Special event preceding EAJRS Conference, Leiden, September 16-19, 2015
INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP“IMAGES OF WOMEN IN THE AGE OF MECHANICAL REPRODUCTION:PRINT CULTURE IN EARLY MODERN AND MODERN JAPAN”
Tuesday, September 15, 2015, Leiden University
Abstracts and Speakers’ Biographical Notes (in the order of appearance)
Masato Naitō (Keio University)
Harbingers of Modernity: Objective Portrayal of Women in ukiyo-e
Many beauties were depicted in ukiyo-e, mainly in prints or on commercial
objects that needed to appeal to potential buyers. As ukiyo-e was driven by consumer
demand it is necessary to be cautious when analyzing it as a historical document of the Edo
period. This presentation aims at a comparative study of two different ways of representing
women in ukiyo-e: one that is considered typical and one that is atypical and as such
heralds the coming modernity.
Masato NAITŌ is Professor of Art History at Keio University and Director at Keio
University Art Center (Tokyo). Formerly, he served as head curator at the Idemitsu
Museum of Art (Tokyo). His research intrests focus on Edo period art and inlcude ukiyo-eas well as painting of the Rimpa and the Kanō school. His major publications include
Ukiyo-e to patoron (Ukiyo-e and Its Patrons, Keio Univrestity Press, 2014), Katuskawa
Shunshō to Tenmeiki no ukiyo-e bijinga (Katsukawa Shunshō and Images of Beautiful
Women of the Tenmei Era, Tokyo University Press, 2012) and Rimpa Art (co-authored,British Museum, 1998) etc. Prof. Naito received the Kajima Foundation for the Arts
Award in 1994 and the International Ukiyo-e Society Award in 2015.
Ewa Machotka (Leiden University)
Women in Print: The Figure of the Woman Writer in Japanese Early Modern Print
CultureThe imagery of the woman writer that abounds in Japan’s early modern printed
culture has commonly been interpreted as a Woolf-esque emblem of women’s social
power and prestige. The representations of Heian literary celebrities such as Murasaki

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Shikibu (c.978-c. 1014 or 1025) or Ono no Komachi (c. 825-c.900) are usually used as
evidence of the emancipating value of writing.
Paradoxically, the same figures are featured in two printed genres commonly
associated with gender oppression: 1) jokunsho or moral guides for women promoting
ideals of domestic femininity and 2) eroticized images of bijin (beauties). How to explainthese virtual contradictions? When and why do these figures enter Japan’s printed culture?
How are they represented? What is the role of such representations in early modern Japan?
In order to elucidate these issues this paper explores two early printed books, 1) Honchō
jokan (Mirror for Women of Our Land, 1661), attributed to Asai Ryōi (ca. 1612-91), and2) Hishikawa Moronobu’s (1618–1694) Shipan bijin e-zukushi (“The New Collection ofImages of Beauties, 1683).
Through a critical investigation of the imagery of women perpetuated via earlymodern printed material, this paper explores the operations of mechanical reproduction invisual culture. It reveals that the role of medium extends beyond a common technologicalaspect of the printed culture but also influences the semiotics of representation.
Ewa MACHOTKA is Lecturer in the Art and Visual Culture of Japan at Leiden University.
Formerly she served as Curator of Japanese Art at the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities
in Stockholm, Sweden and the National Museum in Krakow, Poland. She is interested ininterdisciplinary approaches that intersect visual arts and social and intellectual history,
focusing especially on the multifaceted relationships between text and image. Her current
research projects pertain to socially engaged artistic practices and the relationships
between visual representation of nature and environmental consciousness in contemporary
Japan. In 2009 she published a monograph Hokusai`s Hyakunin Isshu: Visual Genesis ofJapanese National Identity (Peter Lang P.I.E., 2009). Currently she is co-editing
Consuming Post-Bubble Japan: Commodity, Garbage, Art (forthcoming from Amsterdam
University Press).
Matthi Forrer (National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden)
Women with Utamaro and with Kuniyoshi. From Idol to Personality
In my paper Women with Utamaro and with Kuniyoshi. From Idol to Personality,I intend to explore how Kitagawa Utamaro (act. 1779-1804) evolved from the court
portraitist of Yoshiwara courtesans in early Kansei (1789-1801), to an artist pretending toportray women as human beings living in their own thoughts and mind by the mid-Kansei
period, focusing on the daily life of women and their concerns of everyday life towards
late Kansei. Quite remarkably, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (act. 1815-61) bears witness of a2somewhat similar career: focusing on fashionably clad towns-women in the Tenpō period(1830-1844), and then portraying them as examples of virtuous behaviour or as women
engaged in various crafts later on in his career. This, it must be said, defines the difference
between ukiyoe and Japanese prints as a product catering to a very different audience. Butthen, a product requires a market. But then, what is that market?
Dr Matthi FORRER is senior researcher of the Japan collections of the National Museumof Ethnology, Leiden, and has published on Edo-period Japanese prints and publishing, aswell as on Dutch-Japanese relations.
Sawako Takemura-Chang (Leiden University)
Pictures of Beautiful Women of the Nineteenth Century: Decadent yet Ideal
Pictures of beautiful women, generally categorized as bijin-ga, of the nineteenth
century have often been labeled as "decadent (taihaiteki)" by a number of modern ukiyo-escholars through years. This paper will first investigate the change of general perception
especially toward lower-ordinary class sex workers who are depicted in ukiyo-e more
frequently at the time. The society seemingly began to consider them to be morally
corrupted and disturbing, which might be reflected in those late Edo period bijin-ga.
Paradoxically, those lower ranked prostitutes including geisha were romanticized andreshaped to be a paragon of ideal women through various media including bijin-ga andpopular fictions such as ninjōbon (books of romance), that were largely targeted forwomen audience.
As a case study, I would like to mainly analyze a print series, Ukiyo fūzoku mimekurabe (Cutoms of the Floating World), dated 1823-24 (Bunsei 6-7) by Keisai Eisen(1790-1848) in order to exemplify the fact. Although the nineteenth century bijin-ga had
been disregarded and judged as "decadent" until recently, those commoditized but
financially independent women like geisha with fashionable style in unlicensed quarters
such as Fukagawa seemed sought after both by men and women in the lower-middle socialstratum. Through the printing technology and the publishing market, those bijin-ga perhaps
partly functioned educating women in how they look and behave in order to be favored bythe male dominant society.
Sawako TAKEMURA-CHANG is a doctoral candidate in Japan’s art history at the Leiden
University, The Netherlands. She holds a bachelor degree from the State University ofNew York and a master’s degree in Asian art history from the University of Hawai'i. She
used to work at the Japan Society in New York and since 1998 she has served as an3

