Gramophone

lkuharu Watanabe was one of the typical painters of Bijin-ga paintings of beautiful women, in the Nagoya district from the Taisho Period to the beginning of the Showa Period. He pursued women's beauty throughout his life, and continued to make efforts to establish his own painting style, referring to genre pictures drawn in the beginning of modern times, to Ukiyo-e pictures, and to Bijin-ga paintings drawn by other painters of this period.
This painting, "Gramophone", was exhibited in the 14th Tei-ten Exhibition. He painted it when, after returning from Kyoto to Nagoya, he established his own style and improved his level of sophistication of painting. The style of this painting can be said to be "cool decorativeness", since its lines and colors are organized very well, compared to his works created in the Taisho Period. This is probably due to his being influenced by the "new classic" style which was popular in Japanese paintings at that time. This painting has a feeling of freshness and, at the same time, sensuality.
A woman in a kimono, a hand gramophone, and disks are seen in this painting from a viewpoint looking down diagonally. Since it was painted based on Japanese painting techniques, different angles and an unnatural perspective have been used.
(Source: Selected Works from the Collection of Nagoya City Art Museum, 1998, p. 83.)