I visited the Nakanoshima Art Museum in Osaka that day. I wanted to see women with dignity and strength in their serene beauty.
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of Uemura Shoen's birth, the exhibition "What I sought was an ideal image.
Uemura Shoen, born in 1875, said, "No other art form but Noh expresses not only the beautiful but also the ugly and the vulgar openly and without showing them. And painting should be the same.
Uemura Shoen is a Japanese painter who has both the depth of nostalgia and strength to express beautifully even emotions that can bring about madness.
The women in her paintings are beautifully dressed, but with melancholy, or with their eyes flashing, and with the strength to face forward, all-encompassing.
I stared at the painting. I wished I could be like that.
And the many kimonos by Shoen, who was born and raised in Kyoto, were the top mode of the time.
Not to mention the coordination of the kimono and obi, the half collar, lintel, and even the color of the thongs, which my friend and I were whispering to each other. Some of the combinations were quite modern for the time, and we were secretly excited, saying that they looked like western stripes instead of Japanese stripes.
There were many works exhibited in the exhibition commemorating the 150th anniversary of her birth, but there was only one work that did not match the title.
The title and the painting do not match.
It was Sei Shonagon.
It's so cute, too cute. She is so lovely that I thought, she shouldn't draw her so lovely.
Because there is no record of any praise of appearance regarding Sei Shonagon. There are numerous records that she was a talented and intelligent woman. That is what I mean.
I guess her Lord told her to try to roll up the curtains to see the snow in the incense mountains... But still cute and lovely.
If you ask me to give you one of my favorite things, I will take the lovely Sei Shonagon without a second thought.
Today is the last day to wear a winter kimono. Thinking that the next time I go out I will wear a summer kimono, I approached the museum's ticket office. A slim and handsome man greeted me.
”Coming to the Uemura Shoen Exhibition?
Thank you for coming in kimono. Please come this way as we offer a discount on admission to anyone who comes dressed in a kimono!"
He reverently showed me the way.
I recommend that you come to the Uemura Shoen Exhibition commemorating the 150th anniversary of her birth in a kimono.