Painting depicting a
Bijin or Beauty removing a hairpin and contemplating her reflection, in
sumi ink, mineral pigments, gold and gofun or clamshell gesso on silk,
in the original lacquer frame. Signed by the artist on the lower left:
Chigusa, and sealed (Kitani Chigusa, the go or art name of Yoshioka
Eiko, 1895 - 1947). Circa Taisho 15 or 1926.
A paper label affixed to the reverse of the painting titles the work:
Genroku Fujin or A Lady of the Genroku (Era), and indicates the
painting's provenance as part of the collection of Prince Kuni No Miya
(from the Fushimi branch of Imperial princes, Kunihiko Kuni No Miya,
born 1873, whose daughter Nagako married Hirohito, the Showa Emperor,
in 1924).
Kitani Chigusa was born in Dojima in Northern Osaka. Showing an early
talent for painting, she was sent at the age of 13 to Seattle for two
years to study Western style painting. Returning to Japan, she moved to
Tokyo when she was 18 to study Japanese style painting under Ikeda
Shonen. At the age of 20 Chigusa first exhibited one of her works, at
the first Daiten Exhibition (held in Koraibashi in Osaka). The same
year she was invited to exhibit a painting at the 9th Bunten Art
Exhibition. In 1918 she participated in the Osaka Bijutsu Tenrankai as
well as showing at the 12th Bunten, and with the introduction of
Takeuchi Seiho became a pupil of Kikuchi Keigetsu. In 1920 Chigusa
exhibited at the 2nd Teiten and married Kitani Hogin, bearing a son the
following year. Balancing a career as a painter with her roles as wife
and mother, she continued to paint and exhibit. In 1922 at the 4th
Teiten and at the Hakuyosha Exhibition; in 1923 at the Nihon Bijutsu
Tenrankai; in 1924 at the 5th Teiten and Osaka Bijutsu Kyokai
Exhibition; in 1925 at the 6th Teiten. The same year Chigusa helped
form the all-women painting group, Himawari Kai. In 1926 she was one of
the founding members of another association of women painters, the
Yachigusa or the Eight Plants of Autumn, and participated in the
group's first Yachigusa Kaiten Yachigusakai Exhibition. This painting
was her entry at that exhibition, and can be seen in the background of
a photograph of the painters taken at the opening, reprinted in Josei
Nihonga-ka Kitani Chigusa: Song Shougai to Sakuhin (Woman Nihonga
Artist Kitani Chigusa: Her Life and Art), a catalogue for a 2002
retrospective of Kitani Chigusa's work, published by the Ikeda Shiritsu
Rekishi Minzoku Shiryokan, illustration Number 58, page 27. The eight
classical plants of autumn used in flower arranging are called Chigusa,
the art name which Kitani Chigusa had taken and then incorporated in
the new association's title, an indication of her status and reputation
by then among her fellow painters. In 1927 Kitani Chigusa exhibited at
the 3rd Kikuchijuku Exhibition of work by Kikuchi Keigetsu's students,
and with the Yachigusakai Shisaku Exhibition. This pattern continued
through the 1930s and early 1940s, with frequent participation in the
Teiten, later the Shinbunten, and among other venues the exhibitions of
the Yachigusakai and the Kikuchijuku. The fire bombing of Osaka
destroyed the family business in 1945, and caused the family to move
several times. Kitani Chigusa died at 6:00 PM on January 24 of 1947.
Paintings of beauties are one of the classical subjects of Japanese
painting. During the Late Meiji and Taisho Eras many painters became
famous for their images of bijin. Partly this was because a significant
audience and market existed for them, and partly in the case of women
painters because the subject matter was considered appropriate. Most
often though bijinga echoed the ukiyo-e tradition, and the imagery
seems stylized and mask-like. Perhaps because Kitani Chigusa also
studied Western painting, this depiction of a beautiful woman
encompasses a psychological dimension rarely seen in the genre or prior
to the 1920s.
Chigusa places her beauty in a historical context, in the Genroku Era
some two hundred years earlier. She kneels in front of fusuma painted
with grasses and peony blossoms, lit by a flickering candle that
illuminates the gold lacquer of her hair comb and creates a soft halo
about her. Kimono slightly disordered, this woman of about thirty years
holds a hair pin trailing one of her hairs, both details erotically
suggestive in the 1920s. One hair escapes her coiffure over her face.
She holds a fabric wallet used for a small mirror, and perhaps love
letters. Caught in contemplation, has she just returned from meeting
her lover? A woman of her age would have been thought at the height of
her beauty, on the bitter sweet edge of middle age. Chigusa's haunting
masterpiece adds a dimension to portraits of beauties beyond the
traditional horizons of Japanese painting.
The famous painter and essayist Kaburaki Kiyokata published a
commentary admiring this painting, Genroku Fujin, in Taisho Nihon
Bijinga Zenshu.
51.75" high x 43.25" wide, dimensions of frame.
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