This woodwork print is inspired by The Tale of Genji, an 11th-century novel about romance and loss at the imperial court. It shows Lady Rokujō, a mistress of the novel' s protagonist, after she was driven mad with jealousy and became a vengeful ghost. She stoops over in anguish and gnaws on her disheveled hair, the spiderwebs and wildly blooming wisteria flowers on her kimono reflecting her shattered mind.

Flames by Uemura Shoen, 1918, Tokyo National Museum (Japan)

#ArtHistory #ModernArt #Nihonga

Japanese artist Uemura Shōen (上村松園), born in Kyoto in 1875, became one of the most celebrated painters of bijinga (美人画 aka images of beautiful women) at a time when the field was dominated by men. This early work already shows her careful attention to gesture, dress, and emotional restraint. Four Japanese women occupy a quiet interior, each absorbed in a distinct, refined activity. At right, a seated woman in a soft rose kimono paints delicately with a brush over a low writing tray, her posture upright and focused. Behind her, a woman in a deep black outer robe has her pale face turned upward admiring hanging art, with her hair smoothed into a low, formal style. At left, another woman in a warm yellow kimono sits sideways, holding a fan, her gaze lowered watching goldfish in a glass bowl. In the foreground, a richly dressed young woman in an ornate black and gold kimono kneels beside a koto instrument l, her hands poised as if about to play. Their skin is rendered in smooth, luminous tones and features are idealized, with narrow eyes and small, closed lips. The room is sparse and elegant. The hanging scroll reveals a snowy landscape, a vase of seasonal flowers rests nearby, and the small fishbowl and a birdcage subtly animate the space. The composition feels balanced yet dreamlike, with each figure existing in her own contemplative world. The four women are not simply individuals but evoke the four seasons through color, motif, and mood: the freshness of spring, the brightness of summer, the introspection of autumn, and the quiet elegance of winter. Their activities of music, painting, grooming, contemplation suggest cultivated accomplishment rather than spectacle. Shōen transforms beautiful daily practices into a poetic meditation on time, identity, and the stages of a woman’s life, presenting femininity with dignity, control, and enduring presence.

“四季婦女” (Four Seasons of Woman) by 上村松園 / Uemura Shōen (Japanese) - Color on silk / c. 1890s - Fukuda Art Museum (Kyoto) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #UemuraShoen #上村松園 #Shoen #artText #art #FukudaArtMuseum #福田美術館 #Bijinga #美人画 #Nihonga #日本画 #JapaneseArt #JapaneseArtist #1890sArt

Made in 1946 (immediately after World War II), “Sisters” sits in a pivotal moment in Japanese artist Fuku Akino’s (秋野不矩) career, when she was testing how far a modern sensibility could live inside the inherited language of Japanese painting. The work has the feel of a deliberate “between-space”: dignified, traditional on the surface, yet quietly experimental in how it uses the screen format to stage contrast ... like stillness against slight movement, pattern against pattern, or sameness against difference. That tension matters because Akino’s lifelong project was reinvention without severing roots. She was not rejecting tradition, but loosening it, just enough, to make room for a new kind of figure, a new kind of gaze, and a new kind of time. In that sense, these sisters can be read not only as people, but as a pair of ideas held together to show continuity and change, shared history and emerging selfhood, and a postwar world trying to recompose itself without pretending it hasn’t been transformed. The two sisters sit in quiet, close proximity across a two-fold screen format. Each Japanese woman wears a purple kimono, but the patterns differ, so the sisters read as related yet distinct. They are two presences in the same key, with variations in rhythm and detail. Their faces are rendered with restraint, the features simplified into calm planes and fine lines. Black hair is neatly arranged, and the bodies are held in composed, inward postures that suggest familiarity rather than performance. The garments do much of the speaking so the folds, collars, and obi (belt) give the painting its cadence, moving the viewer’s attention between texture, contour, and the subtle differences from one sister to the other. The screen structure itself heightens that comparison depicting two adjacent fields that invite you to look back and forth, noticing how repetition becomes relationship, and how small changes become character.

