Elderly Geisha (Rōgi)

Two elderly geisha, serenely posed and elegantly attired are enjoying a quiet moment, perhaps before they have to entertain guests later in the evening. On the right, the woman holds a long-stemmed kiseru pipe while she takes a pinch of tobacco from a small purple silk purse lined in a soft blue; in front of her the simple wooden tray holds a small ceramic brazier with charcoal already glowing, and beside it is a matching receptacle for the ashes. Her companion on the left peruses a book of libretti for Jōruri puppet plays, perhaps reviewing what songs she will recite to clients later to the accompaniment of the shamisen in front of her; the red brocade purse likely also holds the bachi (plectrum) for her instrument.

Geisha and their young apprentices referred to as maiko are among the most common subjects of early twentieth-century Nihonga. Yet in the Japanese tradition—dating back at least to the seventeenth century and epitomized by Ukiyo-e prints and paintings portraying courtesans and female performers—bijinga (paintings of beautiful women) as a rule celebrate the feminine ideal as embodied by youthful women. During the Taishō period, however, the changes in Japanese women’s social status impacted this attitude towards the conventions of bijinga. A new generation of artists pushed the boundaries of traditional subject matter to create truthful depictions of working women and the elderly. Their approach was often criticized by exhibition judges and the public as “vulgar” not only for their choice of unidealized subjects but also for their style, influenced by the realistic techniques of Western oil painting. Created in 1936, a decade after the close of the Taishō period, Chōko’s Elderly Geisha exemplifies both the legacy of Taishō humanism and the classicizing trend of early Shōwa Nihonga. Originally exhibited as a pair of hanging scrolls at the 1936 Bunten exhibition and then directly acquired by the prominent collection Hosokawa Rikizō, they were later conserved and remounted as a wide half-height two-panel screen.

Born in Tokyo, Chōko studied Yamato-e (traditional Japan painting) and became a specialist in figure painting. A precocious talent, when he was still only seventeen, he received the third-place award at the first Bunten exhibition of 1907. During the Taishō and early Shōwa periods, he was a frequent participant in the government-sponsored exhibitions, usually submitting paintings of historical figures and conventional bijinga. He also began illustrating books in the late 1930s, and after WWII he achieved a reputation as an accomplished illustrator of popular historical novels.