Girl powdering her neck - Essay Example

Girl Powdering her Neck number Girl Powdering her Neck Kitagawa Utamaro is considered to be one of the most important contributors to the field of painting. He lived in Japan during the eighteenth century and practised the art of woodblock prints. In Japanese, this was referred to as ukiyo-e. The relatively low popularity of this form of art made Utamaro a figure of relatively less importance during his own lifetime; however, the themes and motifs that he employed in his art were appreciated across the world and he came to be recognized as an important figure in the development of painting as a form of art.

The figures of women that he portrayed through his art served to provide them with a voice in a society where they were often marginalized and oppressed. Utamaro’s paintings serve to show women in their positions of vulnerability and seek to show the forces of the society that place them in these positions of vulnerability. The painting “Girl Powdering her Neck” is one where the reflection of a woman’s face assumes the centre stage on the canvas. The vulnerability of a woman in the society is revealed through the depiction of a frail and delicate woman who is grooming herself so as to maintain her beauty, her only asset in a masculinist and patriarchal society.

The painting shows the reflection of the woman and thus serves to remind one that what is seen of a woman in public is often nothing but her reflection. Her real self is never revealed to the world because of the constraints of the society which frames her in a mirror and confines her identity to her physical self. Utamaro questions this structure if the society and talks of how it would be possible for women to come out of their cloistered existence only if they were given the chance to express their real selves.

What Utamaro does, ironically, confines the woman within a painting without giving her an alternative existence. The poem “Girl Powdering Her Neck”, talks of this very inability of the woman to break out of the moulds that were made for her by the patriarchal society of eighteenth century Japanese society. The existence of such moulds can be seen in the reference to the reflection which the poet, Cathy Song feels is a confining element in the painting. She also critiques the situation of the woman in the painting in a manner that is similar to Utamaro’s; the vulnerable positions of women in society are criticized.

The practice of using cosmetics such as the one in the painting is meant mostly for the patriarchal society of the times that objectified women. Women also get used to this “ritual” (Song). By getting used to it, they also become unable to break out of the structures imposed by this society and the “the berry-stained lips/stenciled into the mask of beauty/do not speak” (Song). The poem thus adds an element of critique that the painting fails to address. This is to a large extent, owing to the ambiguities that the poet is able to infuse her poem with.

Works Cited Song, Cathy. Girl Powdering Her Neck. http://english.emory.edu/classes/paintings&poems/utamaro.html Accessed on 27th February, 2012.