Clearing Weather at Awazu (Awazu seiran), Tamagawa of the Maru-Ebiya, kamuro Katsumi and Shinobu, No. 4 from the series Eight Views in the Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara hakkei) 

This is a woodblock print entitled Clearing Weather at Awazu from a series called Eight Views in the Yoshiwara, created by Keisai Eisen in Japan. It depicts a courtesan named Tamagawa, likely in the Yoshiwara district. This series highlights the popular ‘Eight Views’ theme in a specific social setting – the Yoshiwara pleasure district. Eisen was working in a society with strict social hierarchies. During the Edo period, the Yoshiwara was a government-sanctioned area, both segregated and regulated. These prints offer insights into the lives and the cultural practices of those living and working in the district. Eisen's approach was not just to portray beauty, but to embed it within the social and economic realities of the time. As a historian, one could consult the records of the Yoshiwara, or of the artists and publishers who participated in the floating world. Prints such as this can offer access into the social and institutional histories of their day. Art’s meaning is contingent on its social and institutional context.