INKBRUSHMOOD VOL. 2 Itō Shinsui: Master of Bijin-ga | 1 Itō Shinsui: Master of Bijin-ga BY: INKBRUSHMOOD | edItō[email protected] tō Shinsui was an expert in beautiful women — or at least in painting them. An icon of the Shin-hanga (modern ukiyo-e) movement, Shinsui specifically excelled at bijin-ga: portraits of beautiful women. What makes Shinsui’s prints so special? Women are certainly not a new topic in the art world, much less in ukiyo-e. From the relatively tame depictions of women in daily life to the ornate attire of courtesans to the most extravagant depictions of pleasure a la Hokusai, there are numerous depictions of femininity in the woodblock dreamscape. However, Shinsui seems to understand womanhood. Arguably, his bijinga prints seem to have both an eye for sensuousness and a humane perspective to them. In Clock and Beauty, for instance, the carefully contoured woman is beginning to show signs of aging. I
INKBRUSHMOOD VOL. 2 Itō Shinsui: Master of Bijin-ga | 2 Clock and the Beauty II (1964) by Itō Shinsui Lines under her eyes and deeper shading around the eyes express the passage of time, a concept strengthened by her figure set against a grandfather clock. The subtle nature of these details and the stoic nature of the woman’s beauty express a respect to the woman as someone grappling with existential questions and their mortality.
INKBRUSHMOOD VOL. 2 Itō Shinsui: Master of Bijin-ga | 3 Shinsui was also renowned for his landscape paintings, which are at once majestic and introspective. Morning at Kambayashi (1948) by Itō Shinsui Like his perceptive depictions of women, Shinsui’s landscapes are richly detailed and complex, attuned to Nature’si moods.
INKBRUSHMOOD VOL. 2 Itō Shinsui: Master of Bijin-ga | 4 Early Summer in the Azalea Field (1948) by Itō Shinsui Itō Shinsui (1898-1972) was a prominent Nihonga painter and shinhanga artist most active during the Taishō era (1912-1926) and Shôwa period (1926-1989). Although he was most famous for his bijinga (paintings of beautiful women), he also painted landscapes, and was known to paint a master image in watercolor that would later be reproduced as a woodblock print by his craftsmen — a revolutionary technique in his time. He died in 1972 due to cancer. i Nature here refers to the concept expressed in Yone Noguchi’s poetry. Nature as a context or a whole.