, also called "death pictures" or "death portraits", are

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese

woodblock prints Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is create ...

, particularly those done in the

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 ...

style popular through the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

(1603–1867) and into the beginnings of the 20th century. When a

kabuki is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to ...

actor died, memorial portraits were conventionally published with his farewell poem and posthumous name.Keyes, Roger ''et al.'' (1973). ''The Theatrical World of Osaka Prints,'' p. 320; Chin, Connie and Melinda Takeuchi
"Actors' Death Prints: Discovery of a New Genre."
''Horizons'' (Center for East Asian Studies, Stanford University) Fall 2005, p. 7. Memorial portraits were created by ukiyo-e artists to honor a colleague or former teacher who had died.

Gallery

Memorial Portrait of Hiroshige, by Kunisada.jpg, Hiroshige by Kunisada, 1858 Kunisada shini e.jpg,

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 woodbloc ...

Toyohara Kunichika Toyohara Kunichika ( ja, 豊原国周; 30 June 1835 – 1 July 1900) was a ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock print artist. Talented as a child, at about thirteen he became a student of Tokyo's then-leading print maker, Utagawa Kunisada ...

, 1864 Yōshū Chikanobu Iwai Hanshiro VIII.jpg,

Iwai Hanshirō VIII was a Japanese kabuki performer, known both for his own work and for his place in the lineage of a family of kabuki actors.Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric ''et al.'' (2005). He was the son of Iwai Hanshirō VII.Leiter, Samuel L. (2006). Iwai ...

, by Toyohara Chikanobu 1882

References

Bibliography

* Keyes, Roger S. and Keiko Mizushima. (1973). ''The Theatrical World of Osaka Prints: a Collection of Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Japanese woodblock Prints in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.''Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art
OCLC 186356770
* Newland, Amy Reigle. (2005). ''The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints.'' Amsterdam : Hotei.
OCLC 61666175

External links

* Kuniyoshi project

Ukiyo-e genres Japanese words and phrases {{Japan-art-stub

Gallery

See also

References

Bibliography

External links