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Hinamatsuri (雛祭り) - Girls' Day

March 3rd in Japan is a Shintō holiday (not an official national holiday) that is set aside to celebrate girls. It is traditionally one of Japan's gosekku, five seasonal celebrations of the imperial court.

It was originally called Momo no Sekku (Peach Blossom Festival) and was celebrated on the 3rd day of the 3rd month of the old lunar calendar. The association with peach blossoms is because that is when peach blossoms began to appear every year. This photo of Kamikuki Village illustrates why peach blossoms were prized.

When Japan adopted the Gregorian Calendar, the date was fixed at March 3rd, earlier than peach blossoms usually appear, but peach blossoms and peaches are still associated with that day.

Sometime in the Heian Period (794 to 1185), Momo no Sekku began to include girls in its celebration. One part of that celebration includes setting out displays of dolls, leading to calling the celebration Hinamatsuri, which literally means Dolls' Festival.

n 1673, a book publisher named Hishikawa Moronobu (1618 – 1694) realized that there was a market for single-sheet pictures instead of just illustrations in books. His first such products were designed to appeal to the prurient interests of the huge number of bachelors occupying Edo at the time. They were instantly successful and spurred the production of other sorts of pictures, too. Bijin-ga were among his first prints and those of his rapidly growing number of competitors. They are arguably the most popular of all of ukiyo-e's art genres.

All of Moronobu's ukiyo-e were originally print in black and white. This Yoshiwara street scene is an example.

Color prints were in demand, so prints with hand-painted color were soon being produced. This example was printed in 1680.

This print of a Beauty Looking Back (1688-94) is one of Moronobu's most famous bijin-ga. The color pallet is limited, but the increasing technical sophistication is obvious.

Such pictures were frequently of high class courtesans who, strange as it may seem by modern standards, were widely admired by women as well as men. Women especially liked pictures showing the latest clothing fashions and hair styles.

As the demand for color prints outstripped the ability of printers to produce them, technology came to the rescue. Suzuki Harumobu (1724 - 1770) is known as the father of nishiki-e (brocade or full color prints). Technology had been developed to enable full color prints using registration marks to keep colors properly aligned. Harumobu was the first to apply that technology to printing ukiyo-e. This bijin-ga of Harumobu's, Courtesan in Night Attire Standing on Veranda (1767), is an early example of nishiki-e.

From these early beginnings, Japanese artists began to produce much more sophisticated bijin-ga. Some are recognized today as world-class works of art. Here is a sampling of more of them.

Isoda Koryūsai (1735 – 1790) 

Koryūsai was a samurai for the Tsuchiya clan until the head of the clan died, making him a rōnin, a masterless man. He took up art in 1769 and produced a prodigious quantity of ukiyo-e prints in several genres until his death. He was most prolific in producing bijin-ga. His Woman Standing in Snow was produced sometime in the 1770s.

Torii Kiyonaga (1752 – 1815)

Kiyonaga began his training in art in the Torii school when he was 14. Though not related to the school's founder, he eventually rose to be the school's head in 1787. One of his accomplishments as master was to organize kabuki print production in which the Torii school held a virtual monopoly for many years. As an artist, Kiyonaga is most remembered for his bijin-ga. His Three Women Holding Umbrellas Strolling in the Rain was originally published in 1810. This is a 1930 reproduction.

Kitagawa Utamaro (1753 – 1806)

Utamaro is one of the most highly regarded of all of the ukiyo-e artists. He produced many kachō-ga (pictures of birds and flowers), mainly for book illustrations, but he is by far remembered for his bijin-ga of courtesans, both when entertaining clients in public settings and in relaxed, behind the scenes settings. He was arrested in 1604 for producing prints of a banned subject and was tortured. A broken man, he died two years later. This print is from a series titled Flowers of Edo, produced in 1603. The flowers represented here are tsubaki (camellias).

Katsushika Hokusai (1760 – 1849)

Hokusai is so famous that he hardly needs an introduction. He is most famous for his landscape ukiyo-e, especially the iconic Great Wave off Kanagawa. However, there is hardly any subject that he wasn't prolific in, including bijin-ga. They are rarely seen because his landscapes are so dominant. This print of a High Ranking Courtesan is thought to have been produced in the early 18th century.

Utagawa Kunisada (1786 – 1865)

Kunisada was Japan's most commercially successful ukiyo-e artist of the 19th century. His reputation exceeded that of all of his contemporaries. It faded after his death, but a reexamination of his work in recent decades has reestablished his reputation as being among the best. About 60% if his artwork were kabuki and sumo prints, but he produced many bijin-ga, too. He was very creative and didn't stick to a standard pattern. Here are two of his bijin-ga. The first, Firefly Hunting, was produced in the 1843-5 time frame.

