Kaburaki Kiyokata and the memory of Edo (Chiba City Museum of Art)

(Translated by Google Translate)

Speaking of Kaburaki Kiyokata, beauty, along with painter Uemura Shoen. And the Qing way, exhibition of Chiba City Museum of Art which focuses on the relationship of Edo.

Born in Tokyo Kanda in 1878, and apprenticed to Mizuno Toshi-kata is a disciple of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi at the age of 13, Kaburaki Kiyokata was as an independent illustrator in 1897.

I was drawing the illustrations of the works Izumi Kyoka, Ozaki Koyo, such as Higuchi Ichiyo, women play a major role.

Eventually, as a painter to draw like reminiscent the Edo era, the beautiful image of a kimono, the name came to be known.

As we draw a woman, Kiyokata had refer to the female image drawn by the ukiyo-e of the Edo period. In particular, work Katsukawa Shunsho, Suzuki Harunobu, Kitagawa Utamaro, such as is, that was a particular favorite.

In that gesture wearing a kimono none is beautiful, you are doing something, women drawn by the Qing way is, is felt delicacy seems Japanese women.

Qing way had been longing, a woman drawn by Suzuki Harunobu, just a sense that not only the delicate beauty and, there, you can either say odiousness, Iron Fist has also been drawn, but Kiyokata is not harvested by such surface , single-mindedly, I drew a female image that is pure of.

Kiyokata is, mage born, but also survived World War II, died at 94 years old in 1972.

After the war, as a painter in the past and that had continued production To small things already to himself.

The work of the picture scroll was painted in 1948, that morning and evening, he have drawn with great deep affection and nostalgia, the lives of people in Tokyo of his young age.

Was created in the lifetime of more than 90 years that, among the unique painting world, of women who have the ideal way Qing, the state of life in Edo and Meiji is depicted.

Not a beautiful woman painter, even after reading Utopia painter, that of Kaburagi Kiyokata, it would not be so wrong.