Activities of Women
About This Series
Ogata Gekko's Activities of Women (Fujin no waza or a related title) belongs to the comparative-genre bijin-ga production through which the artist surveyed the social register of Meiji-era femininity for the post-Edo print market. The series, plausibly dated to the 1890s during the most productive phase of Gekko's collaboration with the leading Meiji publishers, gathers female figures engaged in the characteristic occupations and pastimes of the period, from the domestic tasks of the merchant and artisan classes through the cultivated leisure of the upper bourgeoisie. The conceit of organizing women by occupation or activity had a long ukiyo-e lineage running through the bijin shokunin zukushi compilations of the late Edo period, and Gekko's series adapts it to a Meiji audience for which the visible spectrum of women's labor and leisure had been transformed by the social changes following the Restoration. The figures are drawn in the elegant proportions characteristic of his bijin work, combining the nihonga training of his early career with the ukiyo-e tradition in a register distinctive to his Meiji practice, and each sheet identifies its subject by a cartouche giving the activity depicted. The format is oban tate-e and the production employs the graduated color, fine textile patterning, and selective use of metallic pigment that distinguished the deluxe Meiji print, the medium that publishers such as Matsuki Heikichi and Sasaki Toyokichi developed for the educated domestic market and for export collectors. The series belongs to the broader genre survey running through Gekko's mature production and is best understood as a Meiji-era documentary of the visible activities of contemporary women. Impressions are catalogued among the Gekko holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Ogata Gekko's Activities of Women (Fujin no waza or a related title) belongs to the comparative-genre bijin-ga production through which the artist surveyed the social register of Meiji-era femininity for the post-Edo print market. The series, plausibly dated to the 1890s during the most productive phase of Gekko's collaboration with the leading Meiji publishers, gathers female figures engaged in the characteristic occupations and pastimes of the period, from the domestic tasks of the merchant and artisan classes through the cultivated leisure of the upper bourgeoisie. The conceit of organizing women by occupation or activity had a long ukiyo-e lineage running through the bijin shokunin zukushi compilations of the late Edo period, and Gekko's series adapts it to a Meiji audience for which the visible spectrum of women's labor and leisure had been transformed by the social changes following the Restoration. The figures are drawn in the elegant proportions characteristic of his bijin work, combining the nihonga training of his early career with the ukiyo-e tradition in a register distinctive to his Meiji practice, and each sheet identifies its subject by a cartouche giving the activity depicted. The format is oban tate-e and the production employs the graduated color, fine textile patterning, and selective use of metallic pigment that distinguished the deluxe Meiji print, the medium that publishers such as Matsuki Heikichi and Sasaki Toyokichi developed for the educated domestic market and for export collectors. The series belongs to the broader genre survey running through Gekko's mature production and is best understood as a Meiji-era documentary of the visible activities of contemporary women. Impressions are catalogued among the Gekko holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum.
The Activities of Women series contains 1 prints, created by Ogata Gekko.
The Activities of Women series was created by Ogata Gekko (尾形月耕).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Activities of Women series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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