関東大震災の翌年にあたる大正13年、朝日新聞は当時の代表的な人気画家に美人画12作の競作を依頼し、それを月ごとに新聞付録の美人画カレンダーとして購読者に配りました。本作は、その付録カレンダーの原画です。対角線を巧みに利用した構図や墨の暈（ぼか）し、滲（にじ）みと白肌の対比、部分的に配された寒色と暖色が印象的な作品で、主題である襟おしろいが強調されています。清方の作品には珍しく、線描をほとんど用いない没骨描法を中心に描いています。小品ながら、巧みな筆さばきで表現された清楚な色香が、見るものを魅了します。いつも丸髷に結っていた妻の、かりそめのポーズに依るもの、と清方は「自作自解」のなかで述べています。
Eri Oshiroi (Powdered Neck) (1924)
color on silk; framed
47.7 x 40.6 cm
In 1924, the year after the Great Kantō Earthquake, the
Asahi Newspaper invited prominent and popular painters to submit twelve
bijinga or paintings of a beauty, to be distributed monthly to subscribers in the form a
bijinga calendar insert in the newspaper. This painting is Kiyokata’s original for the calendar. The work is impressive for its composition, with its skillful use of diagonal lines, the contrast between the blurred, flowing ink and the white skin, and the arrangement of warm and cold patches of color, all of which emphasize the subject of the powdered neck. Unusually for a work by Kiyokata, he has mainly rendered the portrait without drawing an outline, that is, using the
mokkotsu technique. Although it is a small work, the immaculate beauty expressed by the skilled brushwork charms the viewer. In “Jisaku jikai” (My Work, My Interpretation), Kiyokata says that he painted his wife, her hair arranged as usual in the
marumage style (only for married women), in a rather casual pose.
