Description
In Yamauba and Kintoki, Yamauba’s face turns upward as the child Kintarō leans down from the upper right in Kitagawa Utamaro’s close composition. Red and pale clothing frame their neighboring faces. The image gives its legendary subjects an immediate relationship, allowing the direction of a gaze and the child’s approach to become more prominent than a distant narrative setting.
Made around 1795, the nishiki-e woodblock print uses ink and color on paper. Utamaro treats the named pair with the closeness of an intimate encounter, joining story to the visible language of attention between people. The design’s appeal lies in the way its figures occupy one another’s space. Their relation feels active and particular, giving a familiar legendary subject a human scale through the meeting of adult and child.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Kitagawa Utamaro collection.
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