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Kitagawa Tsukimaro (, ) was a Japanese
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 of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk t ...
artist. He was one of the most successful students of
Kitagawa 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 ...
( – 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
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 o ...
'' 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
, otherwise known as and , was a Japanese samurai and ''daimyō'' (feudal lord) of the late Sengoku period regarded as the second "Great Unifier" of Japan.Richard Holmes, The World Atlas of Warfare: Military Innovations that Changed the Cour ...
. Around 1820 he changed his name to Kansetsu () and turned to scroll paintings in the Maruyama–
Maruyama–Shijō style. His last dated work is an illustration for a ''
kyōka
''Kyōka'' (, "wild" or "mad poetry") is a popular, parodic subgenre of the tanka form of Japanese poetry with a metre of 5-7-5-7-7. The form flourished during the Edo period (17th–18th centuries) and reached its zenith during the Tenmei era ...
'' poetry anthology of 1836. He also used the
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. The ...
s Sumitei () and Shūsai ().
References
Works cited
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External links
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18th-century births
19th-century deaths
18th-century Japanese artists
19th-century Japanese artists
Ukiyo-e artists
{{Japan-artist-stub