assistant curator of Japanese art at Honolulu Academy of Arts. She enrolled at the Leiden
University’s doctoral programme in 2012 and since then she has been working on herdissertation on the representation of women in the late Edo period. She is particularlyinterested in the interactions between ukiyo-e and early-modern commercial culture.
Yukihiro Hirayoshi (Museum & Archives, Kyoto Institute of Technology)
Whitening: The Skin Color of Women in Japanese Posters
The Museum & Archives at the Kyoto Institute of Technology houses anextensive collection of modern and contemporary posters, including thousands of Japaneseposters dating from the late 19th century to the present. In our presentation, we would liketo focus on several notable advertisements for cosmetics, fashion, and beverages as ameans of analyzing the skin color of Japanese women.
The Japanese word bihaku means “skin whitening,” but can literally betranslated as “beautiful white” (美白). Though long used in the cosmetics industry, theterm achieved a new level of popularity in the 1990s after cosmetic companies launched abihaku ad campaign. As the word suggests, white skin is synonymous with beautiful skinin Japan. Since face powder was imported from China in the sixth century, a white facecame to be seen as a symbol of feminine beauty, particularly in the Heian (794-1185) andEdo Period (1603-1868). (The white face and nape favored by apprentice geisha in the Edo
era are one notable example of this trend.)
The Meiji Restoration brought many changes in attitude, including a new
outlook on women’s skin color. Modernization exerted a palpable effect on cosmetic
practice. For example, shaving one’s eyebrows and blackening one’s teeth were banned,
and healthy-looking color was valued. It became more important for women to whiten
their own skin than to apply powder and other artificial whitening agents. Following theadvent of the modern age, women’s skin wavered between the fantasy of beautiful
whiteness and a “healthy” tan. (Tanning is no longer seen as a mark of good health, butrather the cause of spots and blemishes.)
As these trends suggest, Japanese women’s skin is a mirror of the times. In somecases, it reflects social conditions more than fashions or trends. At the same time,visualizing the subtle differences in skin color presents the printing industry withcontinuing challenges. Thus, the representation of skin color is closely linked tomodernization in Japan, both in technical and social terms.

