Women fishing on the seashore

The production, both commercial and refined, presents traditional Japan in perfectly controlled compositions frequently coloured by hand. Often meant for a foreign clientèle, it proposes a picturesque vision far removed from the unrelenting modernisation put in place during the Meiji period (1868-1912) .

In the context of late 19^th-century Japanese photographic productions, this scene is together classical and quirky. In the albums of this period we often find photographs of women collecting shells, a common activity along the beaches of the archipelago. Thus the 1892 catalogue of the photographer Kusakabe Kimbei proposes no less than three different proofs titled “Shell Picking”. It is a priori the subject of this image. And yet, on looking at it more closely we become aware that the woman on the right is holding a fish while the other one feigns surprise before this improbable event. So this composition was probably conceived as a parody (mitate) of shell picking. There is often a touch of humour in the photographs of the Yokohama school but it is not always perceptible to foreign eyes.

This photograph, although prearranged, achieves the freshness of a snapshot. A few years before, the pose times of the collodion wet-plate process, that ruled in Japan up to 1885, did not allow such spontaneity. The bare legs of the women who have hitched up their kimonos give a certain erotic intensity to this image, although it is more modest than the prints with same iconography.