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Osaka School
Kamigata (上方) was the colloquial term for a region today called Kansai (''kan'', barrier; ''sai'', west) in Japan. This large area encompasses the cities of Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe. The term is used particularly when discussing elements of Edo period urban culture such as ukiyo-e and kabuki, and when making a comparison to the urban culture of the Edo/Tokyo region. The term was no longer used as name for the Kansai provinces when Emperor Meiji moved to Edo in 1868. An account described Kamigata suji as one of the two regions that emerged from the division of Japan for the purpose of taxation with the other being Kwanto-suji. Kabuki, ukiyo-e, and many of the other related fields of popular and urban culture of the Edo period in fact originated in Kamigata before being transmitted to Edo. The vast majority of scholarship on the urban culture of the Edo period (1603–1867), even today, focuses on culture in Edo; Kamigata culture, though it is beginning to be studied more and ...
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Kansai Region
The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metropolitan region of Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto ( Keihanshin region) is the second-most populated in Japan after the Greater Tokyo Area. Name The terms , , and have their roots during the Asuka period. When the old provinces of Japan were established, several provinces in the area around the then-capital Kyoto were collectively named Kinai and Kinki, both roughly meaning "the neighbourhood of the capital". Kansai (literally ''west of the tollgate'') in its original usage refers to the land west of the Osaka Tollgate (), the border between Yamashiro Province and Ōmi Province (present-day Kyoto and Shiga prefectures).Entry for . Kōjien, fifth edition, 1998, During the Kamakura period, this border was redefined to include Ōmi and Iga Provinces. ...
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Minami-za
is the primary kabuki theatre in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded in 1610 as . The current building, with a 1,086 seat capacity, was built in 1929. History The Minami-za is one of the earliest of the seven officially-licensed kabuki theatres built in the early Edo period (1615-1623) in the Shijo Kawara area in Kyoto; the theatre pre-dates those of Tokyo and Osaka. The current Minami-za theatre was built in 1929 in the architectural style of the Momoyama period, with a gabled roof and a traditional turret marking the official approval of the government. In 1991, after the end of the Shōwa period Shōwa may refer to: * Hirohito (1901–1989), the 124th Emperor of Japan, known posthumously as Emperor Shōwa * Showa Corporation, a Japanese suspension and shock manufacturer, affiliated with the Honda keiretsu Japanese eras * Jōwa (Heian ..., the interior was drastically refurbished and modern stage mechanism was installed. In 1996, the Minami-za was registered as a Japanese Tan ...
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Surimono
are a genre of Japanese woodblock print. They were privately commissioned for special occasions such as the New Year. Surimono literally means "printed thing". Being produced in small numbers for a mostly educated audience of ''literati'', surimono were often more experimental in subject matter and treatment, and extravagant in printing technique, than commercial prints. They were most popular from the 1790s to the 1830s, and many leading artists produced them. One of the most famous woodblock artists who got his start from producing surimono was Suzuki Harunobu, credited with being the genius behind the later introduction (in the 1760s) of Nishiki-e ("brocade prints"). Use In most cases, surimono were commissioned by poetry societies to illustrate the winning poem in a poetry contest judged by the master of the society. Such prints generally had a small format, often c. 205 × 185 mm, and the relief carving of the Kanji characters took a great deal of technical skill. Ka ...
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Shijō School
The , also known as the ''Maruyama–Shijō'' school, was a Japanese school of painting. History It was an offshoot school of the Maruyama school of Japanese painting founded by Maruyama Ōkyo, and his former student Matsumura Goshun in the late 18th century. This school was one of several that made up the larger Kyoto school. The school is named after the Shijō Street ("Fourth Avenue") in Kyoto where many major artists were based. Its primary patrons were rich merchants in and around Kyoto/Osaka and also appealed to the ''kamigata'' who were of the established aristocrat and artisan families of the Imperial capital during the late 18th/19th centuries. Style Stylistically, the Shijō style can best be described as a synthesis of two rival styles of the time. Maruyama Ōkyo was an experienced and expert painter of '' sumi-e'' ink paintings, and accomplished a great degree of realism in his creations, emphasizing direct observation of depicted subjects which was a direct con ...
