It is considered that, around the end of the Meiji period, factors such as the rise of new painters who proposed new woman figures (Shoen UEMURA, Kiyokata KABURAGI, Shoen IKEDA, Tsunetomi KITANO, etc.) and changes beginning to be seen in the social cognition of women, which had been feudalistic in the past, contributed to the appearance of bijinga as a new category.
明治末期頃は、新しい女性像を提案する画家（上村松園、鏑木清方、池田蕉園、北野恒富など）の台頭や、過去の封建的な女性に対する社会的認知が変化を見せ始めたことが美人画という新しい分類が生まれた一要因とみなされる。