43. Theater-district dawn moon (Shibaimachi no akatsuki)

It is dawn in the Shibaimachi, Tokyo's theatre district. Staff and guests of the theatres, restaurants and tea houses make their way home. The blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows of the woman in the foreground indicate that she is married. The silhouettes of the kabuki theatre signs are clearly visible against the purple morning sky. As the French painter Toulouse Lautrec is said to have revolutionized the art of making posters by borrowing Japanese woodcut compositional devices, it is quite likely that he knew this design. Others, like Degas, Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and Bonnard, were also inspired by the Japanese masters of the Ukiyo-e. (printed in 1886)