“姉妹 (Sisters)” by 秋野不矩 / Fuku Akino (Japanese) - Color on paper (two-fold screen) / 1946 - Hamamatsu City Fuku Akino Art Museum (Shizuoka, Japan) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #FukuAkino #秋野不矩 #Nihonga #JapaneseArt #art #artText #BlueskyArt #JapanesseArt #浜松市秋野不矩美術館 #秋野不矩美術館 #日本画

Two Japanese girls sit close together on a sandy shore, angled inward over an open book they read together. The girl at left, with a short bob hairstyle, wears a dark green “Western-style” dress with a wide white lace-trimmed collar and black strap shoes; her short bob frames a softly lowered face. The girl at right wears a patterned kimono in black, gold, and rust tones, with a long dark braid falling over her shoulder. Her red sandals and the kimono’s layered design contrast with her companion’s “modern” 1920s dress and shoes. White flowers bloom in the grasses around them, and one flower rests across the book’s pages. Behind them, calm light blue water, distant mountains, white sails, and a small steamship stretch across a pale horizon. Their expressions are quiet and focused, creating an intimate, reflective mood shaped more by shared attention than by posed display. The fashion difference is very much worth discussing, because it is one of the painting’s central ideas. The pairing of a Western-style dress and a kimono visualizes a modern Japanese world in transition during the Taishō/early Shōwa period, when imported styles and established cultural forms coexisted in everyday life. The contrast is gentle, not polemical as the two girls are companions, not opposites. Their shared book and downward gazes suggest learning, memory, and interior life, while the shoreline acts as a threshold space between land and sea, tradition and modernity, or possibly childhood and adulthood. The flowers and soft light add tenderness, but the steamship and sails subtly anchor the scene in a changing world. Little is known about the Japanese artist 香風 (romanized to Kafü or Kafū), but their signature …and ability to share a wonderfully beautiful youthful moment on silk … is clear.

“海辺の二少女 (Two Girls by the Sea)” by 香風 / Kafū (Japanese) - Ink and color on silk / c. 1920s - Honolulu Museum of Art (Honolulu, Hawaii) #WomenInArt #香風 #Kafu #HonoluluMuseumOfArt #Nihonga #TaishoArt #BeachArt #art #artText #arte #BlueskyArt #bskyart #JapaneseArt #JapaneseArtist #日本画 #美人画 #HoMA #1920s

A young maiko (舞妓 or apprentice geisha) sits outdoors beside a pale blue lake, her body angled away while her head turns back over her shoulder toward us. Her skin is rendered porcelain-white with a soft blush at the lips. Her expression is quiet and slightly wistful, with unfocused eyes and a gentle tilt of the chin. Her glossy black hair is arranged in a formal updo adorned with clustered blue and white flowers. She wears a layered kimono with an under-robe of repeating fan-and-flower motifs, and an outer layer patterned with long, green leaves over muted violet. Slender tree trunks rise at the left and right edges like a natural frame, their sparse branches sketched in ink. Beyond her, a low mountain ridge arcs across the horizon under a washed, gray-blue sky. At the lower right, a small tea setting, with teapot and cups on a round tray, rests on a red cloth, hinting at a pause for hospitality, conversation, or private reflection rather than a performance. Made in Japanese artist Takehisa Yumeji’s (竹久夢二) early Shōwa-period style, the work pairs an intimate, modern mood with the cultural codes of maiko identity like trained elegance, controlled gesture, and beauty shaped by craft. The “framing” trees and broad, open lake create a stage-like stillness so she appears held between public role and inner life, turned halfway back as if caught by a thought or an approaching voice. Yumeji’s celebrated bijin-ga (美人画) often uses simplified features such as large, Western-leaning eyes and a small mouth to heighten emotional clarity. Here, a restrained palette and airy background let pattern and posture carry meaning. The tea service functions like a narrative clue for a completed or anticipated meeting creating a brief interlude and a moment where time softens and we are allowed close enough to notice the careful pins in her hair, yet still kept at the respectful distance her turned shoulder maintains.

