1794
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Koto from the series The Six Arts in Fashionable Guise is a 1794 by Chôbunsai Eishi, a Romanticism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a woman in a bright kimono playing a long, wooden koto across her lap. This print swaps a Chinese scholar’s zither for a Japanese koto, blending old Chinese ideals with Edo-period style. The woman’s loose hair and patterned robe feel modern for the 1790s, not stuffy like a Confucian painting. To see more prints like this, look up the subject: japan, edo period (1615–1868).
Chinese classical education consisted of the Six Arts: performing rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics. The Chinese qin, a stringed musical instrument in the zither family, customarily symbolizes the art of music. In this print a similar Japanese instrument, the koto, replaces the qin. The fashionable Japanese entertainer playing it stands in for an accomplished Chinese scholar.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Chōbunsai Eishi (鳥文斎 栄之; 1756–1829) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. His last name was Hosoda (細田). His first name was Tokitomi (時富). His common name was Taminosuke (民之丞) and later Yasaburo (弥三郎). Pupil of Kano Eisen'in…
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