A courtesan's day

About this book

"A courtesan's day: hour by hour is the second in Hotei Publishing's Famous Japanese Prints Series (FJPS). In this volume three series are examined: Kitagawa Utamaro's The Twelve Hours of the 'Green Houses' (Seiro junitoki, c. 1794), Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's The Twenty-four Hours at Shinbashi and Yanagibashi (Shinryu nijuyoji, 1880-81) and Toyohara Kunichika's Scenes of the Twenty-four Hours, A Pictorial Trope (Mitate chuya nijuyoji no uchi, 1890-91)." "Each demonstrates the use of the hours of the day as a convenient trope for Japanese print artists in their creation of sets that portray bijin ('beautiful women') engaged in diurnal activities. These bijin range from courtesans of the renown Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, to geisha from the less celebrated Shinbashi and Yanagibashi districts, and on to women from seemingly various walks of life. A contextual and visual analysis of these works by the authors provides the reader with an insight into the broader cultural and artistic milieu of the early and later nineteenth century."--Jacket.