Hi friends,
As promised,
this is the Ukiyo-e (Japanese style print) I so wanted to see for years.
By Oui
Katsushika
This is the property of Boston Museum but
whilst I was in Kobe in June, there was a special exhibition at the Kobe Museum
and at long last, I saw this in real. Look at the details of the patterns on Kimono
and the combination of colours! She was a genius and at the same time, her paintings made her a poet and also without doubts a ravel.
If you have
a chance to see this piece in real, remember to check at the bottom of the
black Kimono. As well as the gorgeous flowery patterns, she created one dew drop
and on the orange area (under Kimono), there is a pattern of cob web.
These three ladies
are actually high class prostitutes (Not Geisya, geisya is often misunderstood as
prostitutes but they are not.) Oui expressed
her view towards these prostitutes discreetly through patterns of Kimonos. Dew drop
means something easily disappears and cob web means these ladies were trapped, they lost their freedom.
Her name Oui
is not the real name. She decided to use this name as an Ukiyo-e painter as her
father often called her “Oi!”. What sense of humour she had! Mind you my
friends, I am talking about the woman lived in Japan in the 19th century where no women
received any form of education and were labelled as second class citizens. She
is a tough cookie, our kind of girl, isn’t she?
I adore this
woman’s extraordinary talent, wit and insight. Absolutely exceptional and simply stunning.
She was said
to be born in 1800 as the third daughter of the famous Ukiyo-e Master, Hokusai
Katsushika. If Ukiyo-e, I am sure everyone thinks of Big Wave or Red Fuji. They
are the master pieces created by Hokusai. Unlike her father, very little is
known about Oui.
I personally
think her talent excelled her father’s. Some experts think Oui was the ghost painter
behind Hokusai’s late pieces.
This is Oui’s
best known work. Night Scene in Yoshiwara. Yoshiwara is the famous Red Zone in Edo
(old name for Tokyo) in the Edo period (1603 -1867).
