Kitagawa Utamaro: A Master of Bijin-ga Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿) stands as one of the most celebrated designers of woodblock prints and paintings from the Edo period, leaving an enduring legacy on both Japanese art and Western Impressionism. He achieved renown primarily for his slender, graceful, and sensuous *bijin-*ga (“pictures of beautiful women”), a genre that redefined itself with Utamaro’s unique compositions. While Hokusai and…