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Kikukawa Eizan
was a designer of ukiyo-e style Japanese woodblock prints. He first studied with his father, Eiji, a minor painter of the Kanō school, and subsequently with Suzuki Nanrei (1775–1844), of the Shijō school. He is believed to have also studied with ukiyo-e artist Totoya Hokkei (1790–1850). He produced numerous woodblock prints of beautiful women (''bijin-ga'') in the 1830s, but then abandoned printmaking in favor of painting. This artist should not be confused with Harukawa Eizan, an ukiyo-e print designer who was active in the 1790s. Eizan was the most prolific, longest-lived and ultimately the best of those late followers of Utamaro who attempted to carry on the master's bijin style after his death in 1806. Along with Tsukimaro and Utamaro II, Eizan has generally been dismissed by connoisseurs as a plagiarist of Utamaro's late style, but his work in fact develops, like that of most ukiyo-e artists, from a close identification with a leading master to a studied inde ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utamaro II
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] |
Japanese Printmakers
Woodblock printing in Japan (, ''mokuhanga'') is a technique best known for its use in the ''ukiyo-e'' artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868) and similar to woodcut in Western printmaking in some regards, the mokuhanga technique differs in that it uses water-based inks—as opposed to western woodcut, which typically uses oil-based inks. The Japanese water-based inks provide a wide range of vivid colors, glazes, and transparency. History Early, to 13th century In 764 the Empress Kōken commissioned one million small wooden pagodas, each containing a small woodblock scroll printed with a Buddhist text (''Hyakumantō Darani''). These were distributed to temples around the country as thanks for the suppression of the Emi Rebellion of 764. These are the earliest examples of woodblock printing known, or documented, from Japan. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukiyo-e Artists
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term translates as "picture of the floating world". In 1603, the city of Edo (Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. The ''chōnin'' class (merchants, craftsmen and workers), positioned at the bottom of the social order, benefited the most from the city's rapid economic growth, and began to indulge in and patronise the entertainment of kabuki theatre, geisha, and courtesans of the pleasure districts; the term ("floating world") came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e works were popular with the ''chōnin'' class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with them. The earliest ukiyo-e works eme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Douglas Lane
Richard Douglas Lane (1926–2002) was an American scholar, author, collector, and dealer of Japanese art. He lived in Japan for much of his life, and had a long association with the Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawaii, which now holds his vast art collection. Life Lane was born in Kissimmee, Florida. After graduating from high school in 1944, during World War II, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. In the Marines he trained as a Japanese translator, and served in Japan during the war. He later received a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii in Japanese and Chinese literature, and continued his studies at Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree and a PhD in 18th-century Japanese literature. In 1957, Lane moved to Japan, where he lived for the rest of his life. Lane was never on a university faculty, but supported himself as an author, dealer and consultant. He was a visiting research associate at the Honolulu Museum of Art from 1957 to 1971, durin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yakusha-e
''Yakusha-e'' (役者絵), often referred to as "actor prints" in English, are Japanese woodblock prints or, rarely, paintings, of kabuki actors, particularly those done in the ''ukiyo-e'' style popular through the Edo period (1603–1867) and into the beginnings of the 20th century. Most strictly, the term ''yakusha-e'' refers solely to portraits of individual artists (or sometimes pairs, as seen in this work by Sharaku). However, prints of kabuki scenes and of other elements of the world of the theater are very closely related, and were more often than not produced and sold alongside portraits. ''Ukiyo-e'' images were almost exclusively images of urban life; the vast majority that were not landscapes were devoted to depicting courtesans, sumo, or kabuki. Realistic detail, inscriptions, the availability of playbills from the period, and a number of other resources have allowed many prints to be analyzed and identified in great detail. Scholars have been able to identify the subj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toyokuni I
