Posted by Peter Gallagher (213.84.198.104) on October 13, 2004 at 23:23:32:
In Reply to: Re: (finger) Nails in Ukiyo-e posted by Dan on October 13, 2004 at 17:27:38:
Thanks very much for your thought-provoking reply, Dan. I was hoping somebody would pick up on this.
I agree with all your points, though I must admit that one thing which caused me to expect to find a high-ranking oiran or spectacularly admired "castle-toppler" to have long nails - is exactly for the reasons of impracticality which you mentioned.
The obvious "inconvenience" of long nails would be thereby an even greater "statement" of being "above the rest", by it's implication.... setting the bearer in a totally different light to, say, Utamaro's waitresses ... (at lest: in the mind of the bearer :-) ).
I did a little resrarch and thought you might find this article interesting (see among other parts, section 1-10 - or search through the page for "nails"):
http://paraverse.org/topsysample.htm
Also: this article suggests that use of fingernails was instrumental (eh ... pardon the pun! :-) ) in type(s) of _Japanese_ cloth:
http://www.shibori.org/tech/
(search again for "nails" .
So I take this as being a case of at least one trade in which fingernails (which were at least long enough to be used as a sort of "pincers") would have been (conversely) actually an asset.
Surely there must be more?
And given that Ukiyoe-e also portrayed mundane everyday life (we need look no further than Hokusai) - where are the nails? :-)
regards,
Peter