Ikeda Shoen is known as Tokyo’s most popular painter of bijinga (lit. “pictures of beautiful women”). She boasted the highest number of works sold at the Bunten exhibition (sponsored by the Ministry of Education),¹ and was considered one of the two great female bijinga  artists of her time alongside Uemura Shoen. Her relatively lesser fame today, in comparison to Uemura, is partly due to Ikeda’s sudden death at the young age of 31, resulting in a smaller number of major works. Now, the museum has acquired one of Ikeda’s works, Way Back, which she submitted to the 9th Bunten in 1915.

It should be noted that the current four-panel folding screen originally had six panels when first exhibited. The two lost panels depicted a young samurai seen from behind, and the composition was one in which the girl looking back over her shoulder was directing her gaze at him.

Kaburaki Kiyokata, who studied under the same teacher as Ikeda, described her female figures as having “long sleeves that dragged heavily, a troubled countenance, and a sense of being burdened with unbearable emotions.”² Ikeda was instructed by her teacher Mizuno Toshikata to “depict human beings, and don’t paint dolls. Spirit and grace are crucial in a painting, and one must not forget this,”³ and this is reflected in her focus on internal characterization, which here is fully expressed in the secretly love-struck expression of the girl looking backward. It is fortunate for us that the painting remains great even after losing two panels, but for Ikeda, the young samurai whom the girl’s gaze follows was also essential to the composition. In preparing for this work, Ikeda repeatedly sketched the figure of the young warrior in her sketchbook.

Since this sketchbook was transferred from the Tokyo National Museum to this museum in 1964, it was thought to belong to her husband, Ikeda Terukata, due to the label affixed to it. However, re-examination following the gift of this work, has determined that they shared the sketchbook, as the conception of Way Back makes up about half of its contents. Some of the preliminary sketches for the work show a sign reading “Ryodaishi Temple” in the background. The setting of Way Back has been identified as near Kanei-ji Temple in Ueno.

After a romance, a broken engagement, and reconciliation with Terukata, Ikeda Shoen married him in 1911. It is said that after this, she was increasingly influenced by Terukata’s painting style.⁴ For this reason, the relationship between this work and Terukata’s Miyako no hito (People of the Capital) (whereabouts unknown), shown at the Bunten exhibition three years earlier, should be investigated. The right screen of Miyako no hito, showing a procession of elegantly dressed men and women on their way back from a nature walk, shares similarities with Way Back, in terms of both the scene depicted and the number of people (ten). In light of this, further research is called for.

Notes

1. “Artists, titles, and purchasers of works from the 1st to the 11th exhibition,” Yoshioka Hanryo ed., Teikoku kaiga hoten (Book of Treasures of Imperial Painting), Teikoku Kaiga Kyokai [Imperial Painting Society], 1918.
2. Kaburaki Kiyokata, “Meiji yori Taisho shoki no bijinga zakkan” [Miscellaneous Thoughts on Bijinga from the Meiji to the Early Taisho Era], Gendai sakka bijinga zenshu: Nihonga hen – jo [Complete Collection of Bijinga by Contemporary Artists: Nihonga (1)], Shinchosha, 1932.
3. Shoen Sakakibara, “My being today is entirely the result of my teacher,” Fujin Gaho, extra issue, Gendai Meiryu Fujin (January 10, 1911).
4. Matsuura Akiko, “Ikeda Shoen kenkyu: Meiji bijinga no nagare” [Study of Ikeda Shoen: The Evolution of Meiji Bijinga], 24th Report of the Association for the Study of Modern Japanese Art History, 1987.

Release date : 2023.7.6