Illustrated women in Meiji period

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370174
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Art at large
• Research Institution: Tokai University
• Principal Investigator: Inui Yoshiko 東海大学, 国際文化学部, 教授 (40183008)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 明治 / ジェンダー / 服飾 / 錦絵 / 女子教育

Outline of Final Research Achievements

I made the following observation over the painted images of the women in the Meiji period, centered on nisiki-e of Chikanobu, about the reproducibility of the lifestyle of that era, through which I considered the correspondance, mismatching and awareness to the perception of gender of the time.For the reproducibility, it was confirmed that several items were reproduced very well in detail, like hairstyles, Kimonos and western clothes. It is likely that Chikanobu tried to be careful of describing more accurately, examining also the sources of information, such as fashionplates or musical scores.
Although Chikanobu became popular for the series on the women in O-oku (shogun’s harem) of the Edo Shogunate, judging from his style, it seems that he was very interested in the women who study or the new women. Unlike other painters of nishiki-e, he didn’t add any mocking expression to his works like ones with schoolgirls, and there are a high percentage of scenes with girls reading.

Free Research Field

民族芸術、服飾史