Analysis Of Biijin

This essay is a study of how bijin (beautiful people) had been visualised by analysing three artists’ works from the late 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century: Hishikawa Moronobu (1618?-1694), Suzuki Harunobu(1725?-1770), and Kitagawa Utamaro (1753?-1806). Through this analyse, I shall examine how an abstract, fictional entity is materialised; i.e., acquired physicality, based on the performative theory. As I will show in the next chapter, a term, bijin had been used in the Japanese texts as a designation to someone beautiful, since the ancient time. Bijin is one of human categories, but not explicitly tied with any special attributes or division, such as physicality, gender, sexuality, social and familial position.

Most subjects are performers, and their bodies show theatrical and unnatural poses, wearing peculiar costumes. Often they “act” to recreate scenes from famous classics in contemporary fashion. In the early 19th century, however, the bijin became to acquire corporeal presence; their bodies show weight and volume, as well as physicality that emphasise femininity based on the real women . In the 20th century, bijin in pictures denoted almost exclusively women. Assuming that bijin shows a transformation somewhere in the early 19th century, from a unisex, fictional entity to a body possess physicality signifying a woman, how did it happen? This is my second

According to Erica Fischer-Lichte, “a performance does not transmit given meanings. Rather, it is the performance itself which brings forth the meanings that comes into being during the course .” In order to do this, the performance creates “liminal situations,” where the ontological opposition between art and reality is negated . Since it shatters the rules and norms, it allows viewers to create various meanings of the performance . Bijin is indeed represented in this liminal space, where the concept is embedded in the performer’s phenomenal body. The bijin’s performance is generated on the liminal space, that is performer’s body, where viewers can negotiate to create meanings, referring to the classics, past artworks, or cultural trends, contemporary fashion, and so