Beauty Sketching in a Field

Catalog note / 解説

As the student of the last major ukiyo-e artist Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), and the teacher of one of the foremost nihonga painters of the early 20th century, Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878-1972), Toshikata played a key role in the transition from traditional ukiyo-e to modernized Japanese woodblock prints. Reportedly Toshikata was uncomfortable with his early connection to ukiyo-e, which had not yet been widely recognized as a legitimate “art form” in Japan in the early 20th century. This young schoolgirl sketching in plein air presents a modernized image of feminity. By the Taishö period (1912-1926), many girls’ schools were established, and reddish- brown pantaloons (ebicha -hakama), which…