Pictures of Beautiful Women (Bijinga)
During the Edo period, famous courtesans (yujo) of the pleasure quarters were a great object of fascination for the urban population and paintings of these courtesans and other "beautiful women" became one of the main types of ukiyoe in the mid-18th century. Among the artists who took up this bijinga genre, Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) was famed for his superbly conceived paintings and woodblock-print depictions of comely women from the shops, teahouses and pleasure quarters of Edo (now Tokyo). His representative works include the half-torso depiction of "A Beauty Playing a Glass Pipe." Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815) developed the "Kiyonaga beauty" in portraits of statuesque women as can be seen in his print "July Evening" from the series "Twelve Months in the Pleasure Quarters of Shinagawa." Osen, known as the "teahouse girl at Kasamori Inari Shrine," Okita of the Naniwaya Teahouse, and Kikumoto Ohan, gained tremendous celebrity status. For the same reason, certain geisha and attractive, well-known miko (shrine maiden) were propitious subjects for aspiring illustrators. Bijinga also included depictions of women's daily life and demeanor even within the context of ordinary family life. All the "beautiful women" thus depicted, regardless of the exact circumstances of their lives, served as the equivalent of today's "fashion models," standing at the forefront of the trends of their time.
