Kitagawa Utamaro’s prints of Yamauba and Kintarō (c. 1800) – The Public Domain Review

These prints show little other than the untamed eyebrows and shaggy hair – rendered strand by strand in the style of a true sculptor. coup – continue to remind viewers of Yamauba’s status as a social outcast. Looking at Yamauba’s beautiful robes and delicate facial features, you may wonder what, if anything, is left of her original monstrosity. Some scholars writing about the series are even content to explain Utamaro’s depiction of a youthful Yamauba as a way to smuggle sensual content under the censor’s nose, citing several images in which she is shown bare-chested while breastfeeding her son or going to her toilet. But these pieces form a minority of the series; in any case, exposed breasts are not inherently erotic. Furthermore, Utamaro had no problem publishing much more explicit prints during his lifetime, sometimes using aliases that hardly differed from his normal work. name of pinceau. When the artist finally came into contact with censorship towards the end of his life, in a highly publicized scandal that led to his brief imprisonment, it was politics sensibilities of his work, not its lustful nature itself.