Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style
About This Series
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style" (Ryuko Utamaro-gata moyo) is one of the artist's mature bijin-ga cycles, framing its roster of contemporary women under a title that explicitly identifies the designs as products of the Utamaro studio's signature manner. The series, generally placed in the mid-to-late 1790s, was issued by one of Utamaro's regular publishers and depicts each figure in the okubi-e half-length format that the artist had pioneered in his Tsutaya-era collaborations of 1792-1793. The conceit of the title turns the artist's name itself into a brand of fashion, an acknowledgment of the commercial weight that Utamaro's bijin-ga had achieved by the middle of the decade, and the prints accordingly emphasize the patterned robes and accessories that the informed contemporary viewer would have associated with the latest Yoshiwara style. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format, with the figure drawn against a plain or lightly toned ground that concentrates attention on the modulation of facial expression and the rhythm of the costume pattern. The colour is restrained in keeping with Utamaro's mature palette, and the surface relies on contour and pattern rather than tonal expanse. The series participates in the broader late-eighteenth-century industry of branded fashion publication, in which print designers, publishers, and the leading houses of the licensed quarter collaborated to set the visual register of contemporary style. Impressions are catalogued among the Utamaro holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tokyo National Museum, and the series figures in standard literature on the artist's mature commercial production.
Prints in This Series (2)
Complete series — all 1 prints catalogued.
Frequently Asked Questions
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style" (Ryuko Utamaro-gata moyo) is one of the artist's mature bijin-ga cycles, framing its roster of contemporary women under a title that explicitly identifies the designs as products of the Utamaro studio's signature manner. The series, generally placed in the mid-to-late 1790s, was issued by one of Utamaro's regular publishers and depicts each figure in the okubi-e half-length format that the artist had pioneered in his Tsutaya-era collaborations of 1792-1793. The conceit of the title turns the artist's name itself into a brand of fashion, an acknowledgment of the commercial weight that Utamaro's bijin-ga had achieved by the middle of the decade, and the prints accordingly emphasize the patterned robes and accessories that the informed contemporary viewer would have associated with the latest Yoshiwara style. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format, with the figure drawn against a plain or lightly toned ground that concentrates attention on the modulation of facial expression and the rhythm of the costume pattern. The colour is restrained in keeping with Utamaro's mature palette, and the surface relies on contour and pattern rather than tonal expanse. The series participates in the broader late-eighteenth-century industry of branded fashion publication, in which print designers, publishers, and the leading houses of the licensed quarter collaborated to set the visual register of contemporary style. Impressions are catalogued among the Utamaro holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Tokyo National Museum, and the series figures in standard literature on the artist's mature commercial production.
The Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style series contains 1 prints, created by Kitagawa Utamaro.
The Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style series was created by Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿).
We currently have 2 of 1 known prints from the Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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