“湖畔舞妓図 (Maiko at the Lakeside)” by 竹久夢二 / Takehisa Yumeji (Japanese) - Color on paper / c. 1928–1932 - Yumeji Art Museum (Okayama, Japan) #WomenInArt #TakehisaYumeji #竹久夢二 #Yumeji #YumejiArtMuseum #夢二郷土美術館 #Nihonga #日本画 #Bijinga #美人画 #Maiko #舞妓 #artText #art #BlueskyArt #JapaneseArt #JapaneseArtist

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Hatsune Miku / Akira / August 27, 2025
#AIgenerated #初音ミク #ボーカロイド #nihonga
www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/134380351

Created in the early Shōwa era (1930–35) before the Second World War, this work balances tradition and modern sensibility. A young Japanese woman with light skin reclines diagonally across a wide, pale backdrop, as if caught mid-turn. She supports herself on one hand, the other resting near her leg, bare feet extended behind her. Her hair is glossy black, side-parted and swept back into a soft, low roll. She looks down and to our left with a calm, slightly guarded expression featuring fine brows, dark-lined eyes, and small red lips. She wears a formal furisode (振袖 or long-sleeved kimono) of deep black bands alternating with creamy panels filled with delicate, lace-like motifs, and edged with thin red accents. A vivid vermilion obi (帯 or belt) wraps her waist, tied with a light cord. Alone near the lower left margin is a tiny red-and-black ornament or toy doll with a ball body, thin limbs on a small stand plus a dangling purple tassel, emphasizing the openness around her. The kimono’s long sleeves fan outward like wings, creating strong horizontal stripes that contrast with her angled body. Subtle shading along her cheekbones and neck suggests soft light, while the background remains almost unmodulated warm paper tone with faint specks. Her figure is outlined with precise, clean contours while colors are restrained except for the obi, which becomes the visual anchor. The the pose in emptiness feels both intimate and staged, like a studio study of fabric, posture, and mood. The furisode signals youth and formality, yet the streamlined hair and relaxed, twisting pose feel distinctly 20th-century. Ueda Usaburo (上田宇三郎), a Fukuoka-born nihonga painter, trained in Kyoto under Hirakawa Kōsei after leaving school due to illness. His early work was noted for finely drawn women. Blank space and bold black bands strip the scene to essentials like gesture, pattern, and the psychology of an averted gaze while the tiny ornament at the corner hints at domestic life or ceremony.

振袖の女性 (Woman in a Long-Sleeved Kimono) by 上田宇三郎 / Ueda Usaburo (Japanese) - Color on paper / 1930–1935 - Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art (Japan) #WomenInArt #UedaUsaburo #上田宇三郎 #Ueda #Nihonga #日本画 #art #artText #Kimono #着物 #arte #FukuokaPrefecturalMuseumofArt #福岡県立美術館 #JapaneseArtist #JapaneseArt

