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Kōmei Bijin Rokkasen
''Kōmei Bijin Rokkasen'' (, "Renowned Beauties from the Six Best Houses") is a series of ukiyo-e prints designed by the Japanese artist Utamaro and published in . The subjects were well-known courtesans, geisha, and others associated with the Yoshiwara pleasure districts of Edo (modern Tokyo). Due to legal restrictions, the names of the women appear do not appear in the prints. To get around this, ''hanji-e'' picture-puzzles appear in the rebus in the top corner of each print; solving them reveals the names. In 1796, the restrictions were tightened, and even the ''hanji-e'' were disallowed. Thereafter, the prints were republished as ''Fūryū Rokkasen'' (, "Elegant Six Immortal Poets"), with the ''hanji-e'' replaced with pictures of the ''Rokkasen'' "Six Immortal Poets" of the 9th century. Background Ukiyo-e art flourished in Japan during the Edo period from the 17th to 19th centuries, and took as its primary subjects courtesans, kabuki actors, and others associated with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utamaro (1795–96) Kōmei Bijin Rokkasen - Naniwaya O-Kita
Kitagawa Utamaro ( ja, 喜多川 歌麿; – 31 October 1806) was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his ''bijin ōkubi-e'' "large-headed pictures of beautiful women" of the 1790s. He also produced nature studies, particularly illustrated books of insects. Little is known of Utamaro's life. His work began to appear in the 1770s, and he rose to prominence in the early 1790s with his portraits of beauties with exaggerated, elongated features. He produced over 2000 known prints and was one of the few ukiyo-e artists to achieve fame throughout Japan in his lifetime. In 1804 he was arrested and manacled for fifty days for making illegal prints depicting the 16th-century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and died two years later. Utamaro's work reached Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, where it was very popular, enjoying particular acclaim in France. He influenced the Eu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nishiki-e
is a type of Japanese multi-coloured woodblock printing; the technique is used primarily in ukiyo-e. It was invented in the 1760s, and perfected and popularized by the printmaker Suzuki Harunobu, who produced many ''nishiki-e'' prints between 1765 and his death five years later. Previously, most prints had been in black-and-white, coloured by hand, or coloured with the addition of one or two colour ink blocks. A ''nishiki-e'' print is created by carving a separate woodblock for every colour, and using them in a stepwise fashion. An engraver by the name of Kinroku is credited with the technical innovations that allowed so many blocks of separate colours to fit together perfectly on the page, in order to create a single complete image. This style and technique is also known as , referring to Edo, the name for Tokyo before it became the capital. Edo Era Nishiki-e is also known as Edo-e, or azuma-nishiki-e. The technology to produce nishiki-e made printing complex colors and fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onnagata
(also ) are male actors who play female roles in kabuki theatre. History The modern all-male kabuki was originally known as ("male kabuki") to distinguish it from earlier forms. In the early 17th century, shortly after the emergence of the genre, many kabuki theaters had an all-female cast (), with women playing men's roles as necessary. ("adolescent-boy kabuki"), with a cast composed entirely of attractive young men playing both male and female roles, and frequently dealing in erotic themes, originated circa 1612. Both and (or ), actors specializing in adolescent female roles (and usually adolescents themselves), were the subject of much appreciation by both male and female patrons, and were often prostitutes. All-male casts became the norm after 1629, when women were banned from appearing in kabuki due to the prevalent prostitution of actresses and violent quarrels among patrons for the actresses' favors. This ban failed to stop the problems, since the young male () acto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toba Sōjō
