Nishimura Shigenaga ( ja, 西村重長; – 23 July 1756) 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. Shigenaga was born in Edo (modern Tokyo). He worked as a landlord in Tōriabura-chō before moving to the

Kanda Kanda may refer to: People * Kanda (surname) *Kanda Bongo Man (born 1955), Congolese soukous musician Places * Kanda, Tokyo, an area in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan **Kanda Station (Tokyo), a railway station in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo * Kanda River, a ri ...

district, where he ran a bookshop and taught himself art; he is not known to have had a teacher. His work began to appear . He worked in a variety of genres and formats. His earlier work tended to be ''

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) an ...

'' portraits of

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 though ...

actors in the style 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 ...

; his later work is in an idiom more his own, incorporating the influence of

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 ...

and Nishikawa Sukenobu. Other genres he worked in include landscapes, '' kachō-e'' pictures of scenes of nature, and historical scenes. He made a number of '' uki-e'' "floating pictures" incorporating geometric perspective. The number of ''uki-e'' he produced was second only to Masanobu, who asserted himself the originator of the technique. Shigenaga's better-known work includes the series ''Fifty-four Sheets of Genji'', a collaborative series with

Torii Kiyomasu II was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' painter and woodblock printmaker of the Torii school, a specialist, like the rest of the Torii artists, in billboards and other images for the promotion of the kabuki theatres. Scholars are unsure as to Kiyomasu II's ...

in ; and the ''Picture Book of Edo Souvenirs'' in 1753. He produced some of the earliest ukiyo-e landscape prints; in 1727, his was the first set of prints of

Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan, located entirely within Shiga Prefecture (west-central Honshu), northeast of the former capital city of Kyoto. Lake Biwa is an ancient lake, over 4 million years old. It is estimated to be the 13th ol ...

. His work had a strong influence on later artists such as Suzuki Harunobu and

Ishikawa Toyonobu was a Japanese ''ukiyo-e'' print artist. He is sometimes said to have been the same person as Nishimura Shigenobu, a contemporary ''ukiyo-e'' artist and student of Nishimura Shigenaga about whom very little is known. A pupil of Nishimura Sh ...

, who may have been students of Shigenaga's; Toyonobu may have been Nishimura Shigenobu, Shigenaga's most prominent student. Nishimura Shigenaga - Untitled - Google Art Project.jpg Nishimura Shigenaga - Komachi Washing the Poem-Papers - Google Art Project.jpg Nishimura Shigenaga - Four Seasons – Autumn Moon above the Reception Room.jpg 'Children at Play' by Nishimura Shigenaga, mid 1750s, Honolulu Museum of Art, 15581.JPG Nishimura Shigenaga - 3 Songs by 3 Pairs of Lovebirds (Sanbuku-tsui hiyoku sankyoku).jpg

References

Works cited

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External links

* 18th-century Japanese artists Ukiyo-e artists Japanese landlords {{Japan-artist-stub