Bijin Junikagetsu (Beauties in the twelve months): March

Miyagawa Shuntei (1873-1914) was a specialist in kuchi-e (literally: ‘mouth piece’ frontispiece prints) which heralded a new "discourse on the social construction of girlhood" and womanhood in its focus on sentimental Western notions of romantic love in Japan. He worked in a neo-traditional ukiyo-e mode, evocative of the past but making obvious to anyone that his prints were from the turn of the century. In compositions reminiscent of earlier Yamato-e ‘Japanese-picture’ genre scenes, Shuntei celebrates the worlds of middle-class women and children at leisure. These themes are reflected in print series titles like Customs of Children (1896) and his celebrated triptych series Bijin junikagetsu (Beauties in the twelve months). In each of the latter series, Shuntei depicts groups of women and children gathering shells and swimming, enjoying picnics in gardens, playing games, and enjoying the changing seasons according to the month. Te Papa acquired three of these compositions from the Heriot collection.

The first thing we notice about this print is its visual gorgeousness. The delicate bokashi colour gradation, immaculate registration and variety of design here would have delighted Shuntei’s viewers. Printing of this high standard demanded the finest block cutters and printers; his works were produced in Tokyo by the distinguished Meiji publishers Matsuki Heikichi and Akiyama Buemon. Heikichi, owner of Daikokuya, and publisher of this series, was committed to refining the medium. He employed the most luxurious of traditional pigments and the most inventive techniques for bokashi or karazuri gauffrage in projects like this.

In this context, applications of silver-coloured metallic pigment in the costumes, and glossy lacquer effects in the immaculate coiffures of Sakura (cherry blossom), the publication for March, complement the gorgeously decorated kimono and brilliant obi worn by the women and children. The scene offered Shuntei’s viewers a delicate juxtaposition of old and new. Its Meiji garden setting was contemporary, but its subjects of women taking tea, children playing tag, and overhead layers of sakura might have been seen in a Yamato-e screen painting of a Heian picnic, or an ukiyo-e print by Suzuki Harunobu (c.1725-1770). The bijin-ga was a standard ukiyo-e pictorial category. The ornate textiles, elegant postures and delicate figure-ground interplay of detailed and empty spaces drew on precedents in Harunobu’s nishiki-e ‘brocade-pictures’. The traditional dress complemented this, yet the extravagance of the scene was conditioned by Meiji-era sensibilities. The sakura (cherry) blossoms, emblems of the promise and beauty, but inevitable ephemerality, of youth, tied the scene both to the past, and to the future. Today the sakura season finds many thousands of families taking in the blossom, chatting, playing, and enjoying picnics under the trees.

Source:  David Bell, 'A new vision: modern Japanese prints from the Heriot collection', Tuhinga 31 (2020), forthcoming.

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art    May 2019