Chats on Japanese Prints

by Arthur Davison Ficke

All these things are implicit in the prints of Kiyonaga prime. He who can take pleasure in the Hermes of Praxiteles or the Fête Champêtre of Giorgione will not find the meaning of Kiyonaga's noble figures hard to read.

In examining the work of Kiyonaga and his contemporaries, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that during this and the succeeding period the foremost artists found the chief themes for their designs among the Oiran, or courtesans of the Yoshiwara. Nor can we omit some consideration of the curious position of these women. Such an inquiry has not the unpleasant features that a similar inquiry would have were the scene Europe. In the Japan of the late eighteenth century the typical Oiran was no creature of the mire, but a cultivated and splendid figure whose mental charm was as great as her physical attractiveness. The poet and the painter, the student and the young aristocrat, found in her no unworthy companion; and as she strides glowing through the designs of Kiyonaga or Shuncho she seems rather a beloved of the gods than a mistress of men.

KIYONAGA: THE COURTESAN HANA-ŌJI WITH ATTENDANTS.
One of a Series "Designs of Spring Greenery." Size 15 × 10. Signed Kiyonaga ga.

Plate 25.

The Yoshiwara or licensed quarter of Yedo was established in 1614 as part of the general Tokugawa regime of orderliness and control: even by that date the authorities had tired of the cruel and ugly chaos that prevails in these matters to-day in our cities. The name of the quarter was derived from the fact that it was located in the midst of an ancient "yoshiwara" or rush-moor. In 1657, after a fire that demolished all the buildings, the quarter was moved to a site half a mile north of the great Asakusa temple in the north-east outskirts of the city, where it remains to this day. Within this moated and walled enclosure about a quarter of a mile square, to which access was obtained through one great gate, stood orderly rows of large houses crowded close together. The front of each house was latticed; behind the bars appeared the splendidly clad inmates. These were of many grades and ranks; it is, as a rule, the highest class only that are represented in the prints.

The high-class Oiran was a notable personage. Her state was like that of a princess. Attendant upon her were customarily two small girls, called Kamuro, who acted as lady's-maids; and one or two older girls, called Shinzo, whose duties were those of a kind of maid-of-honour. Her attire, of a gorgeousness wholly different from the costume of the ordinary woman, bedecks her in many of the prints with truly royal splendour. Poets sang of her; artists painted her; the common people talked of her with the same frank and admiring interest that our populace bestows upon theatrical favourites. Moralless though her life was, it was not in any external sense degraded; she stood in the position in which have stood all the great courtesans of history.

The names of the more famous among the Oiran have come down to us wrapped in glowing tradition. Hana-ōgi of the House of Ōgi-ya, the most beautiful and deeply loved courtesan of her time, moves immortal through the designs of Kiyonaga, Shuncho, Yeishi, Utamaro, and their contemporaries. She was a pupil of the poet Tōkō Genrin, and ranked as a distinguished artist in both Chinese and Japanese verse. At one time, obeying the dictates of a profound attachment, she dared all perils and fled from the Yoshiwara with her lover. These facts, together with the filial piety for which she was renowned, doubtless augmented her romantic fame. Of her beauty and lordly carriage the prints leave us no doubt. Again and again we find lavished upon her well-beloved figure all the resources of the greatest artists. In [Plate 25] she is the leading figure, with her attendants grouped around her; in [Plate 32] she stands beside a latticed window opening on to the Sumida River, alone and meditative.

It is necessary for any one who would understand the art of the period to put aside preconceived notions and realize that these courtesan-portraits are not representations of low gutter creatures, but that they portray women of the highest degree of intellectual refinement who were in real life much like the cultivated hetairæ of ancient Athens, the companions, friends, and beloveds of Pericles and Plato.