Jo-no-mai (Dance Performed in Noh Play)

A young woman is slowly dancing the jo-no-mai. Amid the bright coloring keyed around vermilions and brownish-greens, tension emanates from her eyes to her fingertips.

With her hair arranged in bunkin takashimada style and a broad, one-piece sash tied neatly around her long-sleeved kimono, an elegant young woman dances the jo-no-mai. The term jo-no-mai does not refer to any particular musical piece but is the name of a section of a No dance. Among such sections in a No dance as the jo-no-mai, ha-no-mai, and kyu-no-mai, the dancer’s movement is the slowest and quietest in the jo-no-mai. The woman shown here is not wearing a mask, so we may assume this is the scene of a shimai, in which one practices a selected part of a No performance. Around this time, the shimai was somethig women of wealthy families did as part of their cultural training. Because Shoen preferred to depict the customs and manners of women in the Edo period in many of her works, this depiction of contemporary genre is a rare example in her oeuvre. The clear, well-defined composition, in which the dancer’s body is placed to the right of the central axis and her right hand, holding a fan, extends into the left side of the picture at a point one-third of the way down from the top, gives stability to the body, which has been rendered in vivid vermilion. In contrast, the hem of the kimono and bottom of the sleeves, which have been painted in light colors, indicate subtle movement. By eliminating all background elements and depicting this young dancer directing her total attention even to the tips of the fingers of her left hand in her slow-tempo movement, Shoen has created a graceful but tension-filled work. (Writer : Masato Satsuma Source : Selected Masterpieces from The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music: Grand Opening Exhibition, The University Art Museum, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, 1999)