How does Three Beauties of the Present Day elucidate its Background?
Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries, and took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with the "floating world" lifestyle of the pleasure districts.  Alongside paintings, mass-produced woodblock prints were a major form of the genre.  In the mid-18th century full-colour nishiki-e prints became common, printed using a large number of woodblocks, one for each colour.  Towards the close of the 18th century there was a peak in both the quality and quantity of work.  A prominent genre was bijin-ga ("pictures of beauties"), which depicted most often courtesans and geisha at leisure, and promoted the entertainments to be found in the pleasure districts.Katsukawa Shunshō introduced the ōkubi-e "large-headed picture" in the 1760s; he and other members of the Katsukawa school such as Shunkō popularized the form for yakusha-e actor prints, as well as the dusting of mica in the backgrounds to produce a glittering effect.  Kiyonaga was the pre-eminent portraitist of beauties in the 1780s, and the tall, graceful beauties in his work had a great influence on Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1753–1806), who was to succeed him in fame.  Utamaro studied under Toriyama Sekien (1712–1788), who had trained in the Kanō school of painting.  Around 1782, Utamaro came to work for the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō.In 1791, Tsutaya published three books by Santō Kyōden in the sharebon genre of humorous tales of adventures in the pleasure quarters; deeming them too frivolous, the military government punished the author with fifty days in manacles and fined the publisher half his property.  His luck was reversed shortly after with a new success: Utamaro began producing the first bijin ōkubi-e portraits, adapting ōkubi-e to the bijin-ga genre.  Their popularity restored Tsutaya's fortunes and made Utamaro's in the 1790s.
Katsukawa school Toriyama Sekien Kiyonaga geisha Santō Kyōden Katsukawa Shunshō military government woodblock prints courtesans bijin-ga Utamaro pleasure districts Edo Tsutaya Jūzaburō yakusha-e Edo period mica ōkubi-e kabuki nishiki-e Shunkō Kitagawa Utamaro Kanō school Ukiyo-e manacle sharebon