United States or Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He went back to Yedo with about twenty girls, fifteen or sixteen years old. So he married the woman who kept the house. Then he hired a big house called Tomonji. He furnished it very richly; and he would only receive guests of the high-class people. Five of his girls became very famous oiran. Even their pictures, drawn by Utamaro, are worth now hundreds of yen.
"There's nothing very valuable there," said Reggie, "but they are very effective, I think, even the cheap ones." Asako was holding up a pied engraving of a sinuous Japanese woman, an Utamaro from an old block recut, in dazzling raiment, with her sash tied in front of her and her head bristling with amber pins like a porcupine. "Geoffrey, will you please take me to see the Yoshiwara?" she asked.
With a line Utamaro expresses all that he deems it necessary to express of a face's contour. Three or four conventional markings stand for eyes, mouth, and ears; no desire to convey the illusion of a rounded surface disturbed his mind for a moment; the intention of the Japanese artists was merely to decorate a surface with line and colour.
"These things are of some value," he remarked. "Here is one by Utamaro that little circle with the mark over it is his signature and you notice that the paper is becoming spotted in places with mildew. The fact is worth noting in more than one connection." I accordingly made a mental note and the perambulation continued.
Step back and see if the spots of colour and the effects of line become confused, or if they still hold their places from a distance as well as close...." Ladies under trees, by Utamaro!
His friend had told him to come at nine o'clock in the evening. It was nearly ten. Then he began to finger things. He fumbled the papers in the desk. He examined the two Japanese swords light as ivory, keen as razors. He stared at each of the prints, at Hokusai, Toyokimi, Kuniyoshi, Kiyonaga, Kiosai, Hiroshighé, Utamaro, Oukoyo-Yé, the doctor's taste was Oriental.
The sound of footsteps and voices aroused him. He shivered with disgust. More people! Two men, well advanced in life, followed by two women, barely attracted his notice, until he saw that the little creature who waddled at the rear of the party was a Japanese in European clothes. Notwithstanding her western garb, she resembled a print of Utamaro.
Word Of The Day