Miyagawa Chōshun (; 1683 – 18 December 1753) was a Japanese painter in the
ukiyo-e
is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...
style. Founder of the Miyagawa school, he and his pupils are among the few ukiyo-e artists to have never created
woodblock prints. He was born in Miyagawa, in
Owari Province
was a province of Japan in the area that today forms the western half of Aichi Prefecture, including the modern city of Nagoya. The province was created in 646. Owari bordered on Mikawa, Mino, and Ise Provinces. Owari and Mino provinces w ...
, but lived much of his later life in
Edo, where he died.
Chōshun trained under artists of the
Tosa and
Kanō schools, as well as under the master of early ukiyo-e,
Hishikawa Moronobu. These influences are evident in his works, along with those of the
Kaigetsudō school, but ultimately Chōshun, as the founder of a new school of painting, has a unique style all his own. His figures have a soft, warm femininity about them, and
Richard Lane considers his coloring among the best in all of ukiyo-e art.
[ Lane, Richard (1978). "Images of the Floating World." Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky. p90.] His works are almost exclusively of courtesans, and in his works these figures are fuller, and more voluptuous than those of many other artists, in particular those of the somewhat later artist
Harunobu. Though many of his pieces are clean ones of courtesans, Chōshun and his students also produced a great number of works of ''
shunga'' (erotic paintings).
Miyagawa Chōshun had a number of pupils, including his son
Shunsui, Chōki (who may have also been his son), and
Isshō.
In 1751, a few years before his death, Chōshun was commissioned by an artist of the Kanō school to perform some restoration work at the
Nikkō Tōshō-gū. When Chōshun was not paid for his work, an altercation erupted which ended in the death of the Kanō artist at the hands of Chōshun's son. As a result, Chōshun was banished from Edo for a year.
Gallery
Miyagawa Chosun - Nanshoku 04.jpg, Nanshoku (male-male) shunga handscroll
Miyagawa Chosun - Nanshoku 03.jpg, Nanshoku (male-male) shunga handscroll
Ryukyuan Dancer and Musicians by Miyagawa Choshun, c. 1718.jpg, ''Ryūkyūan Dancer and Musicians',
MET DP-12232-115.jpg, ''Gyoran Kannon'', a bijin-ga scroll
Notes
References
*
Lane, Richard. (1978). ''Images from the Floating World, The Japanese Print.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press.
OCLC 5246796
External links
Bridge of dreams: the Mary Griggs Burke collection of Japanese art a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Miyagawa Chōshun (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miyagawa, Choshun
1683 births
1753 deaths
Ukiyo-e artists
18th-century Japanese artists