From Geisha to Ghosts: Leading Ladies of Japanese Woodblock Prints

Ongoing

Selected from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Asian collection, the exhibition From Geisha to Ghosts: Leading Ladies of Japanese Woodblock Prints includes more than 40 woodblock prints displayed in two rotations, from the late 18^th through the 19^th century.  The images depict a variety of beautiful women, or bijin, and are portrayed by well known artists including Okumura Masanobu, Isoda Koryūsai, Utagawa Toyokuni, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi.  This exhibition is organized with the assistance of UCSB students under the direction of professor Miriam Wattles in the department of History of Art and Architecture.

The images of women in the popular Japanese woodblock prints of the Edo period (1615-1868) are famous for their sense of fashion, allure, and subtle humor.  These prints, selected from the Museum’s Asian collection that includes more than 3,000 individual works, are called ukiyo-e, or “pictures of the floating world,” from a Buddhist term referring to the ephemeral nature of things.  They reflected the urbane tastes of a newly prosperous middle class.  Set within a fantasy realm of pleasure and desire, these idealized women far outshone their real-life counterparts.

When ukiyo-e began in the seventeenth century, the main subjects were actors, beauties, and erotica.  The beauty category, now called bijinga, featured magnificently attired, high-ranking courtesans of the licensed pleasure quarters.  Beginning in the 1780s, however, the courtesans came to be surpassed in the popular imagination by the artistes known as geisha --women accomplished in shamisen (a three-stringed musical instrument), song, and dance.  Increasingly, prints began to mirror the new, understated chic of the geisha.

By the 19^th century, ukiyo-e had expanded to include women of all walks of life.  Prints depicted aristocratic ladies in domestic settings, middle-class travelers, artisans working in cottage industries, laborers in the field, as well as entertainers and prostitutes. Melodramatic scenes from kabuki theatre portrayed lover’s suicides and vengeful female ghosts.  To further beguile their viewers, artists frequently employed witty parody and clever allusion to classic themes from the Chinese and Japanese pasts.