Dangerous Beauties and Dutiful Wives: Popular Portraits of Women in Japan, 1905-1925

Stunning selection of female portraits in Japanese art from the early Twentieth Century. A rare glimpse of Japanese culture during the period. Drawn from popular women's magazines of the Taisho period, its kuchi-e (frontispiece pictures) of bijin (beauties) represent a variety of artists, from the visual poetry of famous painters to more prosaic efforts by anonymous designers. Printed in the era's latest techniques of colour lithography and offset printing, these kuchi-e bijin were created for mass production, yet they echo the form and appeal of woodblock prints from earlier generations. Their fashions are new enough to be exciting but sufficiently traditional to be reassuringly familiar. Embracing noble ideals and modern reality, the kuchi-e bijin suggest both the aspirations and the mundane truths of their audience, combining the sense of fine art and the sensibilities of popular illustration. 

Illustrations: 100 plates in colour, with artist, title, issue date, magazine and printing company.
Author: Kendall H. Brown
Size: A4 
Format: Paperback

ISBN 13: 9780486476391
ISBN 10: 0486476391