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On this page - a selection of
woodblock prints included in the exhibition
Contact
Us for
e-catalogue and/ or for more hi-res images and further
information
Japanese Fine Art: Annual
Exhibition
Opening Thursday 19th November
prints, paintings, screens
C16th - present
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE WOODBLOCK PRINT CATALOGUE
(PDF)
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Us for
more information and hi-res images
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information
CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE
Note: whilst we try to
acheive the best photographic images - consistency isn't always
acheivable - we will as always email images on request.
Yōshū Chikanobu
(1838-1912)
‘Village of
flowers (courtesans)’ – the busy pleasure
quarters
(Sato no hana kuruwa no
nigiwai ) 1890 (Meiji 22)
Signature:
Yōshū Chikanobu hitsu Publisher: Takekawa
Unokichi
This is a view of a
view of a boulevard in a licensed brothel district (the place is
not specified but it could be the Yoshiwara). Cherry trees lined
the main boulevard of licensed quarters and in spring when they
were in blossom. As part of a means to advertise the brothel’s
‘product’, ostentatiously dressed high ranking courtesans paraded
along the boulevard as part of a cherry blossom festival. Beautiful
courtesans and cherry blossoms were an appropriate pairing for,
like the short-lived life of the cherry blossom, the courtesan’s
indentured life in the bordellos finished when she reached the age
of twenty-seven, an age when her youthful beauty was deemed to have
passed. The Japanese love of festivals meant that, as seen in this
image, there was always a huge turnout for this parade.
Yōshū Chikanobu
(1838-1912)
Yanagi Bridge
geisha (Yanagibashi geiko shō ) 1891 (Meiji 23)
Signature:
Yōshū Chikanobu hitsu Publisher: Matsuki Heikichi
Against a backdrop
of a view of Yanagi Bridge, that spans the busy Sumida river in
downtown Tokyo are depicted a group of female entertainers playing
music and dancing. Yanagibashi was a restaurant and teahouse area
famous as a red light district where this type of entertainment
could be found.In the 1680s such entertainment had been provided by
young teenage dancers (odoriko) who were skilled at playing
the shamisen (a stringed musical instrument) and singing.
Later, around the middle of the Edo period, because of their
association with prostitution the odoriko’s role was taken
over by older women known as geiko, later also referred to
as geisha (‘skilled person’). These women, accomplished in
the art of music, singing, dancing and witty repartee, were hired
to entertain at parties and in this scene this group of
geiko are rehearsing in the upstairs room of a teahouse
prior to one such performance. Yanagibashi geiko were
notorious for also involving themselves in prostitution and this
name became synonymous for a ‘loose woman’.
SOLD
Utagawa
Kunisada I (Toyokuni III) (1786-1865)
Tori
tsukushi possibly
late 1850s
Signature:Toyokuni ga in toshidama
cartouche Publisher: Ōtaya Takichi
This image is a word
play around the word tori (bird) in which in the foreground
a boatman, tattooed with an image of a courtesan, is depicted
maneuvering his craft whilst in the background plovers are shown
against water and falling cherry blossom petals. There is a
possible word play between the tattooed image of the courtesan and
the plovers as she is also shown against a background of falling
cherry blossom petals.
Utagawa
Kunisada I (Toyokuni III) (1786-1865)
Seki,
Koman from a series of
diptychs Fifty-three stations of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō
gojūsan tsugi no uchi) 1852
Signature:
Toyokuni ga in toshidama cartouche Carver: Horitake
Publisher: Sumiyoshiya Masagorō Censor seal: Hama, Magome, single
sheet from a diptych
During the Edo period (1600-1868)
the main highway connecting the capital Edo with the ancient
capital Kyoto along the eastern coast was the Tōkaidō (‘Eastern
Highway’). Its fifty-three post stations were made famous by the
ukiyo-e master of the landscape genre Utagawa Hiroshige
(1797-1858) in his series Fifty-three stations of the
Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi). Drawing upon
the popularity of this series other artists produced their own
versions of this series often parodying the subject by placing it
in another context. In this image from Kunisada’s Fifty-three
stations of the Tōkaidō, the forty-eighth post station of Seki
is used as a backdrop for the depiction of the Kabuki actor
Iwai Hanshiro VII, a female impersonator
(onnagata) in the role of Seki no Koman from the play
‘Hana katami gojusan tsugi’. In the play the character Seki
no Koman, shown here carrying a Japanese bamboo flute
(shakuhachi) and sword, defeated a mortal enemy of her
father.
