Fashonable Patterns in Utamaro Style
About This Series
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style" (Ryuko Utamaro-gata moyo), here recorded under a slug with the alternative spelling fashonable, is the bijin-ga cycle that frames its roster of contemporary women under a title explicitly identifying 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 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. The duplication of this slug alongside the standard spelling reflects the variant orthographies under which late-eighteenth-century print titles have been recorded in modern English cataloguing, and impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum, where the series figures in the standard literature on the artist's mature commercial production.
Prints in This Series (2)
Frequently Asked Questions
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Fashionable Patterns in Utamaro Style" (Ryuko Utamaro-gata moyo), here recorded under a slug with the alternative spelling fashonable, is the bijin-ga cycle that frames its roster of contemporary women under a title explicitly identifying 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 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. The duplication of this slug alongside the standard spelling reflects the variant orthographies under which late-eighteenth-century print titles have been recorded in modern English cataloguing, and impressions are held in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum, where the series figures in the standard literature on the artist's mature commercial production.
The Fashonable Patterns in Utamaro Style series contains 1 prints, created by Kitagawa Utamaro.
The Fashonable 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 Fashonable Patterns in Utamaro Style series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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