Beauties in the Rain

Title

Beauties in the Rain

Description

WOODBLOCK PRINT

Torii Kiyonaga (1752~1815)

Edo Beauties in the Rain: A Modern Fashion Scene ⻛俗東之錦·⾬中美⼈ (/1), 1960s ，木刻版画 Woodblock print， 40 x 27 cm Source

In 1765, Kiyonaga became a pupil of Torii Kiyomitsu, the third head and chief of the Torii clan. In those days, the Torii were engaged in the hereditary business of drawing performance programs and billboard pictures for the three theaters in Edo. Several years of this kind of work improved his skill and he was allowed to call himself Torii Kiyonaga, and in 1770 he produced his first prints of actors’ figures.

When Kiyomitsu died in 1785, and there was no offspring to succeed to the seat of honor, Kiyonaga became fourth head and chief of the Torii family, and from that time on to his death in 1815, he devoted himself to his family business. Kiyonaga, following the path his master Kiyomitsu opened for him, studied how to draw actors’ figures in the Torii style, but in 1775, when he began to produce his prints of beauties for the first time, his style was never the same. In 1781, he had established his own style―with small faces, round eyes, small and long chins and slender necks.

His beauties are taller and more proportionate. From 1781 to 1788, or in the Tenmei period, Kiyonaga was at his best.

As Ukiyoe artist, Kiyonaga far excelled his contemporaries with his color tones and his lines.

Kiyonaga’s masterpieces are found among prints of beautiful ladies with elegant features and simple subdued colors.

People in the 1790’s came to find more vivid appeal in Utamaro (1753C1806)’s colorful beauties than in Kiyonaga’s, with his subdued colors, but Kiyonaga never tried to change his own style to flatter the decadent mood of the time. After 1792, indeed, he produced very few prints.