2-726-426 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Courtesan, 18th century. Paintings of the courtesans who provided men with a sophisticated menu of appealing fashions, flattery, witty banter, music, dancing, and sexual services in the Yoshiwara district of the city of Edo (Tokyo) were the bread and butter of the Kaigetsudo studio, in whose style this work is painted. Their paintings emphasized bold, sweeping calligraphic ink lines in rendering the figures’ forms, along with high-contrast colours and patterns in their typically solitary subjects’ garments. Aside from the occasional prop or poem, the space around the dramatic figure was left entirely blank.