Japanese artist Kobayakawa Kiyoshi (小早川清) depicts the famous prewar singer and geisha Ichimaru (市丸) whom Kobayakawa favored as a model. The 1933 painting’s theme of a “cool evening” is not only weather, but it’s also an atmosphere of control via elegance performed with precision, then held in suspension between song, conversation, and solitude. The adult Japanese woman stands on pale tatami mats in a private room of a traditional Japanese restaurant. Her face is softly powdered, with small red lips and a composed, almost inward expression. Her gaze turns to the side rather than meeting ours. Her dark hair is arranged in a smooth, formal coiffure. She wears a black kimono that falls in a long, quiet column, the hem blooming with delicate gray-white motifs that read like flowering branches against night-dark fabric. A patterned obi wraps her waist, its surface alive with gold, rust, and small floral emblems. She holds a round uchiwa fan suggesting heat and a deliberate, practiced cooling gesture. Her fan becomes a small emblem of agency, a tool that moderates heat and attention alike. To the left, a low red-lacquer table offers a still-life of hospitality with a decorative bowl filled with fruit and a small cup set nearby. Behind her, a artsy garden scene spreads in muted greens showing stones, shrubs, and layered foliage partly framed by a bamboo blind and the dark beams of an eave overhead. The room feels hushed and spacious, with generous empty ground around her body, as if the air itself is part of the portrait. The overall tone is restrained color, softened edges, and a calm is definitely not passivity. This work was shown at the 14th Teiten and received a special prize, marking a turning point as Kobayakawa moved more fully into contemporary portrayals of women. Trained in Nihonga in Tokyo under Kaburagi Kiyokata, he uses the restaurant’s quiet geometry of tatami lines, blind, and eave to stage Ichimaru as both modern celebrity and timeless ideal.

“旗亭涼宵 (Cool Evening at a Restaurant)” by 小早川清 / Kobayakawa Kiyoshi (Japanese) - Colored pigment on silk / 1933 - Fukuoka Art Museum (Japan) #WomenInArt #福岡市美術館 #FukuokaArtMuseum #KobayakawaKiyoshi #小早川清 #Kobayakawa #Nihonga #日本画 #Bijinga #美人画 #Geisha #芸者 #artText #art #JapaneseArt #JapaneseArtist

A single woman fills a vertical scroll, her body bent forward in a tight curve against a quiet, gray-beige ground. Her face is a pale, porcelain-toned complexion with heavy-lidded eyes cast downward, and a small mouth half-hidden by her own hair. One hand rises to her lips as she bites and tugs at a thick, disheveled lock like an anxious, self-soothing gesture that reads as pain. Her very long straight black hair pours over her shoulder like ink, contrasting with the light kimono that wraps her figure. Across the garment, delicate spiderweb lines spread and snag, while wisteria blossoms bloom in clusters of dense, tangled, and uneasy beauty. The robe’s patterns and the curve of her spine echo each other, making her torment feel physical, not abstract. A white ribbon loops above her head, and the collar opens to a dark, cool inner layer of greens and blues that feel like a shadow under the white cloth. Her sleeve hangs heavy, its edge lined with gold and muted color, while a small foot peeks from beneath the hem, grounding this supernatural story in a real body. All motion is contained in the sweep of hair and the tightening spiral of her stance. This is Lady Rokujō (六条御息所 / Rokujō no Miyasudokoro), a court woman from The Tale of Genji (源氏物語), imagined at the moment jealousy overwhelms her. Kyoto-born artist Uemura Shōen (上村松園) was celebrated for bijinga within nihonga, so this subject is a departure. The museum calls Rokujō “driven mad with jealousy,” and Shōen makes it bodily with a spine that folds and hair that becomes a tether. “Flames” are emotion inside the body like envy and grief compressing into silence. Spiderwebs suggest entrapment and wisteria, refinement turned invasive. In The Tale of Genji, Rokujō’s jealousy is said to manifest as a living spirit that harms a rival and here she remains dignified even as she unravels. Painted in 1918, it is among Shōen’s most psychologically intense works asking us to witness complicated emotion without moralizing it.

“焔 (Flames)” by Uemura Shōen / 上村松園 (Japanese) - Color on silk / 1918 - Tokyo National Museum (Japan) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #ShoenUemura #上村松園 #Uemura #TokyoNationalMuseum #東京国立博物館 #Nihonga #日本画 #TaleOfGenji #JapaneseArt #art #artText #JapaneseArtist #WomenPaintingWomen

