San Antonio College Library

This volume is the first comprehensive study of the women of the pleasure quarters and entertainment districts of Japan of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. It examines the cultural and metaphorical meanings of courtesans and geisha and their appearance in art and Kabuki theater. These women were at the nexus of social relations, part of public culture, organized into institutions and transformed into emblems of femininity, personifications...

Spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the examples of Japanese printed included in this book offer insights into the history of an art form and vision that is distinctively Japanese and was highly inspirational to later European painters.