Ide Gakusui (b.
1899-1992)
White Herons in
Snow 1950
Publisher:
Watanabe Shōzaburō
In the early twentieth century
despite the enthusiasm for ukiyo-e prints overseas and as a
reaction to the declining interest in these works in Japan the
publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885–1962) commissioned prints that,
through the restoration of technical excellence in printmaking,
sought to revive the high standards of ukiyo-e. Shin
hanga, or ‘New Prints’, the name used to describe this movement
encapsulated the desire for a renewal of the traditional woodblock
print technique. Published by Watanabe Shōzaburō Ide Gakusui was a
Shin hanga artist who specialised in the traditional subject
of kachō, or ‘birds-and-flowers’. Gakusui had started his
career as a Japanese style painter but after 1949 he focussed on
creating woodblock prints. In this striking almost monochrome
white-on-black print Gakusui has utilised a black background to
highlight flakes of falling snow and to outline the elegant
profiles of two herons. To add richness he has used the technique
of blind embossing or gauffrage (kara-zuri) to evoke the
texture of the birds’ plumage.
Utagawa
Kunisada I (Toyokuni III) (1786-1865)
The courtesan
Ōiso no Tora under cherry blossoms (Otora no Ōiso)
1855
Signature:
Toyokuni ga in toshidama cartouche Carver: Horitake
Publisher: Iseya Kanekichi
Tora was a courtesan in the Ōiso
red light district and a lover of Soga no Jūrō. The lover of Soga
no Gorō, Jūrō’s brother, was killed by Hirotsune Kudo in the Ōiso
red light district and Gorō tried to avenge this murder. In his
attempts to avenge the death Gorō was assisted by Ōiso no Tora. The
original ‘Tale of the Soga Brothers’ (Soga monogatari) was a
story of revenge and filial piety that was depicted on the Kabuki
stage. There were many variations upon this theme, of which the
story of Ōiso no Tora is one.
The courtesan (oiran) Ōiso
wears at least five gowns. The outer gown shows a design of a
dragon and ocean against a grey background, the inner layers are
decorated with clouds and blossoming flowers. Her sash
(obi), as was the convention with courtesans, is tied in
front and has a lion design motif. The hem of her outer-robe
(uchikake) is thickly quilted and is drawn up to permit
walking outdoors thus revealing a tantalising glimpse of her
lacquered wooden clogs (geta). A haircomb and a crown of
tortoiseshell hairpins frame her white powdered face. Her contrived
beauty and elaborate display of costume added presence to the
oiran on ceremonial occasions. Imposing height was achieved
by wearing clogs which could be as tall as 50.8 cm (18-20 inches)
with her coiffure ‘crowning’ her impressive stature.
SOLD
Toyohara
Kunichika (1835-1900)
The actors
Kawarazaki Gonjūrō I as Kinmon Gorō Munezō, Ichimura Kakitsu IV as
Tsuchigumo no Seijitsuwa, Bandō Hikosaburō V as Yorimitsu
Samonnosuke [right to
left] from the Tale of the Earth Spider
(Tsuchigumo), 1886
Signature:
Kunichika hitsu with toshidama seal Carver: Horikō
Zenji Publisher: Kagiya Seijirō
The three actors
shown here are enacting a scene from the Kabuki drama the Earth
spider (Tsuchigumo) which recounts episodes from the
life of Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948–1021) who was a nobleman at the
court of Emperor Murakami. Legend says that during the tenth
century Kyoto was plagued by demons. Yorimitsu was credited with
ridding the capital of these supernatural beings.
One of his exploits
was his meeting with a colossal Spider Demon. Yorimitsu (left
sheet), delirious with fever, is visited by a priest (centre) who
transforms into an earth spider (shown here in the background) who
then attacks him. The spider began to bind Yorimitsu with its web
but he awoke and struck the creature with his sword. Fleeing, the
spider was pursued by Yorimitsu’s retainers. Following a trail of
blood they found the spider under a mound of earth where he was
killed by one of the retainers. Yorimitsu immediately recovered.
His sword was then given the name Kumokirimaru, or Spider
Cutter.
In this print
Kunichika has shown Yorimitsu, although in a weakened state,
summoning his strength to break free of his bindings and attack the
spider. This story became the basis for a dramatic Kabuki play in
which the climatic moment shows the spider flinging paper streamers
that represent his web. In this print Kunichika has shown the web
as radiating lines against a dark background.