(1053–1140), also known as for his priesthood, was a Japanese artist-monk, and the son of Minamoto no Takakuni. Kakuyū was a high priest of Tendai Buddhism. He was advanced to in 1132 and then in 1134. In 1138, he became the 48th (the chief of the Tendai school). He is commonly known as Toba Sōjō, because he lived in , a temple funded by the imperial family and located at Toba, Kyoto. Kakuyū was also an artist proficient in both Buddhism art and satirical cartoon and his work (confirmed to be authentic) includes Fudōmyō'ō-ritsuzō at Daigo-ji, an Important Cultural Property of Japan.Kokushi Daijiten - Kakuyū Perhaps the most famous one is the picture scroll Chōjū-giga, a National Treasure of Japan and one of the earliest manga—however, this attribution has no proof and may be spurious. His works are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. References *Kōjien is a single-vol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paddy Field
A paddy field is a flooded field (agriculture), field of arable land used for growing Aquatic plant, semiaquatic crops, most notably rice and taro. It originates from the Neolithic rice-farming cultures of the Yangtze River basin in southern China, associated with Austronesian peoples#Neolithic China, pre-Austronesian and Hmong–Mien languages, Hmong-Mien cultures. It was spread in prehistoric times by the Austronesian peoples#Austronesian expansion, expansion of Austronesian peoples to Island Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia including Northeastern India, Madagascar, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. The technology was also acquired by other cultures in mainland Asia for rice farming, spreading to East Asia, Mainland Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Fields can be built into steep hillsides as Terrace (agriculture), terraces or adjacent to depressed or steeply sloped features such as rivers or marshes. They require a great deal of labor and materials to create and need l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Counter Word
In Japanese, counter words or counters (, ) are measure words used with numbers to count things, actions, and events. Counters are added directly after numbers. There are numerous counters, and different counters are used depending on the kind or shape of nouns describing. In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot quantify nouns by themselves (except, in certain cases, for the numbers from one to ten; see below). For example, to express the idea "two dogs" in Japanese one could say 二匹の犬 ''ni-hiki no inu'' (literally "two small-animal-count POSSESSIVE dog"), or 犬二匹 ''inu ni-hiki'' (literally "dog two small-animal-count"), but just pasting 二 and 犬 together in either order is ungrammatical. Here 二 '' ni'' is the number "two", 匹 '' hiki'' is the counter for small animals, の '' no'' is the possessive particle (a reversed "of", similar to the " 's" in "John's dog"), and 犬 '' inu'' is the word "dog". Counters are not independent words; th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paulownia Tomentosa
''Paulownia tomentosa'', common names princess tree, empress tree, or foxglove-tree, is a deciduous hardwood tree in the family Paulowniaceae, native to central and western China. It is an extremely fast-growing tree with seeds that disperse readily, and is a persistent exotic invasive species in North America, where it has undergone naturalisation in large areas of the Eastern US. ''P. tomentosa'' has also been introduced to Western and Central Europe, and is establishing itself as a naturalised species there as well. Etymology The generic name ''Paulownia'' honours Anna Pavlovna of Russia, who was Queen Consort of the Netherlands from 1840 to 1849. The specific epithet ''tomentosa'' is a Latin word meaning ‘covered in hairs’. Description This tree grows tall, with large heart-shaped to five-lobed leaves across, arranged in opposite pairs on the stem. On young growth, the leaves may be in whorls of three and be much bigger than the leaves on more mature growth. The le ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asakusa Shrine
is a Shinto shrine located in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , it is one of the most famous Shinto shrines in the city. The shrine honors the three men who founded the Sensō-ji. Asakusa Shrine is part of a larger grouping of sacred buildings in the area. It can be found on the east side of the Sensō-ji down a street marked by a large stone ''torii''. One of the only two buildings in the area to survive World War II, it is designated an Important Cultural Property due to its long history. History An example of the '' gongen-zukuri'' style of architecture, Asakusa Shrine was commissioned by Tokugawa Iemitsu and constructed in 1649 during Japan's Edo period. It was constructed in order to honor the three men who established and constructed the Sensō-ji. The legend states that two brothers, fishermen named Hinokuma Hamanari and Hinokuma Takenari, found a bosatsu Kannon statuette caught in a fishing-net in the Sumida River on May 17, 628. The third man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ariwara No Narihira
