Keisai Eisen
By acquiring Eisen’s woodcuts, Vincent van Gogh added works by one of the masters of early-19th-century Japanese art to his collection. As is the case with many others, Van Gogh appears to have primarily fallen under the spell of Eisen’s bijinga: prints of beautiful women.
It is possible that Van Gogh also admired the extremely delicate detailing and rich colours of their attire. Due to his close attention to all of the seductive details of his subjects’ appearance, Eisen came to be known as ‘the decadent’.
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Prints as puzzles
Keisai Eisen (1790-1848) combined his depictions of certain courtesans or geisha with particular locations close to Edo, such as in this print with Mount Fuji. In doing so, he threw up questions as to her identity, which lovers of Japanese prints enjoyed trying to answer.
This subtle layer of meaning is now difficult for us to fathom, and it would have also meant just as little to Van Gogh.
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Van Gogh’s copy
On the cover of the May 1886 edition of the journal Paris Illustré, Van Gogh came across an image of an Eisen woodcut depicting a courtesan. She was wearing a kimono decorated with a dragon.
Van Gogh was so taken with the design that he copied it into a painting of his own: Courtesan (after Eisen).
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