Beauties & Bijin

Meiji Japan, and a woman pauses behind a bamboo blind. Bijin-ga, woodblock prints of beauties, run from the Meiji era into the early twentieth century. Toyohara Chikanobu’s Jidai Kagami, or Mirror of the Ages, of 1897 dresses women in the fashions of successive periods, from Kyowa and Bunsei to Meiji, and Mirror of Famous Women continues the theme. Later prints catch quieter moments: evening cool on a veranda, a silhouette behind a bamboo blind, a woman looking at chrysanthemums, a wife’s heart, the modern insurance girl. Soft pinks, indigo and fine carving of hair make them intimate in scale. A pair on a bedroom wall. Beauty, kept discreet.