Looking hot (<i>Atsu-sō</i> - あつさう): The Appearance of a Housewife of the Bunsei Era (<i>Bunsei nenkan naishitsu no fuzoku</i> - 文政年間: 内室の風俗), from the series <i>'Thirty-two Aspects of Customs and Manners' </i> (<i>Fūzoku sanjūni sō</i> - 風俗三十二相)

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年) (artist 04/30/1839 – 06/09/1892)

Looking hot (Atsu-sō - あつさう): The Appearance of a Housewife of the Bunsei Era (Bunsei nenkan naishitsu no fuzoku - 文政年間: 内室の風俗), from the series 'Thirty-two Aspects of Customs and Manners' (Fūzoku sanjūni sō - 風俗三十二相)

Print


1888
10.375 in x 15 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Yoshitoshi ga
Artist's seal: Taiso
Publisher: Tsunashima Kamekichi
British Museum
National Diet Library
Edo-Tokyo Museum
Hagi Uragami Museum of Art
National Library of Australia
University of California
Centre Céramique de Maastricht
Ritsumeikan University
Nelson Art Gallery
Museum of Oriental Art, Venice (via Ritsumeikan University)
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: Looking Feminine
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: Lookin Capable
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: Looking Tiresome "The rather troubled lady is being treated with burning moxa. Small mounds of this slow-burning material have been applied to the specific areas of her back. Moxibustion operates on principles similar to those of acupuncture, where points along the flow of life-force within the body are stimulated. Unlike acupuncture, moxibustion is painful and can leave scars like cigarette burns. A suffering woman is a peculiar subject for this series and its choice by Yoshitoshi... may indicate a certain covert sadism. The sensuality of this design would have been enhanced for Yoshitoshi's audience by exposure of the name of the neck, which was considered an especially erotic part of the body.

The polite term naishitsu, 'inner chamber,' has again been used in the title to indicate a well-to-do housewife...

The lady is bent over a writing desk. A complex burl-pattern has been carved into the wooden printing blocks, a pleasing visual conceit, repeated in the title-cartouche of each design.

She wears a sober outer robe with a small design of plum blossoms and buds. The colors of the replaceable collar of her undergarment have been delicately graded. This collar was called haneri and was chosen carefully to harmonize with the kimono in a pleasing layered effect. The black marks on the comb indicate that is made of expensive tortoise-shell rather than the more usual wood."

Quoted from: Yoshitoshi's Women: The Woodblock Print Series "Fuzoku Sanjiso" by John Stevenson, p. 44.

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More about moxibustion

The history of moxibustion goes back at least 2,500 years in China. "Zuo zhuan of the pre-Qin dynasty in China, which recorded a disease discussion occurred in 581 B.C., is considered to be the earliest literature of moxibustion. The silk books discovered in Mawangdui tomb of the Han dynasty (about 168 B.C.), Moxibustion Classic of Eleven Foot-hand Meridians and Prescriptions for Fifty-two Diseases, had documented the use of moxibustion to treat complex diseases."

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Illustrated:

1) in black and white in Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections: British Museum III, supervised by Muneshige Narazaki, Kodansha Ltd, 1988, #131, p. 198.

2) in color in 原色浮世絵大百科事典 (Genshoku Ukiyoe Daihyakka Jiten), vol. 5, p. 136, #549.

3) in a full-page color reproduction in Yoshitoshi's Women: The Woodblock Print Series "Fuzoku Sanjiso" by John Stevenson, Avery Press, 1986, text page 44, no. 8
Meiji era (明治時代: 1868-1912) (genre)
beautiful women (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
Tsujiokaya Kamekichi (辻岡屋亀吉) (publisher)