Join the bus tour to the Clark Center on Saturday, July 18 to view this exhibition
Clark Center’s summer exhibition to reveal rare collection of Kyoto beauties outside of Japan
Cultural News, 2009 May Issue
Mihata Joryo (act.1830s) Young Woman and Boy, Mid 19th century. Pair of hanging scrolls; ink and colors on silk. Left: 100.5 x 32.6 cm. Right: 99.6 x 32.9 cm. (Courtesy of Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture)
Japanese Beauties: Glamorous, Decadent, Sensuous, and Bizarre
May 24 – August 1, 2009
The Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture
Hanford in the Central Valley of California
(559) 582-4915 www.ccjac.org
The representation of beautiful women has been a principal subject in the arts. In Western art, paintings of women follow traditionally one of two types; one being portraits of individuals such as Leonardo da Vinci’s (1452-1519) portrait of Lisa Gherardini, better known as ‘Mona Lisa,’ and others representing legendary beauties such as Venus or the Greek Helen of Troy.
The Japanese beauties in woodblook prints from the Edo period (1600-1868) known as ukiyo-e, pictures of the ‘floating world’, are internationally well-known. In the summer exhibition “Japanese Beauties: Glamorous, Decadent, Sensuous, and Bizarre,” the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in Hanford presents its collection of Kyoto beauties.
Paintings of Kyoto beauties are rarely featured in collections outside of Japan which usually focus on Edo (present-day Tokyo) beauties by ukiyo-e artists like Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) or Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815). While courtesans of Edo’s Yoshiwara pleasure district became popular because of the mass-produced woodblock prints, Kyoto was regarded as the best place to find the beautiful, graceful, and warm-hearted ladies from ancient times.
The elegance of Kyoto beauties was a favored painting subject, and many Kyoto artists portrayed beauties exclusively for their affluent patrons. Contrary to idealized and epitomized beauties created by Edo ukiyo-e artists, Kyoto painters, under the influence of Maruyama Okyo’s (1733-1795) lyrical realism, depicted women in a less flattering and more realistic perspective.
Kyoto-style beauties often expressed individual traits that inspired the artists and the results are sometimes aesthetically unattractive, or even shocking.
Faithful depictions of Kyoto women with heavy makeup, even to the point of grotesqueness, are typical for the Kyoto artists Gion Seitoku (1781-1829) and Mihata Joryo (act. 1830s) who are featured in this exhibition. These paintings of flamboyant beauties, including some seductive beauties in parody of sacred and profane motifs, are then followed by other female representations.
One of them is the funny face ‘Otafuku’ (a cheerful face with plump cheeks, tall forehead and flat nose) which symbolizes the traditional ideal beauty and is also regarded as a goddess of good fortune. No matter how beautiful and celebrated, one gets old and ugly, then crumbles to dust.
Deceased beauties are portrayed as ‘ghosts.’ Shibata Zeshin’s (1870-1891) Four Elegant Pastimes takes viewer to the magnificent world of pleasure quarters. Satirical works by renown artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889) and the ghost of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) present humorous and bizarre women.
Ranging from the nineteenth to the early twentieth century, the exhibition of almost thirty hanging scrolls, hand scrolls and screens will provide various aspects of Japanese beauties.
This exhibition is curated by Keiko Tanaka, currently curatorial assistant of the Clark Center and researcher at the International Research Center for Society and Art in Doshisha University, Kyoto. She earned Ph.D. at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, and M.A. degree in art and archaeology at the School of Orient and African Studies, University London. She is also specialized in the history of dolls and toys in Japan.
The Japanese Beauties exhibition will open on May 24 and run through August 1, 2009. The gallery is open between 1 and 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Saturdays and is closed on national holidays. A catalog accompanies this exhibition.