Yōshū Chikanobu, Preparation for an Evening Concert (from Onna reishiki no zu), 1893

Artist: Yōshū Chikanobu (1838-1912)

Title: Preparation for an Evening Concert (right-third of the triptych), from Ladies’ Etiquette Pictures (Onna reishiki no zu)

Date: 1893

Medium: Polychrome woodblock print

Gift of Ann and Donald McPhail

 

This print comprises the right-third of Yōshū Chikanobu’s larger triptych, Preparation for an Evening Concert, from his series Ladies’ Etiquette Pictures (Onna reishiki no zu). The entire triptych depicts six women, two per printed page, handling accoutrements in preparation for a recital of the ichigenkin, a single-stringed zither. In the collection’s print, a pair of women converse in front of a painted screen illustrating moonlit bamboo, surmounted by the artist’s cartouche. One of the women stands to the left holding an intricately-decorated box, while the other sits on her knees to the right. Both are draped in sumptuous kimono boasting various patterns and vivid color, highlighting not only the artist’s skill in the level of detail, but also the use of imported aniline dyes—especially the vibrant, colloquially-termed “Meiji red”—that saturates many prints of this period. The subject matter reflects a broader conception in 1890’s Japan of women as the custodians of traditional practices, as the country pondered mechanisms of self-definition in the face of an influx of Western influences. Chikanobu’s Ladies’ Etiquette Pictures reflect an intentionally-contrived interpretation of a historical past that distinguishes some aspects of the artist’s oeuvre as well as a general propensity of the time, the aesthetic contours of which sit at that nexus of retrospection and modernity so crucial to the visual imaginaire of the Meiji era.

—Alyssa Cody Garcia