ching chen

This paper focuses on the historical paintings of the female artist Itō Shōha (1877-1968) in Japanese-style painting, who was born in Ise city. The purpose is to examine Shōha's intention to depict the works in both genres of history and self-portrait, also clarify the relevance between these genres and the changes in her productive backgrounds to identify her advance. It could consider that her painting style roughly separated into three periods: history painting in the late Meiji era, self-portraits in the Taishō era, and returning to history painting in the early Shōwa era. Due to the classification above, I declare the changing of painting styles is Shōha's approach to secure her position in the Japanese painting world where was occupied by male artists. For an instance as Shōha, this paper elucidates the strategy of modern female Japanese painters to maintain themselves' activities in the Japanese painting world. As I inspected the historical paintings of modern Japan through the perspective of gender studies, I found the Japanese historical paintings was male-dominated in the Meiji era. In Shōha's early career, she had created some history paintings and then mainly turned to produce selfportraits during the Taishō era after the selections in the Bunten exhibition. In the Taishō era, Shōha also attempted to depict history paintings genre to participate in the Bunten but failed the selection. As the result, I assume it would be a preferable strategy for Shōha to swift her themes from history to selfportrait through female perspective in order to exhibit in the Bunten. Moreover, it could be observed the obsession and struggle of Shōha as a female artist to seek a feminine style in her historical works. I conclude that the transition of Shōha's painting styles can be regarded as a microcosm for modern female artists who participated in the male-led Japanese painting world.

In this paper, I intend to organize the productive background of the works by female Japanese style artists through their statement. Furthermore, I will demonstrate that the self-portrait of these female artists represents and reflects of feminist in the period. This paper focuses on seven self-portraits by five female Japanese painting artists as follows: Itō Shōha , Shima Seien, Kajiwara Hisako, Ogura Yuki, and Kitazawa Eigetsu. They are renowned female artists to create a female image, positively participating in the governmental and institutional exhibitions such as Kanten and Inten. As reviewing the previous research, I reconfirmed that Japanese gender studies remain a problem of sex/gender difference in the gaze toward female figures. Moreover, when investigating the productive background and the statement of female Japanese style painters at the same time, I found the result led to another question about only few works could be regarded as resistance to the male gaze as well. Therefore, I assert it requires to exam their self-portraits through a new perspective to reflect feminism. I confirmed how artists expressed the female images at the time. In consequence, it supposes that there are a few numbers of self-portraits since the portraits in Japanese style painting mainly not emphasize self, and also the subject of artworks gradually shifts to a female figure. As I surveyed the making of self-portraits in their painting careers, it reveals Seien’s Mudai and Self-portrait project feminism according to the words by herself and the gaze of the painted character directly facing to the viewer. On the other side, Seikan by Hisako and koujitu by Eigetsu present as self-portraits at first glance, nonetheless, they could express individual achievements. These works highlight the profile of the characters who have no consciousness of gaze of the audience and imply the scene of the artist immersing themselves in the production. Finally, Before Production and Summer by Shōha indicate the works as Bijin-ga surrendering to the gaze of male viewers. Shōha began self-portrait and ceased creating the genre of historical painting, which could be considered as the selection for official exhibition and the response to the appropriate femininity for social expectation at the time. In conclusion, the workswith the representation of feminism in this era remain unknown and need further research.