celebrities of mid-1790s Edo. Each sheet is issued in oban tate-e format, with the figure drawn at near-life scale against a plain or mica ground that concentrates attention on the modulation of facial expression. The cartouche identifies each woman by name, and the costume is patterned with the seasonal motifs and identifying devices that the contemporary viewer would have read for their references to the teahouse or establishment. The series operates simultaneously as a fashion record, a public advertisement for the celebrated beauties it depicts, and an aesthetic statement of the okubi-e bijin-ga at its mature register. Impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, where the series consistently figures among the central documents of Utamaro's Tsutaya-era output.
The Comparing the Charms of Five Beauties (Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe) series contains 1 prints, created by Kitagawa Utamaro.
The Comparing the Charms of Five Beauties (Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe) series was created by Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿).
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