A young Japanese maiko (an apprentice geisha) kneels in three-quarter profile against a cool, misty lavender background. Her face is a porcelain-pale oval with fine brows, almond eyes looking to our right, and vermilion lips. Her dark hair is swept into a glossy bun and crowned with kanzashi ornaments like clustered blossoms, a patterned comb, and dangling strands. Her cream kimono is sprinkled with tiny motifs of blossoms, fans, shells, and hexagonal crests layered over a pale blue hem that pools like water. A crisp red collar frames her neck as a red-patterned sash crosses her chest. Behind her, a deep green obi with gold geometric bands cascades in a long, weighted tail, contrasting with the kimono’s soft drift. In the lower right, the artist’s name “遊亀” and seal sit like a final stitch. Painted in 1969, “舞妓” or Maiko (often translated as “Maiko Maiden” or “A Dancer”) turns a figure of performance into an image of stillness. Japanese artist Yuki Ogura (小倉遊亀) pares the scene down to silhouette, pattern, and breath as the maiko’s hands disappear into sleeves, while textiles speak in her place via repeating hexagons, shells, and blossoms that hint at training, tradition, and the seasons of a young life. The airy, lightly gridded background is like shoji paper placing her at a thoughtful distance, suspended between rehearsal and role. At the time, Ogura was in her seventies and painting with late-career clarity. Trained under Nihonga master Yasuda Yukihiko, she rose through the Japan Art Institute exhibitions and in 1932 became the first woman elected to membership in that organization. She later married the Zen master Tetsuju Ogura and credited Zen practice with steadiness as an inner counterweight to public visibility. Shown at the 54th Inten exhibition in 1969 and later entering the Kyoto collection, this work holds two truths at once: the maiko as an emblem of Japanese tradition and a Japanese woman artist as a modern authority.

“舞妓 (Maiko Maiden aka A Dancer)” by 小倉遊亀 / Yuki Ogura (Japanese) - Color on paper (Nihonga) / 1969 - National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (Japan) #WomenInArt #YukiOgura #小倉遊亀 #Ogura #Nihonga #日本画 #Maiko #舞妓 #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #artText #artwork #京都国立近代美術館 #MOMAK #WomenPaintingWomen

Painted in 1924 on silk (and presented framed at the museum), this self-portrait by Japanese artist Seien Shima (島成園) reads as an act of self-authorship in an era when women artists in Japan were still fighting to be seen as professionals rather than exceptions. The composition stages identity as something both lived and performed as her own face is rendered with controlled restraint, while a kabuki background performer signals the larger scripts of spectacle and role-playing. By placing that theatrical figure behind her, Shima seems to claim distance from the performance even as she admits how closely it presses in. She depicts herself as a woman with a porcelain-pale, makeup-like complexion, softly shaded eyes, and lips tinted a muted vermilion. Her dark hair is swept up into a voluminous style that frames her temples and brow as her calm, watchful, and slightly distant gaze avoids ours. She wears a black kimono with a bright cobalt-blue collar; at her shoulder, a sleeve panel shows brocade-like patterns and small floral motifs in rust, cream, and green. Behind her, against a near-black ground, a second figure appears like an image-within-the-image showing a stylized performer in blue with a tense, lifted arm, recalling kabuki’s bold poses. Two presences share one space. Her deep black robe and cool blue collar intensify her composure, as if the artist is dressing the self in discipline and clarity. The patterned sleeve, by contrast, flashes the decorative expectations often attached to “beautiful woman” imagery. In her early thirties at the time, Shima had already developed a reputation for portraits that balance elegance with psychological weight like figures who look back rather than simply appear. Here, her parted mouth and steady eyes resist sentimentality because she is present, but not available. The work’s tension between interior stillness and public drama makes the portrait feel sharply modern even though it is over 100 years old.

自画像 (Self-Portrait) by 島成園 / Seien Shima (Japanese) - Color on silk / 1924 - Osaka Municipal Museum of Art (Japan) #WomenInArt #WomensArt #WomanArtist #WomenArtists #Nihonga #art #artText #BlueskyArt #JapaneseArtist #JapaneseArt #OsakaMunicipalMuseumofArt #大阪市立美術館 #SeienShima #島成園 #selfPortrait #自画像

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