hair ornaments; calligraphy; mirrors; hand mirrors
To celebrate and document the fashions of former times, Chikanobu created a chronological presentation of beautiful women in sumptuous garments. Above the foreground figures are pictorial insets which make reference to the era of the costume,...
Beyond the bamboo lattice of a folding screen sit three women: the flute / yokobue player (in nearly full view) accompanies shamisen and koto musicians (who are hidden by the partition). The delicate wave patterns in silver on the screen panels...
On the beach of Yashima, an island off Shikoku, Minamoto Yoshitsune's forces did battle with the Taira on 24 March 1185. When the governor of Noto Province, Taira no Noritsune (1160-1185), raised his bow to shoot Yoshitsune, the brothers Sato...
A young woman and her puppy represent the Kan'ei era, a time when the Tokugawa shogunate was consolidating its power in Edo but still viewing the imperial capital of Kyoto as the center of Japanese culture. The bold designs on her kimono and the...
At New Year's playing with silk thread balls / itomari was popular among girls and women. Such hand balls / temari were filled with natural sponges for bouncing or with cloth or hair if used for rolling, tossing or just decoration. Here two older...
processions; shamisen; musical instruments; women; kimonos; hats; men (male humans)
Two female shamisen players are standing near a warehouse building, while a daimyo procession goes by in the distance and two merchants walk into the middle ground. This painting on silk is delicately detailed, with tiny patterns on the kimono and...
If the "Mirror of the Ages" series is viewed chronologically, perhaps in an album format, the costumes prior to the Tenna era are quite elaborately decorated with various colors, patterns and techniques, which make the 2 images representing the...
These two women are dressed in summer kimono with blue water patterns. The kneeling woman holds out an ornament with a straw dragon entwined around a pine branch, a symbol of the “sea god” / umi no kami associated with the worship of the Shinto...
women; children (people by age group); hairstyles; mountains; shores (landforms); trees; jewelry; kimonos
In this series, Chikanobu created a dramatic juxtaposition of multicolored close-up figural images with distant landscape scenes printed in blue and peach-colored inks. The detailed depiction of women continues the nishiki-e tradition that the...
A woman, slightly bent over, grasps her hair at the river's edge. Kiyohime was the daughter of an innkeeper at the village of Masago. Anchin was a devout monk at Dojo Temple on the banks of the Hidaka river. Each year Anchin stayed at Kiyohime's...