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Yukihiro HIRAYOSHI. Associate Professor, Museum and Archives, Kyoto Institute ofTechnology. Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1967. Ph D. from Kyoto University in 2004. Curatorof the National Museum of Art, Osaka (2000-2008). Current position since 2008.
Specializes in modern and contemporary art. Curated exhibitions, while at the NMAO
include “Mirrorical Returns: Marcel Duchamp and the 20th Century Art” (touringexhibition, 2004) and “Skin of/in Contemporary Art” (2007). Curated exhibition at KIT
include “Art and Technology” (2009) and “Affiches de la Belle Epoque” (2014). Publishedarticles include “Figure and Gaze: Image after Pop Art” (Contemporary Art, Musashino
Art University Publishing, 2003), “Desire and Ideology: Posters as a mirror of Art”
(Bijutsu forum 21, Daigo Shobo, 2013)
Sabine Schenk (LMU Munich)
Images of Women in the Age of New Reproduction Techniques – Takehisa Yumeji (1884– 1934) and Commercial Imagery in early 20th century Japan
Within his eclectic oeuvre Takehisa Yumeji’s depictions of women are seen as
emblematic for his work and the archetype of melancholic female figures became atrademark, vigorously employed in the field of commercial imagery in the late Meiji toearly Shōwa periods.
Yumeji’s notorious bijin (beautiful women) are featured in a wide range ofgraphic media, including directly marketed single sheet woodblock prints, lithographs andmechanically produced printing products. Images of women employed in various
commercial implementations illustrate, advertise and reproduce themselves in various
styles on book plates, magazine covers or frontispieces and in their re-production as sets ofprints, postcards and design items from the prewar period to today.
This contribution examines the relationship between the printing process, thecommercial utilization and the modes of reproduction of images of women in Yumeji’swork and its tradition. How do the printing process and commercial objective shape
images of women? What modes of image transfer multiply and transfer concepts andstyles? How do Yumeji’s women depictions represent a node of the modern and yet arecaught in his mannerist romanticism?
Sabine SCHENK is doctoral candidate at LMU Munich and coordinator of the Heidelberg
University Office, Kyoto, a liaison office of Heidelberg University in Japan. Following aninternship at the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture, California (2009 – 2010), she
conducted research for her PhD project with the working tile “Art Nouveau in Japan:
romanticism, ornamentality und intermediality in early twentieth-century Japanese visual5culture” (LMU, Munich) at the German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo (DIJ). She
co-organises international workshops, such as the annual Forum of East Asian Art History,
presents and publishes on early twentieth-century art and design, and in particular on
Takehisa Yumeji.
Sharalyn Orbaugh (University of British Columbia)
Images of Women in Propaganda kamishibai, 1938-45
From 1938 to 1945 the Japanese government used a variety of media in themobilization of women behind the war effort, including intensive use of kamishibai (papertheatre) plays. An examination of the visual (and textual) elements of propaganda
kamishibai plays aimed at girls and women reveals the wartime roles envisioned forfemales, and the ways those roles changed as the war intensified. This presentation
will investigate the visual techniques employed to engage and indoctrinate women andhow those techniques drew on earlier images of women from modern and early modernJapan.
Sharalyn ORBAUGH is professor of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia(Vancouver, Canada). She has published widely on representions of gender, sex, andsexuality in modern Japanese popular culture, including Propaganda Performed:
Kamishibai in Japan’s Fifteen Year War (Leiden: Brill, 2014); “Suzuki Noriko and theProperly Feminine Nationalist Body in Kamishibai” (U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal 45,2013); “Busty Battlin’ Babes: the Evolution of the Shōjo in 1990s Visual Culture.” InGender and Power in the Japanese Visual Field, ed. Bryson, Graybill, and Mostow(Honolulu: Hawai’i University Press, 2003).
Jaqueline Berndt (Kyoto Seika University)
Odorless Bodies: Edo-era Women in Sugiura Hinako’s MangaFor the last few decades, the most prevalent printed images in Japan have been
provided by manga, i.e. mostly graphic narratives first serialized in specialized magazines.
While not rarely generalized, in particular when driven by a desire for ‘origins’ and therespective penchant for ‘tradition,’ manga images of women are anything but homogenous,
neither in terms of historic change nor concurrent genres and styles. Without any intent ofbeing comprehensive, this paper focuses on manga artist Sugiura Hinako (1958-2005),
intrigued by the fact that she experimented with ukiyoe-like character design in her early
short stories (“Futatsu makura,” Garo, 1981), while refraining from it in “Sarusuberi”(Manga Sunday, 1983-87), her account of Hokusai as focalized through the character of6

Oei, where women tend to be pictured in a style that is reminiscent of the late prints ofHashiguchi Goyō (1880-1921). Given the workshop’s concentration on commonalities
across eras, this paper shall highlight the prioritization of visuality, or (aesthetic, notnecessarily cultural) odorlessness in the representation of female physique, leaning on anotion of media which goes beyond physical medium specificity.
Jaqueline BERNDT is professor in Comics Studies at the Graduate School of Manga,Kyoto Seika University, Japan, and deputy director of the International Manga ResearchCenter at the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Holding a first degree in JapaneseStudies and a Ph.D in Aesthetics/Art Theory from Humboldt University Berlin, in her
teaching and research she focuses on media aesthetics and visual culture, especially manga
and anime, as well as the discourse and institution of Art in modern Japan. Recentpublications include the co-edited volume Manga’s Cultural Crossroads (2013) and themonograph Manga: Medium, Art and Material (2015).

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