Torii Kiyomasu - Ichikawa Danjuro I in role of Takenuki Goro

was a Japanese painter and printmaker of the

Torii school A is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the mundane to the sacred. The presence of a ''torii'' at the entrance is usually the simplest ...

, in the genre of ''

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 ...

''. Like the other Torii artists, his primary focus was on

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 ...

billboards, advertisements,

actor prints ''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 in ...

, and other related material. Many scholars believe Kiyomasu to have been the younger brother or son of

Torii Kiyonobu I Torii Kiyonobu I ( ja, 鳥居清信; – 22 August 1729) was a Japanese painter and printmaker in the ukiyo-e style, who is renowned for his work on kabuki signboards and related materials. Along with his father Torii Kiyomoto, ...

, one of the founders of the school, or to have been an alternate

art-name An art name (pseudonym or pen name), also known by its native names ''hào'' (in Mandarin), ''gō'' (in Japanese), ''ho'' (in Korean), and ''tên hiệu'' (in Vietnamese), is a professional name used by East Asian artists, poets and writers. Th ...

(''gō'') for the same man. In the 1710s, prints signed with Kiyomasu's name far outnumber those with the signature of Kiyonobu. If the two were distinct artists, this could indicate that the elder artist, the head of the school, devoted more time to the kabuki billboards and other works which were more the official province of the workshop, while the younger was left to do prints. On the other hand, even if the two were the same person, this could simply be explained by the use of different names on different types of work. Though his style is said to be somewhat more graceful than Kiyonobu's, they are difficult to tell apart, as are most works by other Torii artists. However, there are certain stylistic elements that do stand out as differences between the two artists. While Kiyonobu's work was based largely on that of

Hishikawa Moronobu Hishikawa Moronobu ( ja, 菱川師宣; 1618 – 25 July 1694) was a Japanese artist known for popularizing the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock prints and paintings in the late 17th century. He consolidated the works of scattered Japanese art s ...

, and was very masculine in nature, with sharp, bold lines, Kiyomasu's works, while very similar at first glance, are in fact softer and more graceful; they are said to show a "lack of seriousness of intent". This shift is attributed to an emulation of the styles of Moronobu's chief competitor,

Sugimura Jihei was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' printmaker who flourished from approximately 1681 to 1703. He is noted by art historian and ''ukiyo-e'' collector Richard Douglas Lane, Richard Lane as an “indirect pupil” of Hishikawa Moronobu. Much of Sugimura's ...

References

* Lane, Richard. (1978). ''Images from the Floating World, The Japanese Print.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
OCLC 5246796
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torii, Kiyomasu Ukiyo-e artists Japanese printmakers Torii school

See also

References