1925 (ca.), Okochi Yako, Spring in Ohara in Northern Kyoto (detail) -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label: Female woodcutters have long been a subject of poetic fascination and erotic projection in traditional Japanese painting. The manual yet elegant labor of gathering flowering twigs was often idealized and objectified by the largely male contingent of poets and painters. The theme carried on into Japan's modern age with images like this one. The painter, Oköchi Yako, recast the theme in traditional pigments but with a new twist, where the colors look like they have been made by crayons or watercolors, evoking Western painting techniques.
1925 (ca.), Okochi Yako, Spring in Ohara in Northern Kyoto (detail) -- National Museum of Asian Art (Washington)
From the museum label: Female woodcutters have long been a subject of poetic fascination and erotic projection in traditional Japanese painting. The manual yet elegant labor of gathering flowering twigs was often idealized and objectified by the largely male contingent of poets and painters. The theme carried on into Japan's modern age with images like this one. The painter, Oköchi Yako, recast the theme in traditional pigments but with a new twist, where the colors look like they have been made by crayons or watercolors, evoking Western painting techniques.