Artworks

Ichiyō

Artwork · Kiyokata Kaburaki · 1940 · kakemono · Tokyo University of the Arts

A portrait by Kiyokata Kaburaki (1878–1972), trained as an ukiyo-e artist, of the writer Ichiyō Higuchi (1872–1896), who supported her family by sewing for the prostitutes of her poor neighbourhood and died of tuberculosis at twenty-four: she sits pensively by an oil lamp, swatches of cloth before her — the desire to write overshadowed by the need to earn. Shown in 1940 at the exhibition for the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of Japan. 1 Mason 2005, pp. 370–371, fig. 440. ↩ Literatur Mason 2005: Penelope E. Mason, History of Japanese Art, 2nd, Pearson Education LTD. 2005.