Goyou Hashiguchi

Hot Spring Hotel, 1921.

A philosophical question: what is beauty? Maybe, I should be less philosophical—what I mean to ask is what is feminine beauty? A great deal of western art—for better or for worse—has been created with beautiful female subjects: the Venus de Milo or the Mona Lisa, for example. The art of Japan is no different. Such paintings (and ukiyo-e) are grouped together in a genre called bijinga (美人画)—literally, beautiful-person paintings. However, ukiyo-e has never been an art form of the wealthy and the privileged. They are woodblock prints, designed as to be affordable to the average Japanese family, and therefore much more representative of the aesthetic tastes of the Japanese people. This brings us to Goyou Hashiguchi (橋口 五葉).

Daughter in Summer Kimono, 1920

Hashiguchi is considered to be one of the masters of 20th century ukiyo-e, and is particularly well known for his bijinga prints. Two styles of print making were popular in the early 1900s: shin-hanga (新版画) and sousaku-hanga (創作版画). Sousaku-hanga simply refers to prints made completely by a single artist. That is, the image, the woodblock, and the final print are made by the same individual. This was a departure from the traditional print making process, known as the hanmoto system, which involved many artisans, at each stage of the print's creation. Shin-hanga was the style that preserved this tradition in the 20th century, and is the style that Hashiguchi worked in. Shin-hanga is the more conservative style. In some sense, this makes Hashiguchi a conservative artist.

Indeed, Hashiguchi was very interested in traditional Ukiyo-e, and was a student of the classic Edo period artists such as Utagawa Hiroshige (歌川 広重) and Kitagawa Utamaro (多川 歌麿). He began painting at the age of 19, and graduated at the top of his class from the Tokyo School

Woman Applying Powder, 1918

of Fine Arts at the age of 25. Afterward, he was commissioned to illustrate the works of various authors, including Natsume Souseki. He would steadily gain a reputation extremely high quality in the prints he created, which has continued to earn merit among collectors in the present time.

As for his portrayal of beauty, he conforms to the traditional imagery of ukiyo-e and traditional standards of beauty: women wear floral-pattern kimono, shown with whitened skin, hair pulled into a bun, etc. In keeping with the bijinga style, Hashiguchi portrays his subjects in a domestic setting. This contrasts with style of paintings meant for the gentry—seen very prominently in western art—where the subjects are artificially posed for aesthetic effect. The Japanese term for this aesthetic is iki (粋), meaning chic or stylish. It carries the connotation of not only elegance and sophistication, but also the kind of spontaneity that could be captured by snap-shot. Certainly, Hashiguchi portrays intimate situations. While these images are very

Woman Combing Her Hair, 1920

thoughtfully arranged and detailed, they have a natural appearance as if they were taken as photographs.

Hashiguchi died at the relatively young age of 41, in 1921, having supervised the completion of his final work Hot Spring Hotel (shown at the top) from his death bed. It was not printed until after his death. Just two years later, the most destructive earthquake in Japan's history destroyed most of the woodblocks used to produce his prints. In all, his works were created in a period of less than 10 years—indeed, had he lived longer, he may be remembered as one of the most prolific 20th century ukiyo-e artists. More of Hashiguchi's prints may be viewed at ukiyo-e.org—note that some of these contain nudity. However, it's artistic nudity, and not pornographic, as some ukiyo-e are (this link is decidedly NOT work safe).

 読んで、ありがとう。