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Introduction

Edo Culture II

Life in the Pleasure Quarters
December 16, 1994 - March 5, 1995

During the Edo period (1600-1868), the ruling Tokugawa shoguns attempted to control public morals and provide personal security by creating entertainment districts in which prostitution was licensed. In the Tokugawa capital at Edo (modern-day Tokyo), the Yoshiwara district was the government-regulated area in which the courtesans conducted their business.

At the height of its glory during the eighteenth century, the Yoshiwara was the source for an elaborate subculture of dress, manners, behavior, and even of literary forms, all of which gradually influenced Edo culture as a whole. As social institutions, then, the Yoshiwara (and other well-known entertainment quarters in cities such as Kyoto and Osaka) had a profound influence on artistic and intellectual thought and social customs of the period.

The prints in this exhibition are mostly drawn from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and demonstrate the continuing popularity of the courtesan image even into the time of the Yoshiwara's decline. In some, courtesans are presented in the role of great figures from the past, such as literary heroes and poetesses, demonstrating how this subculture transformed traditional literary imagery and inserted an element of social commentary or parody (mitate-e). Others are straightforward depictions of daily activities, like dressing in the elaborate costumes that came to be associated with this profession and entertaining guests in the teahouses and houses of assignation that filled the Yoshiwara. The Sumida River scenes illustrate the association of the Yoshiwara with its suburban setting and the use of pleasure boats to transport clients to its location on the outskirts of the city.

Selected Objects

Keisai Eisen

Customs of Tatsumi: Shells on the road (Tatsumi fuzoku michi no kaigara), 1820's

Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)

Contemporary brocades of fashions at the imperial palace (Gosho moyo tosei nishiki), 1843-47

Torii Kiyonaga

Bush-Clover Garden, Ryoganji, Mimeguri Shrine (Hagi no niwa: Ryoganji Mimeguri), ca.1787

Utagawa Hiroshige

Dawn inside the Yoshiwara, 1857

Suzuki Harunobu

Walking in the rain (Ame), ca.1767

Utagawa Toyokuni II (Toyoshige)

The courtesan Shirokawa and her two kamuro Nagisa and Yumeno of the Tamaya (Tamaya nai shirokawa nagisa yumeno), 1830's

Kikukawa Eizan

Three elegant beauties enjoying the evening cool (Fūryū yusuzumi san bijin), ca. 1810

Keisai Eisen

Ono no Komachi at Sekidera (Sekidera komachi), ca. 1825

Kitao Masanobu

Takigawa of the Ogiya (Ogiyanai takigawa), Spring 1784

Ochiai Yoshiiku

Evening snow at a boathouse (Ofunagura no bosetsu), 1860's

Chōbunsai Eishi

Beauties Boating on the Sumida River, 1790s

Kikukawa Eizan

Beauty (Bijin), 1820's

Kitagawa Utamaro

A parody (mitate) of Act 5 of Chūshingura (Treasury of the Loyal Retainers) with a courtesan of the Naniwaya (go-danme (Act 5) Naniwaya (inscribed to l. of figure) ), ca. 1794-1795

Chōbunsai Eishi

Beauties boating on the Sumida River (Bijin noryo zu), 1790's

Chōbunsai Eishi

Beauties boating on the Sumida River (Bijin noryo zu), 1790's

Kikukawa Eizan

Three fashionable beauties enjoying the evening cool, ca. 1810

Kikukawa Eizan

Three fashionable beauties enjoying the evening cool, ca. 1810

Kikukawa Eizan

Three fashionable beauties enjoying the evening cool, ca. 1810

Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)

Contemporary brocades of fashions at the imperial palace (Gosho moyo tosei nishiki), 1843-47

Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)

Contemporary brocades of fashions at the imperial palace (Gosho moyo tosei nishiki), 1843-47

Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III)

Contemporary brocades of fashions at the imperial palace (Gosho moyo tosei nishiki), 1843-47

Torii Kiyonaga

Bush-clover garden, Ryoganji, Mimeguri Shrine, ca.1787

Torii Kiyonaga

Bush-clover garden, Ryoganji, Mimeguri Shrine, ca.1787

Torii Kiyonaga

Bush-clover garden, Ryoganji, Mimeguri Shrine, ca.1787

More objects +

RISD Museum

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