Yoshikawa Tsubodō's 50th anniversary commemorative work "Young Woman Like a Cherry Blossom"

Photo explanation:

Young Woman Like a Cherry Blossom

Author: (Japanese) Torii Kiyohiro

Red fold

42.5cm*30.2cm(original size)

1760​

Mann Collection Highland Park Vote USA

       Although Torii Kiyohiro was a torii painter, his kabuki paintings and paintings of beauties were even better. He was good at depicting lifelike stories and deliberately showing the beautiful skin of women.

This painting shows two women bathing. On the right, a young woman looks like she has just finished bathing and is wearing a comfortable yukata while trimming her toenails. On the left, a young girl looks like she has just returned from going out and is washing her feet. The inscription on the upper right is written by an anonymous person: "子尚ぬ内が女房的初桜" (roughly meaning " before having a child, a young woman is like the first cherry blossoms " ), which echoes the gentle posture of the characters in the picture and vaguely reveals some erotic meanings. Ants and borderline paintings were called " dangerous paintings " (あぁなふ) in the Edo period. It refers to the intentional exposure of part or most of the skin in the paintings of beauties, such as the postures of bathing and in the water, the loose yukata when getting out of the bath, and the skin exposed under the kimono due to gusts of wind, children, cats, monkeys and other small animals, etc., which are all opportunities to create such an atmosphere.

In fact, at the beginning of the creation of Ukiyo-e prints, erotic paintings were sold in the imperial land stores. At that time, I could not talk about the awareness of "dangerous paintings". In the Ukiyo-e Soushi "Erotic Mon Tu Hui" published in 1686 (the third year of Kyoho), there were also paintings that " even a glance can move people's hearts and make people feel uneasy " called " dangerous paintings " . It can be seen that the moral concepts of teenagers drawn from this metaphor have long been educated. The Tokugawa shogunate banned erotic paintings for a time in 1722 (the seventh year of Kyoho), which also became the background for the creation of " dangerous paintings " . As a new type, the popularity of " dangerous paintings " reached a peak in the Horeki period ( 1751-1763 ). It was the peak of Torii Kiyohiro's creation at that time. He created many "dangerous paintings" that were slender, healthy and erotic.