Female Artists in Japanese Edo Art [Excerpt]

Due to the Neo Confucian ideals, the Japanese women in the Edo period are regarded as subordinate to men and they have the obligation to perform their domestic duties as daughters, wives, and mothers in their households. This social obligation acts as a barrier for women who want to pursue anything outside of what is to be expected.

This would then explain the disproportionate records of artists, should they be categorised by gender. Whilst the standard Japanese dictionaries of Japanese artists contain records of notable female artists, they are far from comprehensive. Due to the non-existing gender terminology, obscure literary devices and limiting documentation of patronage, distinguished female artists were few and far between.

Whilst the number is sparse, their influence in Japanese art should not be underestimated. Ike (Tokuyama) Gyokuran (1727 -1784) has made a presence in the heavily male dominated art scene by infusing the techniques and skills of a professional painter and a poetic vision of a waka poet. With her works, Excursion to the Hills and Akashi Bay, this paper will expound on her creative vision that introduced an entirely new art style in Japanese Art.

Whilst feminist studies in Japan are considered as a contemporary finding that follows closely to the evolution of the same pedagogy in the West, the surge of artworks by female Japanese artists and their importance have been contested by many Japanese art historians. Inagami Shigemi suggested that the feminist perspective mistakes the epistemological and ethical dimensions of male domination. He regarded the current art history to be historically and epistemologically correct despite some stating that it is inherently political and ethically wrong.[1] However, its reevaluation allows space for a new perspective of not only gender but an intersection of several categories such as sexuality, race, class, and ethnicity, as Chino Kaori has stated.[2] Once there is a semblance of awareness and understanding of gender issues, there is a realisation that the themes and subject matter of such discourses have all been chosen according to the values of just one particular aspect of society: the heterosexual men. Outside of being mere subject matters in Japanese art, female artists in Japan have contributed to the scene despite being in a disproportionately disadvantageous value system and made a mark in the heavily male-dominated community.

Ike (Tokuyama) Gyokuran (1727–1784) is a renowned female artist that has been praised for her impeccable and skilful brush techniques. Whilst she was trained as a Chinese literati painter under Yanagisawa Kien (1703-1758), it was under the tutelage of her teacher-cum-husband, Ike no Taiga (1723–1776) that she fully equipped herself with the knowledge and skills of the nanga tradition. Nanga (Southern painting) or Bujinga (Chinese literati paintings) schools were a direct response to the major schools of art like Kano and Tosa, using the very limited Chinese literati ideas and art that were traded at a time when the Tokugawa Shogunate imposed its isolationist policy.

Ike no Taiga is considered to be one of the prominent figures of the Bujinga world, whose concept of the shinkeizu (True View Paintings) promoted the utilisation of empirical methods and the call for the celebration of the artist’s spirit. This concept stresses on the representation of the ‘true’ nature of a subject rather than its mere appearance, giving the artist the freedom for interpretation and artistic expression within the boundaries of realism.[3] 

Like many students of professional painters, Gyokuran’s literary vocabulary was very much similar to that of Taiga’s. Her techniques and skills obtained bore much resemblance to her teacher but true to the essence of shinkeizu, her paintings are distinct from Taiga’s. This is apparent if comparisons are made for the following paintings, Mountain with Ox Hair Wrinkles by Ike Taiga (Figure 1) and Excursion to the Hills by Ike Gyokuran (Figure 2).

[1] Ayako, Kano. "Women? Japan? Art? Chino Kaori and the Feminist Art History Debates." (2003).

[2] IBID

[3]Marsha Smith, Weidner, ed. Flowering in the Shadows: Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting. University of Hawaii Press, 1990.