is a colour woodblock print from by Japanese ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro (–1806). The triangular composition depicts the profiles of three celebrity beauties of the time: geisha Tomimoto Toyohina, and teahouse waitresses Naniwaya Kita and Takashima Hisa. The print is also known under the titles and .
Utamaro was the leading ukiyo-e artist in the 1790s in the genre of pictures of female beauties. He was known for his , which focus on the heads. The three models in Three Beauties of the Present Day were frequent subjects of Utamaro's portraiture. Each figure in the work is adorned with an identifying family crest. The portraits are idealized, and at first glance their faces seem similar, but subtle differences in their features and expressions can be detected—a level of realism at the time unusual in ukiyo-e, and a contrast with the stereotyped beauties in earlier masters such as Harunobu and Kiyonaga. The luxurious print was published by Tsutaya Jūzaburō and made with multiple woodblocks—one for each colour—and the background was dusted with muscovite to produce a glimmering effect. It is believed to have been quite popular, and the triangular positioning became a vogue in the 1790s. Utamaro produced several other pictures with the same arrangement of the same three beauties, and all three appeared in numerous other portraits by Utamaro and other artists.
Background
Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries, and took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the "floating world" lifestyle of the pleasure districts. Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre. In the mid-18th century full-colour prints became common, printed using a large number of woodblocks, one for each colour. Towards the close of the 18th century there was a peak in both the quality and quantity of work. A prominent genre was ("pictures of beauties"), which depicted most often courtesans and geisha at leisure, and promoted the entertainments to be found in the pleasure districts.
Katsukawa Shunshō introduced the "large-headed picture" in the 1760s; he and other members of the Katsukawa school such as Shunkō popularized the form for actor prints, as well as the dusting of mica in the backgrounds to produce a glittering effect. Kiyonaga was the pre-eminent portraitist of beauties in the 1780s, and the tall, graceful beauties in his work had a great influence on Kitagawa Utamaro (–1806), who was to succeed him in fame. Utamaro studied under Toriyama Sekien (1712–1788), who had trained in the Kanō school of painting. Around 1782, Utamaro came to work for the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō.
In 1791, Tsutaya published three books by Santō Kyōden in the genre of humorous tales of adventures in the pleasure quarters; deeming them too frivolous, the military government punished the author with fifty days in manacles and fined the publisher half his property. His luck was reversed shortly after with a new success: Utamaro began producing the first portraits, adapting to the genre. Their popularity restored Tsutaya's fortunes and made Utamaro's in the 1790s.
Description and analysis
Three Beauties of the Present Day is considered one of Utamaro's representative early works. It depicts the profiles of three celebrity beauties of 1790s Edo (modern Tokyo). Utamaro's subjects were not courtesans, as was expected in ukiyo-e, but young women known around Edo for their beauty. These three were frequent subjects of Utamaro's art, and often appeared together. Each is identified with an associated family crest.
In the centre poses Tomimoto Toyohina, a famed geisha of the Tamamuraya house in the Yoshiwara pleasure district. She was dubbed "Tomimoto" having made her name playing Tomimoto-bushi music on the shamisen. Like the other two models, she has her hair up in the fashionable Shimada style that was popular at the time. Contrasted with the homelier teahouse-girl garments of the other two models, she is dressed in the showier geisha style. The Tomimoto crest's Japanese primrose design adorns the sleeve of her kimono. Toyohina's birthdate is unknown.
To the right Naniwaya Kita, also known as "O-Kita", well-known daughter of the owner of a teahouse in Asakusa near the temple Sensō-ji. She is said to have been fifteen in the portrait, in which she wears a patterned black kimono and holds an hand fan printed with her family emblem, a paulownia crest.