hanging scroll;
painting
- Museum number
- 1946,0209,0.39
- Description
-
Painting, hanging scroll. Courtesan walking forward and looking back over shoulder; wearing belt with design of coiling dragons in intense green and orange bands; cropped with edge of painting. Ink and colour on paper. Signed.
- Production date
- 1804-1811
- Dimensions
-
Height: 119 centimetres
-
Width: 28.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
-
Clark 1992
It must be the destiny of minor pupils of a great artist to find one aspect of their teacher's genius in which they are competent and then to exaggerate this to carve out for themselves a certain individual territory. Only once in his career did Utamaro crop a figure with the edge of a painting, in what is thought to be one of his latest works, 'Courtesan Seated Playing a Shamisen', in the Freer Gallery of Art ('us', vol. 16 (1981), no. 48), and Hidemaro uses this compositional technique combined with the turned head with great effect to suggest that the woman is walking forward. Similar, too, to Utamaro's late painting style is the use of saturated colours, thickly applied; the 'obi' with a design of coiling dragons in intense green and orange bands is a 'tour de force', and the same colours are used on the lips. In general, however, Utamaro's figure style -particularly the face - has been elongated in a mannered way. The fashion for bringing the two sections of the 'yoko-hyogo' hairstyle to a sharp point is seen in early prints by Eizan and would seem to date to shortly after the death of Utamaro in 1806.
-
Asahi 1996
偉大な芸術家の二流の弟子の宿命とは、自分でも太刀打ちできそうな一要素を師の天分の中から見出し、それを誇張して自分の領分とすることに他ならない。
歌麿は生涯で一度だけ、絵の枠で人物を切り取る肉筆画を描いた。最晩年の作品の一つとされる「三味線を弾く遊女図」（フリーア美術館蔵 『浮世絵聚花』第16巻 1981年 小学館 48図）である。秀麿は人物が振り向く姿勢とこの構図法を結び付け、彼女が前に進みだすことを効果的に暗示している。また濡れたような厚塗りの色彩感は歌麿の晩年作に呼応し、たとえば、渦巻く龍の模様がある帯は、「めぐる力」とも言うべく強烈な緑と橙々色で色分けされ、同じ色彩が唇に用いられている。ただし一般的には、秀麿が描く人物像は－とくに顔が－形式的に間延びしている。
二つの髷を尖らせる横兵庫髷は菊川英山の初期版画にも見られ、歌麿が没した文化3年からわずかに下った頃の流行と考えられる。
（竹内美砂子（名古屋市博物館））
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1946
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1946,0209,0.39
- Additional IDs
-
Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.Add.214 (Japanese Painting Additional Number)
