Miyo no hana (The Flowers of the Present Regime), Toyohara Chikanobu

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Chikanobu is a late nineteenth-century printmaker who specialized in contemporary historical subjects and women and children. Here he has designed six portraits of women of varying ages, each placed against a brightly colored background. Although their facial features are stylized, each woman has a different hairstyle and is dressed in kimono with carefully detailed patterns and colors. The younger women can be distinguished by their gayly colored garments; the older women are dressed in solid-colored or small-patterned kimono of darker, subtler shades. The colors used in these prints are clearly different from those produced with plant and mineral dyes. Rather, the hues are typical of the new aniline compounds used in Japanese printmaking in the latter half of the century.