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Geisha, geiko or geigi are traditional Japanese female entertainers who act as hostesses and whose skills include performing various arts such as classical music, dance, games and conversation, mainly to entertain male customers.
Geisha, geiko or geigi are traditional Japanese female entertainers who act as hostesses and whose skills include performing various arts such as classical music, dance, games and conversation, mainly to entertain male customers.
Toyohara Chikanobu, better known to his contemporaries as Yōshū Chikanobu, was a prolific woodblock artist of Japan's Meiji period. His works capture the transition from the age of the samurai to Meiji modernity.<br/><br/> In 1875 (Meiji 8), he decided to try to make a living as an artist. He travelled to Tokyo. He found work as an artist for the Kaishin Shimbun. In addition, he produced <i>nishiki-e</i> artworks. In his younger days, he had studied the Kanō school of painting; but his interest was drawn to <i>ukiyo-e</i>.<br/><br/> Like many <i>ukiyo-e</i> artists, Chikanobu turned his attention towards a great variety of subjects. His work ranged from Japanese mythology to depictions of the battlefields of his lifetime to women's fashions. As well as a number of the other artists of this period, he too portrayed kabuki actors in character, and is well-known for his impressions of the <i>mie</i> (formal pose) of kabuki productions.<br/><br/> Chikanobu was known as a master of <i>bijinga</i>, images of beautiful women, and for illustrating changes in women's fashion, including both traditional and Western clothing. His work illustrated the changes in coiffures and make-up across time. For example, in Chikanobu's images in Mirror of Ages (1897), the hair styles of the Tenmei era, 1781-1789 are distinguished from those of the Keio era, 1865-1867.
The shamisen or samisen (三味線, literally three strings), also called sangen (三絃), is a three-stringed, Japanese musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bachi.<br/><br/> The yokin in a kind of prototype koto (箏), a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese zheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan.<br/><br/> The kokin (古琴) is a Chinese seven-stringed zither called a guqin in Chinese.<br/><br/> Sankyoku is a form of Japanese chamber music played on the koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi, often with a vocal accompaniment.
After the defeat of Imperial Japan in 1945, the Japanese authorities feared that US occupation forces might exploit Japanese women in the same way that the Japanese army had raped and brutalized women throughout East Asia during the war years. Accordingly, a ‘Recreation and Amusement Association’ was set up to ‘construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future…’. By 1946 it was clear that the American forces were not about to go on raping sprees, and also that Japanese prostitutes, operating independently and often dressed as ‘geisha’ to appeal to the GIs, were doing brisk business. Faced with this reality, the Recreation and Amusement Association was shut down in 1946.
For most of the twentieth century, Asakusa was the major entertainment district in Tokyo. The Rokku or 'Sixth District' was famous as a theatre district, featuring famous cinemas such as the Denkikan. The area was heavily damaged by US bombing raids during World War II, particularly the March 1945 firebombing of Tokyo. The area was rebuilt after the war, but has now been surpassed by Shinjuku and other colorful areas in the city, in its role as a pleasure district.
Geisha, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.<br/><br/> The shamisen or samisen, literally 'three flavor strings'), also called sangen (literally 'three strings') is a three-stringed musical instrument played with a plectrum called a bach.
The Gion Temple (Gion Shrine) is now known as Yasaka Jinja.<br/><br/> Gion is a district of Kyoto, Japan, originally developed in the Middle Ages, in front of Yasaka Shrine. The district was built to accommodate the needs of travelers and visitors to the shrine. It eventually evolved to become one of the most exclusive and well-known geisha districts in all of Japan. The geisha in the Gion district do not refer to themselves as geisha; instead, Gion geisha use the local term geiko. While the term geisha means 'artist' or 'person of the arts', the more direct term geiko means essentially 'a child of the arts' or 'a woman of art'.<br/><br/> Despite the considerable decline in the number of geisha in Gion in the last one hundred years, it is still famous for the preservation of forms of traditional architecture and entertainment. Part of this district has been declared a national historical preservation district. Recently, the City of Kyoto completed a project to restore the streets of Gion, which included such plans as moving all overhead utilities underground as part of the ongoing effort to preserve the original beauty of Gion.<br/><br/> There is a popular misconception that Gion was a red-light district. It was a geisha district, and as geisha are entertainers, not prostitutes, Gion is not, and never was, a red-light district. Shimabara was Kyoto's red-light district.
On 6 August and 9 August, 1945, the USA dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and on Nagasaki respectively. More than 200,000 people died as a direct result of these two bombings, during which the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan.<br/><br/> Japan surrendered on 15 August, 1945 and a formal Instrument of Surrender was signed on 2 September, 1945, on the battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. The surrender was accepted by Gen Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Allied Commander, with representatives of each Allied nation, from a Japanese delegation led by Mamoru Shigemitsu. A separate surrender ceremony between Japan and China was held in Nanking on 9 September, 1945.<br/><br/> Following this period, MacArthur established bases in Japan to oversee the postwar development of the country. This period in Japanese history is known as the Occupation. US President Harry Truman officially proclaimed an end of hostilities on 31 December, 1946.<br/><br/> After a period of US occupation (1945–1952), Japan regained its independence. Japan was thereafter forbidden to have a standing army or wage war by Article 9 of its Constitution.
Nagoya is the third-largest city and the fourth most populous urban area in Japan. Located on the Pacific coast in the Chūbu region of central Honshū, it is the capital of Aichi Prefecture and is one of Japan's major ports along with those of Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Chiba, and Moji. It is also the center of Japan's third largest metropolitan region, known as the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area. As of 2000, Chūkyō Metropolitan Area had 8.74 million people, of which 2.17 million lived in the city of Nagoya.
Nagoya is the third-largest city and the fourth most populous urban area in Japan. Located on the Pacific coast in the Chūbu region of central Honshū, it is the capital of Aichi Prefecture and is one of Japan's major ports along with those of Tokyo, Osaka, Kobe, Yokohama, Chiba, and Moji. It is also the center of Japan's third largest metropolitan region, known as the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area. As of 2000, Chūkyō Metropolitan Area had 8.74 million people, of which 2.17 million lived in the city of Nagoya.
The Dutch traders or merchants depicted in this scene would most probably have been working with the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which had established a monopoly on trade with Japan provided the Europeans maintained their barracks and trading post off the mainland in Dejima. The traders in this picture were presumably on a rare sojourn into Nagasaki where they encountered the charming local geisha ladies.<br/><br/> Dejima, or Deshima (literally ‘Exit Island’), is a small artificial island built in the bay of Nagasaki in 1634 during the Edo period. Dejima was built to constrain foreign traders as part of ‘sakoku’, a self-imposed isolationist policy. Originally built to house Portuguese traders, it changed to a Chinese and Dutch trading post from 1641 until 1853 during which time the Dutch mostly bartered for Japanese gold, silver and copper with East Indies’ spices, Indian cloth and Chinese silk and porcelain. Dejima Dutch Trading Post has since been designated a Japanese national historic site.