c.1753–1806
Kitagawa Utamaro喜多川歌麿
Utamaro drew the women of the licensed quarters with a closeness — psychological as much as physical — that no artist had attempted: half-length, at mirrors, reading letters, caught thinking. He was the supreme master of bijin-ga, and his fame reached Europe within his lifetime. In 1804 the shogunate jailed and handcuffed him over an impolitic print; he died two years later.
The workshop
His great half-length series were published by Tsutaya Jūzaburō, the visionary of the age, and printed with luxuries — mica grounds, embossing, ground shell white — that made a sheet of paper feel like lacquer and silk.
