painting;
hanging scroll
- Museum number
- 1881,1210,0.1765
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Courtesan seated with one arm behind her leaning slightly backwards, fingering mouthpiece of long silver pipe with other hand. Ink and colour on silk. Signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1870s
- Dimensions
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Height: 84.80 centimetres
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Width: 40.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
The early years of the Meiji era (1868-1912) witnessed many hybrid styles as old schools such as the Kano lost their privileged status, allegiances were realigned, and artists experimented with elements of Western-style painting. Though trained in the Kano style, Eitaku seems to have left this behind even before the end of the Edo period to incorporate elements of Ukiyo-e and Western-style depiction.
Here the courtesan sits with one arm behind her leaning slightly backwards, fingering the mouthpiece of a long silver pipe with the other hand. The outlines are nervous and highly modulated in a manner which no longer has the old Kano slickness, and Eitaku experiments too with a slight use of modelling in the face and hands. He feels he must foreshorten the knees in a manner more prosaic than the elegant, ballooning sweeps of drapery seen in paintings by Utamaro (no. 69) and Eisen (no. 149). In short, the old idealisation has disappeared leaving a work which although refreshingly candid and bravely searching for a new idiom is still tentative in its sense of what that new beauty will be. One can also perhaps detect qualms about how a 'bijin' (a 'beautiful woman' in the traditional sense) should be presented in the new age of civilisation and enlightenment.
Eitaku is known to have changed the character 'Ei' with which he wrote his name from one using the leg' radical (as here) to one using the 'water' radical, commonly encountered in his printed books. Once the date of this transition has been established, it should be possible to date this painting more accurately.
Literature:
Anderson, William, 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum'. London, Trustees of the British Museum, 1886, no. 1765.
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Asahi 1996
明治時代(1868-1912)初期には、いろんな画派を混ぜ合わせた様式を見ることができる。狩野派のような古い勢力が特権的な地位を失い、画派に対する忠誠心も形を変え、画家たちは洋風画の要素を試みるようになった。狩野派の教育を受けたのに、永濯は江戸時代がまだ終わらないうちに、狩野派をさしおいて浮世絵風、洋風画の要素を取り入れていた。
本作品では遊女が手を後ろについて軽くもたれかかっている。もう一方の手で長煙管の吸口をいじっている。輪郭は神経質な線で描かれ、旧幣した狩野派にはもはやない性質の、整った線である。永濯は手と顔をわずかに、立体感を表現するモデリングも試みている。彼はエレガントとはいえず面白みもない短縮法の表現を膝に用いるべきと考え、その一方喜多川歌麿(No.50)や渓斎英泉(No.60)にもあったように着物の衣文線をふくらませている。つまり、古くからの理想化・定型化した表現をなくし、清新かつ率直に新しい表現方法を追い求めているが、いまだ新しい美人像は定まっていない。「美人」を新しい文明開化の時代にどう定義づけるかに二の足を踏んでいるともいえよう。
永濯は名前の字をこの作品で使っている足へんの「躍」からさんずいの「濯」に変えたことが知られている。「濯」は版本に多くみられる。字を変えた時期が確定されれば、本作品の制作時期ももっと絞り込めるであろう。
(伊藤紫織(千葉市美術館))
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1881
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of over 2,000 Japanese and Chinese paintings assembled by Prof. William Anderson during his residency in Japan, 1873-1880, was acquired by the Museum in 1881. The items were not listed in the register, but rather were published separately as the 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum' (Longmans & Co, 1886).
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1881,1210,0.1765
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1601 (Japanese Painting Number)