Hashira-e (柱絵) or Pillar prints are

Japanese woodblock prints 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 (160 ...

usually measuring about 13cm x 73cm (4.5 in. by 28 in.). They were originally intended to be hung upon, or pasted onto, wooden pillars inside Japanese houses. They probably served as cheap alternatives to hanging scrolls (

kakemono __NOTOC__ A , more commonly referred to as a , is a Japanese hanging scroll used to display and exhibit paintings and calligraphy inscriptions and designs mounted usually with silk fabric edges on a flexible backing, so that it can be rolled fo ...

) which were typically made of silk.

Okumura Masanobu Okumura Masanobu ( ja, 奥村政信; 1686 – 13 March 1764) was a Japanese print designer, book publisher, and painter. He also illustrated novelettes and in his early years wrote some fiction. At first his work adhered to the Torii ...

(1686–1764) is credited with popularizing this format of print. They were popular during the second half of the eighteenth century. Surviving examples are rare, and often faded, worn, or stained from exposure to soot and smoke.

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 surfac ...

artist

Koryūsai Isoda Koryūsai (, 1735–1790) was a Japanese ukiyo-e print designer and painter active from 1769 to 1790. Life and career Koryūsai was born in 1735 and worked as a samurai in the service of the Tsuchiya clan. He became a masterless ''rōni ...

(1735–1790) designed many hashira-e depicting a wide variety of subjects, particularly gods and beautiful women (

bijin-ga 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 W ...

). The popularity of hashira format prints began to wane around 1800 and they were superseded by replaced by vertical diptychs of the larger ''Oban tate-e'' format – ''tate,'' meaning 'portrait', ''e'' meaning 'picture') the most frequent size for Japanese woodblock prints at approx. 24.4cm x 38cm (10 by 15 inches). O''ban tate-e'' (and its landscape orientation ''Oban yoko-e'') offered greater compositional freedom for artists of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century.

Gallery

Brooklyn Museum - Lovers Tryst - Isoda Koryusai.jpg, ''Lovers' Tryst'',

Brooklyn Museum - Two Lovers in Snow beneath Umbrella (Crow and Heron) - Suzuki Harunobu.jpg, ''Two Lovers in Snow beneath Umbrella'',

Suzuki Harunobu Suzuki Harunobu ( ja, 鈴木春信; ) was a Japanese designer of woodblock print art in the style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints () in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Haru ...

Ishizuri-Shunso.jpg, ''General Yu'' (left:

ishizuri-e An is a moku hanga, Japanese woodblock print that mimics a stone rubbing. It has uninked images or text on a dark, usually black, background. Gallery Ishizuri-Masanobu.jpg, ''The Story of Kyoyu and Sofu'', ishizuri-e by Okumura Masanobu, Poet ...

- right: normal version,

Katsukawa Shunshō Shunshō Katsukawa ( ja, 勝川春章; 1726 – 19 January 1793) was a Japanese painter and printmaker in the ''ukiyo-e'' style, and the leading artist of the Katsukawa school. Shunshō studied under Miyagawa Shunsui, son and student of Miy ...

八百屋お七寺小姓吉三郎-O Shichi and Kichisaburo MET DP144608.jpg, ''Oshichi and Kichisaburo'', Kitigawa Utamaro

Gallery

References

Further reading