Utamaro Kitagawa (1753 –1806) developed a new realm of bijinga, or portraits of beautiful women.
The French literary and art critic, Edmond de Goncourt wrote,
“In his bijinga, Utamaro has miraculously represented facial features of each individual person. He was the first painter to have ever accomplished this.”
“Utamaro idealized women’s styles, looks and anatomical body structures in his work. Nevertheless, he stayed a ‘naturalistic’ painter.”(Utamaro, 1891)