In Hashimotoya Shiraito, Kuniyoshi places Oyasu in the background between Shiraito and Suzuki Mondo, tucking her neatly behind the figure of Shiraito. Kuniyoshi conveyed his interpretation of the incident by this placement of the two women. Being at least fifteen feet behind Shiraito, Oyasu is much smaller in scale. She is clearly a secondary character, and an intruding element here.

Shiraito turns her head toward Oyasu, with a look of alarm. Her face is appropriately pale for a carefully made-up courtesan at work, but we also notice a pink flush around her eyes. If Kuniyoshi had turned Shiraito's face downward, we might take this as a sign of her embarrassment; given her expression, however, the flush seems to indicate that she has been drinking, presumably with her client, Suzuki Mondo. Her disheveled hair, which falls onto her cheeks in trailing wisps, underscores her inebriation.

Shiraito's open expression and upturned face contrast with the head of Oyasu, which is covered and slightly lowered. Oyasu is enveloped in a black surcoat and hood. Newspaper reports explain that Oyasu had made her way here by stealth, intending to catch her husband with Shiraito. She had come to the Hashimotoya dr essed as a man to gain entrance to the house, which was frequented exclusively by men.

It seems that havoc has broken out in the Hashimotoya with Oyasu's appearance. Suzuki Mondo pushes up his right sleeve as though preparing for a confrontation. Behind Suzuki Mondo, a man identified in a cartouche over his head as the foreman of a carpentry crew responds to the intruder, lifting an object over his head as though to throw it at Oyasu. A courtesan of the Hashimotoya named Outa plants herself in front of the carpenter to stop his attack, as two additional hands hold him around the chest; presumably these hands belong to another of the Hashimotoya prostitutes. Behind Oyasu, a grimacing man puts his hand to his forehead as in distress. At the far left, a man clapping his hands and another with a fan seem intent on encouraging the spectacle that unfolds; they are identified in a cartouche as regular visitors of the house .

Kuniyoshi reveals little concern either for the hurt feelings of the abandoned wife, Oyasu, or the behavior of the disloyal husband and the drunken prostitute, behavior that moralists of the period would have deemed shameful. Kunisyoshi's print, like the news reports of the scandal, emphasizes the sordid details of the incident."

(From Woman in the Eyes of Man: Images of Women in Japanese Art from The Field Museum, pp. 29-30, by Elizabeth Lillehoj, © 1995, with amendations by Elizabeth Lillehoj)

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