Utagawa Toyokuni ( ja, 歌川豊国; 1769 in Edo – 24 February 1825 in Edo), also often referred to as Toyokuni I, to distinguish him from the members of his school who took over his ''gō'' (art-name) after he died, was a great master of ukiyo-e, known in particular for his kabuki actor prints. He was the second head of the renowned Utagawa school of Japanese woodblock artists, and was the artist who elevated it to the position of great fame and power it occupied for the rest of the nineteenth century. Biography He was born in Edo, the son of Kurahashi Gorobei, a carver of dolls and puppets, including replicas of kabuki actors. At around 14, Toyokuni was apprenticed to the first head of the Utagawa house, Utagawa Toyoharu, whom his father knew well and who lived nearby. One of his fellow pupils under Toyoharu was Toyohiro, whose pupil was the great landscape artist Hiroshige. In recognition of his artistic ability, Toyokuni later took the name Utagawa Toyokuni, f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Keisai Eisen
Keisai Eisen (渓斎 英泉, 1790–1848) was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' artist who specialised in ''bijin-ga'' (pictures of beautiful women). His best works, including his ''ōkubi-e'' ("large head pictures"), are considered to be masterpieces of the "decadent" Bunsei Era (1818–1830). He was also known as Ikeda Eisen, and wrote under the name of Ippitsuan. Biography Eisen was born in Edo into the Ikeda family, the son of a noted calligrapher. He was apprenticed to Kanō Hakkeisai, from whom he took the name Keisai, and after the death of his father he studied under Kikugawa Eizan. His initial works reflected the influence of his mentor, but he soon developed his own style. He produced a number of ''surimono'' (prints that were privately issued), erotic prints, and landscapes, including ''The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō'', which he started and which was completed by Hiroshige. Eisen is most renowned for his ''bijin-ga'' (pictures of beautiful women) which portraye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kunisada
Utagawa Kunisada ( ja, 歌川 国貞; 1786 – 12 January 1865), also known as Utagawa Toyokuni III (, ), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. He is considered the most popular, prolific and commercially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock printing in Japan, woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan. In his own time, his reputation far exceeded that of his contemporaries, Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Kuniyoshi. Evaluation of Kunisada in art history At the end of the Edo period (1603–1867), Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi and Kunisada were the three best representatives of the Japanese color woodcut in Edo (capital city of Japan, now Tokyo). However, among European and American collectors of Japanese prints, beginning in the late 19th and early 20th century, all three of these artists were actually regarded as rather inferior to the greats of classical ukiyo-e, and therefore as having contributed considerably to the downfall of their art. For this reason, some referred to t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsukimaro
Kitagawa Tsukimaro (, ) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. He was one of the most successful students of Kitagawa Utamaro ( – 1806), from whom he took the ''-maro''. His early works bear the name "Kikumaro", first written (''kiku'' meaning " chrysanthemum") until 1802, then (''kiku'' meaning "joy eternal") until he changed it in 1804 to "Tsukimaro" (''tsuki'' meaning "moon"). Little is known of Tsukimaro's life. His personal name was ''Jun'' () and he had other nicknames ( or ). He worked as a watchman in Kodenmachō Sanchōme in Edo (modern Tokyo), and at some point apprenticed under Utamaro. He specialized in ''bijin-ga'' portrait prints of female beauties. In 1804 he was one of the artists along with Utamaro who were arrested and manacled for making illegal prints of the 16th-century military leader Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Around 1820 he changed his name to Kansetsu () and turned to scroll paintings in the Maruyama– Maruyama–Shijō style. His last dated work is a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ... of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; Flora of Japan, flora and Wildlife of Japan#Fauna, fauna; and Shunga, erotica. The term translates as "picture[s] of the floating world". In 1603, the city of Edo (Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. The ''chōnin'' class (merchants, craftsmen and workers), positioned at the bottom of Four occupations, the social order, benefited the most from the city's rapid economic growth, and began to indulge in and patronise the entertainment o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Utamaro
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] |
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