Minneapolis Institute of Art

Appearing Embarrassed, Behavior of a Girl of the Meiji Period

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi; Publisher: Tsunajima Kamekichi; Carver: Wada Yūjirō

Date

November 1888

Medium

Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and color on paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This scene is supposed to show how a girl at the time this print was created behaved when embarrassed or shy. A contemporary Japanese viewer would have detected a subtle eroticism embedded in this design in the way the girl bites her sleeve and because a lock of her hair has escaped her coiffure. She must be from an affluent family, since she wears a fashionable kimono of checkered yellow silk cloth called kihachijō, which was traditionally made on Hachijō Island, about 180 miles south of Tokyo. Asia

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