Idealized but also nuanced, Kitagawa Utamaro’s portrayals of women were groundbreaking. While his subject—beautiful women—had been a mainstay in ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) from its beginning, Utamaro invested his subjects with a fresh vibrancy, experimenting with dramatic close-ups that hint at the women’s complex inner lives. Utamaro began his meteoric rise in 1780, when as a young artist, he began working with the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō.