Courtesan Hanaogi from the Ogi house 1825

Keisai Eisen made this woodblock print of the Courtesan Hanaogi in nineteenth-century Japan, a period of urban expansion and flourishing popular culture. This image, with its dramatic kimono, can tell us a great deal about social hierarchies and entertainment districts of the Edo period. Notice how Hanaogi is dressed. Her elaborate hairstyle and striking kimono patterns visually represent her high social standing. Details like the dragons and tigers on her kimono, the calligraphy in the upper corner, and the fans in the background, would have been immediately legible to viewers at the time. These symbols were embedded in the pleasure districts of urban Japan, where courtesans like Hanaogi were both admired and circumscribed by strict social codes. To better understand this artwork, we can consult historical records, literature, and visual culture from the Edo period. By doing so we can understand how art like this both reflected and shaped the social realities of its time.