SOLD
Toyohara
Kunichika (1835-1900)
Flowers of
Mount Ōe Drinking Party(Ōeyama hana no
sakamori) possibly
1864
Signature:
Kunichika ga with toshidama seal Publisher: Hiranoya
Shinzō
This is a parody (mitate)
of the story of Ōeyama no Shutendōji (‘The Sake-drinking Boy of
Mount Ōe’), a story said to have been written after the fourteenth
century as part of an ancient collection of tales known as Otogi
Zoshi. During the Muromachi (1392-1573) period many
narrative pictures, known as "Shutendōji pictures", were
painted illustrating this legend. According to the legend the
warrior Raiko (Minamoto no Yorimitsu, in this picture shown in the
lower right wearing a blue chequered robe), set forth to slay the
goblin Shutendōji (in this picture the figure in the upper right
wearing a red chequered robe and in one of his guises — a giant boy
dressed as a temple acolyte) on Mount Ōeyama, northwest of Kyoto.
The evil Shutendōji drank much sake and as a consequence had a
fierce red face. After getting drunk he would come down to
town where he would abduct women to either to use as slaves or to
cannibalise. In defeating this goblin Raiko was assisted by his
four retainers Watanabe no Tsuna, Sakata no Kintoki, Usui Sadamitsu
and Urabe Sukesue (known together as Shitenno, or the Four
Heavenly Kings depicted in this picture as the three figures in the
center sheet and the figure in the left sheet standing and dressed
in a chequered robe), along with Fujiwara no Yasumasa and under the
protection of the Shinto gods Hachiman, Sumiyoshi and
Kumano.
In this print Kabuki actors are
shown as figures from Ōeyama no Shutendōji drinking sake and are
here identified in individual yellow cartouches as Kagubana Kango,
Gi-Koromoarai Kanjyo-Kuchibeni no Okume, Roshitennōno Uchi –Arado
no Kiku, Urabe no Take, Fukubotan no Kane, Shuten Dojikoshi no
Yone, and Gi-Yorimitsu Genji.
Toyohara
Kunichika (1835-1900)
Picture of
Genji’s sightseeing, the‘Eight Views in Ōmi
province’
(Genji no kimi Ōmi hakkei
yūran no zu) early 1860s
Signature: Ittō
Kunichika ga within toshidama cartouche (right and left
sheet), Kunichika ga (center sheet)
Carver: Hori mino
Publisher:Kōmokudō (Kiya Sōjirō)
In this print
Kunichika has parodied two subjects from Japan’s artistic and
literary tradition whilst depicting a scene of a fashionable man
being entertained and waited upon by four beautiful women. In the
foreground seated in the prow of a pleasure boat is a man sporting
a distinctive ‘shrimp-tail’ hairstyle (ebi chasen) that
identifies him as a contemporary Prince Genji (Prince Genji was
given the appellation Hikaru no Kimi, and Kunichika has used
part of this term to refer to him in the title). The ebi
chasen was made popular by Kunisada I in a novel parodying the
classic of Japanese literature ‘The Tale of Genji’. In the
background is depicted the locus classicus of Japanese ‘famous
views’ (meisho) as depicted in prose and painting, the
Ōmi hakkei (‘Eight Views in Ōmi province’) or eight
meisho on the shores of lake Biwa in Ōmi province. They are
here identified in cartouches from left to right — Autumn Moon over
Ishiyama temple (Ishiyama no shūgetsu), Descending geese at
Katata (Katata no rakugan), Zeze Castle (Zeze no
shiro), Evening snow on Mount Hira (Hira no bosetsu),
Sunset Glow over Seta (Seta no sekishō), Returning ships at
Yabase harbour (Yabase no kihan), Evening prayer bell of Mii
Temple (Mii banshō), The pine trees in Karasaki (Karasaki
no matsu).
SOLD
Yōshū Chikanobu
(1838-1912)
Beauty of
the Tenna era (1681-1684) ,
from the series ‘Mirror of the
ages’ (Jidai kagami Keichō no koro),
1897
Signature: lower
right margin Yōshū Chikanobu followed by the artist’s seal
reading Yōshū Publisher: Matsuki Heikichi
Against a rich
background of yellow-gold a young woman adjusts her headscarf in
order to protect her elaborate hairdo. Her costume seems less
sophisticated than the woman from the Keichō era. At this time the
merchant class were becoming increasingly wealthy and the ruling
samurai class introduced sumptuary laws to restrict ostentatious
displays in costuming. This woman’s plain headscarf and modest
kimono design may have been influenced by these conservative
times.
ENQUIRE HERE
-All text by Dr Gary Hickey |