was a Japanese courtier and ''waka'' poet of the early Heian period. He was named one of both the Six Poetic Geniuses and the Thirty-Six Poetic Geniuses, and one of his poems was included in the ''Ogura Hyakunin Isshu'' collection. He is also known as Zai Go-Chūjō, Zai Go, Zai Chūjō or Mukashi-Otoko. There are 87 poems attributed to Narihira in court anthologies, though some attributions are dubious. Narihira's poems are exceptionally ambiguous; the compilers of the 10th-century ''Kokin Wakashū'' thus treated them to relatively long headnotes. Narihira's many renowned love affairs have exerted a profound influence on later Japanese culture. Legends have held that he had affairs with the high priestess of the Ise Grand Shrine and the poet Ono no Komachi, and that he fathered Emperor Yōzei. His love affairs inspired ''The Tales of Ise'', and he has ever since been a model of the handsome, amorous nobleman. Biography Birth and ancestry Ariwara no Narihira was b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ōmiya Kenkura
Ōmiya 大宮 is a Japanese word originally used for the imperial palace or shrines, now a common name, and may refer to: People *Ōmiya (surname), a Japanese surname *Ōmiya, or is a female character in ''The Tale of Genji'', an 11th-century novel Places *Ōmiya Palace *Ōmiya Bonsai Village, famous for bonsai pot gardening is located in Kita-ku, Saitama, Japan * Ōmiya-shuku, the fourth station on the 17-19th-century Japanese national highway Nakasendō, located in current Ōmiya-ku, Saitama *Railway stations: See Ōmiya Station (other) for an incomplete list *Refugee Camps: Omiya Refugee Camp in Gwere, Uganda. *Local governments: ** Current ward/government names *** Ōmiya-ku, Saitama, Ōmiya, Saitama, Japan. *** Hitachi-Ōmiya, Ibaraki, Ōmiya, Naka District, Ibaraki, Japan *** :ja:Ōmiya , Miyazaki, Miyazaki was Ōmiya, Miyazaki District, Miyazaki, Japan ** Past government names *** Ōmiya, Kitaadachi District, Saitama was a city and its area is now Kita-ku, Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rokkasen
The are six Japanese poets of the mid-ninth century who were named by Ki no Tsurayuki in the ''kana'' and ''mana'' prefaces to the poetry anthology ''Kokin wakashū'' (c. 905–14) as notable poets of the generation before its compilers. History of the term In their original appearance in the prefaces of the ''Kokin wakashū'', the six ''rokkasen'' are not actually referred to with this term. There are numerous phrases that show the conceptualization of these six as a cohesive group, but the term "Rokkasen" first appeared in an early Kamakura-period commentary on ''Kokin wakashū'', titled ''Sanryūshō'' 三流抄. Members The members of the ''rokkasen'', and their total poems in ''Kokin wakashū,'' are as follows: *Ōtomo no Kuronushi, 3 poems *Ono no Komachi, 18 poems *Ariwara no Narihira, 30 poems *Kisen Hōshi, 1 poem * Sōjō Henjō, 17 poems *Fun'ya no Yasuhide, 1 poem Tsurayuki's Criticism In his prefaces to the anthology ''Kokin wakashū'', Ki no Tsurayuki first pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Calendar
Japanese calendar types have included a range of official and unofficial systems. At present, Japan uses the Gregorian calendar together with year designations stating the year of the reign of the current Emperor. The written form starts with the year, then the month and finally the day, coinciding with the ISO 8601 standard. For example, February 16, 2003 can be written as either 2003年2月16日 or 平成15年2月16日 (the latter following the regnal year system). 年 reads ''nen'' and means "year", 月 reads ''gatsu'' or 「がつ」and means "month" and finally 日 (usually) reads ''nichi'' (its pronunciation depends on the number that precedes it, see below) and means "day". Prior to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1873, the reference calendar was based on the lunisolar Chinese calendar. History The lunisolar Chinese calendar was introduced to Japan via Korea in the middle of the sixth century. After that, Japan calculated its calendar using various Chine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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