vol.21 (2025)
YAMAMOTO Yuri Department of Japanese History,
Key words: Bijinga (portraits of beautiful women), Bunten exhibition, women painters, women’s magazines, taste for art, female viewers This paper examines the period during which the Bunten Exhibition (sponsored by the Ministry of Education) was held (1907–1918) and women’s magazines published during the same period that promoted the appreciation and production of Bijinga (portraits of beautiful women) by women. Bijinga became increasingly popular at the Bunten Exhibition, and the works exhibited and their creators were the focus of much discussion. In particular, Bijinga of the Nihonga Department attracted people’s attention, which has been discussed in many previous studies. However, there is still room to examine who supported Bijinga at that time and how Bijinga were enjoyed. The author has elucidated acceptance of Bijinga by women during the Bunten period, both in terms of appreciation and production, based on women’s magazines published during that period. This paper further examines the relationship between women’s acceptance of Bijinga and women’s magazines and deepens our discussion of the background and factors behind women’s appreciation and production of Bijinga. Chapter 1 examines how women’s magazines encouraged their readers to acquire a “taste for art,” which in turn encouraged women to appreciate Bijinga, using an article in Fujin Gaho by Ukiyo-e researcher Shizuya Fujikake. Supported by the objective of women’s magazine to promote the cultivation of women’s taste for art in order to nurture good housewives, Bijinga were actively featured in the magazine and supplied to its readers. Chapter 2 clarifies that male experts writing for women’s magazines recommended that Bijinga be an appropriate subject for women’s art production. However, the painting of Bijinga by women must be a genteel activity that falls within the category of domestic women’s activities. It was expected that the production of Bijinga by women should not deviate from men’s conception of women’s taste for and acceptance of art. In Chapter 3, the author clarifies that the frontispiece competition, a reader-submitted project sponsored by Fujin Sekai, functioned as a forum for submitting Bijinga and encouraged readers to create their own Bijinga. The contributors of the prize-winning paintings, which depicted women engaging in household chores and artistic accomplishments included men pretending to be women. These prize-winning illustrations also functioned as a venue for disseminating to female readers the specific image of the ideal housewives that women’s magazines had set forth. The author demonstrates that women’s magazines, as a form of mass media, played a role in encouraging women to accept Bijinga during the Bunten period. The acceptance of Bijinga by women was deeply connected to the cultivation of housewives rooted in the principle of a good wife and wise mother, which was promoted by the women’s magazines. | |||||
