Beauty and Bravado: Shin Hanga Portraiture
Whether graceful beauties dressed in the latest fashions or kabuki heroes depicted at the height of drama, bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women) and yakusha-e (actor prints) functioned as key genres of ukiyo-e since the dawn of the floating world. Artists of the Shin Hanga (New Print) movement reinvigorated these genres for an early 20th-century audience as they synthesized this legacy with the changing styles, materials, and artistic techniques of their own era. From the beauties of Goyo, Kotondo, Shinsui, and Kiyoshi, to the actors of Toyonari, Kanpo, and Tadamasa, each artist reimagined these genres through a modern lens, inviting a new generation to find enchantment in the elegant charms of beauties or inspiration in the bravado of theatrical stars.