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Urakusai Nagahide
Urakusai Nagahide (Japanese: 有楽斎 長秀), was a designer of ukiyo-e style Japanese woodblock prints who was active from about 1804 to about 1848. He is also known as Yūrakusai Nagahide (有楽斎 長秀), Nakamura Nagahide (中邑 長秀 or 中村 長秀), Chōshū (長秀), and as Chōshūsai (長秀斎). “Nagahide” and “Chōshū” are written with the same kanji. The ending “sai” means studio or hall, and is added or omitted at will by many Japanese artists. Nagahide worked in both Kyoto and Osaka. His early prints resemble those of his teacher Ryūkōsai Jokei, but were also influenced by Shōkōsai Hanbei.Newland, Amy Reigle. (2005). ''Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints,'' p. 482. Such a radical change occurred in Nagahide’s style that some scholars believe that the body of works signed “Nagahide” may actually have been created by two different artists.Roberts, p. 115 From the 1810s to the 1830s, Nagahide was the most prolifi ...
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Sharaku
Tōshūsai Sharaku ( ja, 東洲斎 写楽; active 1794–1795) was a Japanese ukiyo-e print designer, known for his portraits of kabuki actors. Neither his true name nor the dates of his birth or death are known. His active career as a woodblock artist spanned ten months; his prolific work met disapproval and his output came to an end as suddenly and mysteriously as it had begun. His work has come to be considered some of the greatest in the ukiyo-e genre. Sharaku made mostly ''yakusha-e'' portraits of kabuki actors. His compositions emphasize poses of dynamism and energy, and display a realism unusual for prints of the time—contemporaries such as Utamaro represented their subjects with an idealized beauty, while Sharaku did not shy from showing unflattering details. This was not to the tastes of the public, and the enigmatic artist's production ceased in the first month of 1795. His mastery of the medium with no apparent apprenticeship has drawn much speculation, and rese ...
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Hosoban
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.
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Ryūkōsai Jokei
Ryūkōsai Jokei ( ja, 流光斎 如圭) was a painter, illustrator, and designer of ukiyo-e-style Japanese woodblock prints in Osaka, who was active from about 1777 to 1809. He was a student of Shitomi Kangetsu (1747–1797), who in turn was the son and pupil of Tsukioka Settei (1710–1786). Ryūkōsai is considered to be either the founderNewland, 2005, p. 482 or one of the foundersRoberts, 1976, p. 134 of the Osaka school of ukiyo-e. He is best known for his portraits of actors. His prints are mostly in the hosoban format. Pupils of Ryūkōsai include Shōkōsai Hanbei and Urakusai Nagahide. Gallery File:Woodblock print by Ryûkôsai Jokei of kabuki actor Yoshizawa Iroha in the role of Ariwara no Narihira.jpg, Woodblock print by Ryūkōsai Jokei of kabuki actor Yoshizawa Iroha in the role of 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 Gen ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Bijinga
is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women () in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre. Definition defines as a picture that simply "emphasizes the beauty of women", and the ''Shincho Encyclopedia of World Art'' defines it as depiction of "the beauty of a woman's appearance". On the other hand, defines as pictures that explore "the inner beauty of women". For this reason, the essence of cannot always be expressed only through the depiction of a , a woman aligning with the beauty image. In fact, in ukiyo-e , it was not considered important that the picture resemble the facial features of the model, and the depiction of women in ukiyo-e is stylized rather than an attempt to create a realistic image; For example, throughout the Edo period (1603-1867), married women had a custom of shaving their eyebrows (), but in , there was a rule to draw the eyebrows for married women. History Ukiyo-e itself is a genre of woodblock prints and pain ...
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Amayo No Sanbai Kigen
''Amayo no Sanbai Kigen'' (雨夜三盃機嫌) is an illustrated book depicting forty-four Kamigata kabuki actors of the time. It was originally published in 1693 as a woodblock printed book by Bokutekian and Sōgyū. Some of the actors included are: * Ogino Samanojō I * Yamashita Saizaburō * Mizuki Tatsunosuke I * Sodeoka Masanosuke * Tamamura Tsuyanosuke *Yoshizawa Ayame I * Onogawa Ugenji * Saruwaka Kosanza * Sodesaki Karyū I *Sakata Tōkurō *Iwai Heijirō Iwai or IWAI may refer to: * Iwai (surname) *Iwai, Ibaraki, a city in Japan *Iwai Station, a railway station in Minamibōsō, Chiba Prefecture, Japan *Iwai Rebellion, a rebellion against the Yamato court that took place in Tsukushi Province, Japan ... * Sodesaki Iroha ReferencesAmayo no Sanbai Kigen at Kabuki21.com(with images) Kabuki Japanese books Ukiyo-e {{Japan-lit-stub ...
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