Oichi from the Beauties of Tokyo series 

Curator: Let's turn our attention to Utagawa Kunisada's woodblock print, "Oichi from the Beauties of Tokyo series". It's an engaging figuration that immediately pulls the eye. Editor: Striking colours, absolutely! The composition feels wonderfully staged, almost theatrical. The interplay of red, blues and soft greens creates such an eye-catching surface effect, especially with all those decorative patterns vying for space. Curator: Indeed. Kunisada's brilliance shines through in capturing a nuanced social tableau within this particular genre painting style. The ukiyo-e tradition heavily influences how Oichi, presumably one of the city's renowned beauties, is presented within a commercial context. Editor: Note the geometry as well: repeated stripes that give depth in a subtle and understated way, or circular figures that give a sense of boundlessness. Curator: The visual clues provide us with a sense of Edo-period cultural values related to commerce, leisure and perhaps celebrity. Her interaction with the clearly lower class companion is telling of these distinctions. Consider the cultural narrative imbued in their clothes. Even though we don't have the exact date for the piece, what can we learn? Editor: Agreed. And you can examine how his bold linework segments her face, a further way of drawing your attention to her visage and the story held therein. The print’s materiality as a woodblock, creates these beautiful flat expanses that give the piece a stylized, almost dream-like essence, but which never quite takes away from the narrative pull of it all. Curator: By examining the visual iconography, we learn about both how beauty was viewed at this moment, as well as class distinctions and aspirations. In Japanese art, even depictions of people offer cultural insights worth extracting. Editor: Very well said, by slowing down and looking at the artist's methods for staging this scene, you can indeed tease apart quite a bit, can’t you? Curator: I found a whole society exposed through symbolism. Editor: For me it was composition that lead the way to understanding the intent behind Kunisada's style.