'Yangguifei' by Uemura Shōen, 1922
For the past week or so I have been enraptured by a Japanese style of painting that I chanced upon on Google Arts and Culture, my permanent watering hole. The style is called Nihonga. I will write more about that style in another post. For today, I want to focus on just one work by an extraordinary Japanese woman artist called Uemura Shōen who went on the become the first painter to break through the confines of women artists having to work their art within their homes. She became one of Japan’s most renowned artists.
The work that has cast an enduring spell on me is titled Yangguifei and is dated 1922. It is 189 X 161 cm. It shows what seems like an aristocratic woman being groomed by someone who is likely her servant. Everything about this work is breathtaking immediately but most of all it is Uemura’s excruciating attention to details and preciseness of her lines. There is more artistic talent in any tiny corner of this work than I will ever acquire in several lifespans.
No matter where you look in this painting you are stunned by Uemura’s genius. Take for instance how brilliantly she captures the light behind the fine bamboo curtains that show glimpses of bamboo leaves. The filtered nature of the light is so exquisitely captured. As your eye travels from the picture’s right to left, you notice that the bamboo curtains curl up a bit by some breeze offering you a slight peek outside. The light in that split is markedly sharper and brighter and bamboo leaves in greater resolution.
The aristocratic woman’s poise is extraordinary. Look at the sheer blue stole-like covering and how astutely Uemura captures that effect of the fabric’s sheerness.
In the foreground there is another screen through which you can see the young woman adjusting the aristocrat’s headgear. Notice how light from the room changes as well as the light from outside, filtered twice over, also changes.
The precise architectural lines of the furniture, the tiles, the curtain patterns, the jewelry box and so on are so meticulous as to leave me exhausted just looking.
I regard this as among the finest paintings I have seen. What is remarkable is that everything that Uemura painted was of this caliber.