The next print is Beauty Playing with a Cat (1852).

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 – 1858)

After Hokusai, Hiroshige was Japan's other great landscape ukiyo-e artist. He was also prolific in producing kachō-ga (birds and flowers prints). One thing that Hiroshige almost never did was to produce bijin-ga. Almost, but not never. He did produce a small handful. This 1852 print is titled Iris Garden at Horikiri.

Hiroshige and Kunisada sometimes collaborated on multi-part prints. In the Snow View (1853) triptych below, Kunisada did the figures, and Hiroshige did the landscape in the background. The figure on the right is a male.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 – 1861)

Kuniyoshi was another of the great ukiyo-e masters who worked toward the end of the Edo Period (1603 - 1868). He excelled in many subjects including landscapes, kabuki actors, legendary samurai heroes, and mythical animals. He experimented with Western painting techniques in landscapes and caricatures. He also did bijin-ga. This fan-shaped composition, Beauty with a Face Brush, was published in the 1844 to 1845 time period.

Katsushika Ōi (1800 – 1866)

Katsushika Ōi's father was Hokusai. Though overshadowed by her famous parent, Ōi managed to carve out her own niche in the ukiyo-e world, besides being almost the only woman working in that genre before the 20th century. This was a remarkable achievement in an era and place in which officially, women didn't even exist as individuals. Even more impressive is that scholars believe that she may have been a meaningful influence on her father's later work. Her Three Women Playing Instruments was published in 1850.

Uemura Shōen (1875 – 1949) 

Early in Japan's Modern Period, expectations about women's place in society began to loosen up. This opened opportunities for women to do work outside of traditional roles. Her father, a tea merchant, passed away two months before Shōen was born. Growing up in an all-female household and in her mother's tea shop, she was allowed to follow her own inclinations. She loved to draw and showed a talent for rendering human figures. Her artwork began to be exhibited with she was 15. During her lifetime, she won numerous awards. The title of one of her most famous works is Jonomai (1936), a type of dance in Noh theater.

Itō Shinsui (1898 – 1972)

Shinsui was born into a well-to-do family. But they fell into hard times when he was in elementary school, and he had to leave school to work. He began in a sign shop before transferring to become a factory hand in the Tōkyō Printing Company. His talent in drawing and painting led to an apprenticeship in the design section of the company and ultimately to his becoming a student of Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878 - 1972), a well known shin-hanga (new prints) artist who specialized in bijin-ga. Shinsui's works began to be shown in 1912, and he went on to become a shin-hanga leader. Though Shinsui specialized in bijin-ga, he also painted landscapes. His Summer Kimono was published in 1922.

Modern Japanese Dolls

Doll making in Japan wasn't limited to the Hina dolls used during Hinamatsuri. It is known that dolls of various other sorts have been around since the Heian period, including play things. During the Edo Period, doll making became a significant cultural component, with dolls coming to represent nearly every aspect of everyday life. While dolls influenced Japanese culture, Japanese culture also influenced doll making. Bijin-ga in particular led to dolls that resembled those beauties. Sometimes, dolls are made to resemble real people. A recent example is a line of dolls that had the features of Japan's first commoner to marry into the imperial family, Michiko Sho-da, to become Japan's empress in 1959. Many such dolls are highly prized and are handed down as family heirlooms.

The object this doll is holding up to her left shoulder is a tsuzumi drum like the one shown in the first week of this semester.

Japanese Primrose (Primula japonica)

My bijin-ga demonstration painting features a beauty holding a sakurasō plant (Japanese primrose). P. japonica belongs to the same family as primroses in the west, but it is a different species that is native to Japan. Other common names for the Japanese primrose are Japanese cowslip, Queen of primroses, and valley red. It is a perennial with clusters of blossoms that grow on stems as much as 18 inches tall, and it has broad leaves close to the ground.

It blooms from mid-May to nearly the end of June, opening tier after tier of blossoms in succession. Some varieties have only one tier. The color of the blossoms range from shades of white, soft to deep pink, purple, or red. They can grow from seeds or self-propagate.

Here is a close-up view of Japanese primrose blossoms. Note that blossoms have five petals each with a cut or dimple at the outer end of each petal. This is similar to cherry blossom petals.

Japanese artists were well aware of sakurasō. Here is another one of Kunisada's bijin-ga prints; Beauty with Primrose (1824). Kunisada's Beauty with Primrose