Jidai kagami (Mirror of the Ages)

Yoshu Chikanobu (1838–1912) was among the most accomplished and productive woodblock print designers of the Meiji era, a period in which Japanese printmaking faced an existential challenge from Western photographic and printing technologies and responded with a burst of creative energy that produced some of the finest work in the entire ukiyo-e tradition. Chikanobu worked across the full range of Meiji print subjects — warrior prints, historical scenes, genre compositions depicting the transformation of Japanese society under Western influence — but it is his bijin-ga (images of beautiful women) series, and above all the Jidai kagami, that have established his permanent reputation.

The Jidai kagami (Mirror of the Ages) was published in the late Meiji period and comprises a series of triptychs depicting court beauties (bijin) of successive historical eras, from the Kenmu period of the fourteenth century to the Meiji period in which Chikanobu himself worked. Each triptych shows three women in the characteristic dress of the era depicted, identified by a rectangular text panel that specifies the period and its historical context. The series thus functions simultaneously as a work of historical imagination and as a showcase for the elaborate costume traditions of the Japanese court across six centuries of history.

The compositional format Chikanobu chose for the series — the okubi-e, or large head picture — has a long history in Japanese printmaking, associated particularly with Utamaro’s close-up portraits of beautiful women that had transformed the bijin-ga tradition in the late eighteenth century. Chikanobu’s use of the format reflects both his engagement with this earlier tradition and his interest in the specific expressive possibilities of the close-up: the face, hair arrangement, collar and upper garment of each figure are depicted with extraordinary precision, allowing the historical costume research that underpins the series to be displayed to maximum effect.

The colour printing in the finest impressions of the Jidai kagami exemplifies the technical accomplishment of Meiji woodblock production at its peak. The palette is rich and varied, with the vermilions, malachite greens, indigo blues and golden yellows of court costume rendered through multiple printing passes from carefully registered colour blocks. The bokashi (gradated colour) shading characteristic of the finest Meiji printing is used throughout, giving the compositions a depth and atmospheric quality that flat colour printing cannot achieve.

Chikanobu’s historical research is visible in the careful differentiation of costume details across the eras depicted. The court dress of the Heian period — the elaborate layered juunihitoe — is distinguished from the simpler but still refined dress of the Muromachi period, which is in turn distinguished from the increasingly flamboyant costume of the Edo period and the hybrid forms of the Meiji court as it negotiated between Japanese tradition and Western convention. Collectors and historians of Japanese costume have found the series an invaluable visual source for this reason, in addition to its considerable aesthetic merits.

Original impressions of the Jidai kagami series in good condition — with fresh colour, clear impression and minimal fading — are considerably scarcer than the more common ukiyo-e subjects from the Edo period. The Meiji print market in the West developed later than appreciation of the earlier tradition, but serious collectors have long recognised the quality of the finest Meiji designers, and Chikanobu’s work is now firmly established as among the most collectible of the period.