Exhibition corrects the record on geisha

Curators at the Peabody Essex Museum hope art and artifacts from the world of geisha will refute misconceptions of them as wanton women and reveal their importance to the culture of Japan.

“Geisha have been a source of fascination and fantasy for nearly 250 years, but they have also been misunderstood and misrepresented,” Andrew Maske, the museum’s director of Japanese art, said. “Through this exhibition, visitors will have the opportunity to see geisha not only as cultural icons of beauty and allure, but also as real women of tremendous strength, talents and dedication.”

The exhibition “Geisha: Beyond the Painted Smile” is on view through May 9 before traveling to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco from June 25 through Sept. 26.

“Part of the difficulty for Americans is understanding that geisha can be mistresses but they’re not prostitutes,” Maske said. Wealthy patrons often subsidized geisha, who most often came from a poor family, he said.

“He will basically redeem her from her debts and in addition he sort of pledges to provide her with her own place to live. He’s held to that,” Maske said.

The exhibition, housed in three galleries labeled “The Fascinating Geisha,” “The Geisha’s World” and “Geisha in Japan Today,” features nearly 150 paintings, hanging scrolls, woodblock prints, garments, musical instruments, ceramics, contemporary photographs and video installations.

The exhibition might paint a somewhat rosy portrait of a geisha’s life.

The geisha’s transition from her parent’s home to the world of men and performance wasn’t always a happy one, said Daniel Botsman, who teaches a course in gender and Japanese history at Harvard University. Many young girls were sold into service and went through periods of intense training in a geisha house with a strict retired geisha, sometimes even getting smacked if they made mistakes, Botsman said.

“These people were performers and artists, but the broader context in which they became performers and artists was not anything wonderful or good,” Botsman said.

“If you played your cards right, the lucky people were able to form relationships with very powerful men and could end up doing fairly well out of it all and eventually be able to find a patron who would be able to support them in a fairly comfortable existence.”