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Fall 2005
Woman as Art / Woman as Artist: Two sides to the female figure in later Japanese painting
September 6-December 5, 2005
Closed November 24 and 25
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Three Beauties by Yamaguchi Soken (1759-1818). One of a set of five hanging scrolls, ink and colors on paper. Lee Center Permanent Collection. Click
here for larger image.
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From images celebrating the beauty of the legendary Chinese imperial consort Yang Guifei to frightful depictions of the anonymous ghosts of women wronged by men during their lives, Japanese art has played a significant role in creating and reinforcing ideals for women within the carefully structured and codified society of feudal Japan. This fall’s exhibition looks at women in Japanese painting not simply as fashion plates and objects of the male artist’s desiring gaze, but also for what these representations can tell us about societal ideals of model female behavior and attitude. These paintings become more than simply bijinga (beautiful women paintings) and their models more than poster girls as they reveal more general attitudes toward women of all classes and their expected role in society. Focusing primarily on paintings of the Edo period from the Ukiyo-e, Kano, Tosa, and Nanga schools, the exhibition reaches beyond images of the beauties of the Edo pleasure quarters to examine the many ways in which predominantly male artistic production contributed toward defining women’s place in society.
Ghost. Inagaki Ranpo (1857-?), artist unknown, 17th century. Pair of six-panel screens, ink, colors, and gold leaf on paper Click
here for larger image.
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The opening selection of images of professional female entertainers reveals that most artists were not interested in the particular attributes of specific individual women, but aimed instead to idealize the profession as a whole. The markers of feminine beauty varied from artist to artist and region to region. Among those images included in the exhibition, heavily detailed and richly colored representations of courtesans elaborately dressed and coiffed for the red light districts of Edo contrast with loosely painted, highly energized depictions of women of the Osaka area, reflecting different styles of dress and makeup as well as differences in painting style.
Much less glamorous but equally idealized, the exhibition also addresses the image of women at work, as they are held up as models for women of the peasant and merchant classes. Women picking tea, producing cloth, and selling firewood are romanticized as valuable contributors to a productive society.
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A Gift of Southern Mountain Bamboo, by Ema Saikô (1787-1861). Hanging scroll, ink on paper. Click here for larger image. |
Finally, the exhibition also highlights the role of women as artists themselves within the highly restrictive social structure of the Edo period. Although they did undoubtedly exist before the Edo period, it was only at this time that female artists began to sign their works and records of their activities and accomplishments were passed down in a form that still survives today. Several of these women, like Ike Gyokuran and Yoshida Shûran, are best known because of the fame of their artist husbands. But it was also due to the informal structure of the literati painting tradition that female artists were more readily welcomed as participants in the self-proclaimed “amateur” activities of these bunjin artist circles than they had been in earlier male-dominated professional painting ateliers. Although relatively conventional in subject matter and style, the selection of paintings and calligraphies by female artists of the Nanga and Ukiyo-e schools reveals the degree of education and literary and artistic accomplishment that many women were able to achieve in the Edo period in spite of the many societal restrictions imposed upon them.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday 1-5 pm.
Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for students with valid ID. Children 12 and under free.
Weekly docent tours are held Saturdays at 1pm and guided group tours
can be arranged by calling the Center in advance at 559.582.4915.
 This
exhibition receives promotional support from Valley
Public Television.
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