Kuniyoshi
Encyclopedia
was one of the last great masters of the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...

 style of woodblock prints and painting. He is associated with the Utagawa school
Utagawa school
The was a group of Japanese woodblock print artists, founded by Toyoharu. His pupil, Toyokuni I, took over after Toyoharu's death and raised the group to become the most famous and powerful woodblock print school for the remainder of the 19th century....

.

The range of Kuniyoshi's preferred subjects included many genres: landscapes, beautiful women, Kabuki actors, cats, and mythical animals. He is known for depictions of the battles of samurai and legendary heroes. His artwork was affected by Western influences in landscape painting and caricature.

Life

He was born ca. 1797, the son of a silk-dyer, originally named Yoshisaburō. Apparently he assisted his father's business as a pattern designer, and some have suggested that this experience influenced his rich use of color and textile patterns in prints. It is said that Kuniyoshi was impressed, at an early age of seven or eight, by ukiyo-e warrior prints, and by pictures of artisans and commoners (as depicted in craftsmen manuals), and it is possible these influenced his own later prints.
Yoshisaburō proved his drawing talents at age 12, quickly attracting the attention of the famous ukiyo-e print master Utagawa Toyokuni. He was officially admitted to Toyokuni's studio in 1811, and became one of his chief pupils. He remained an apprentice until 1814, at which time he was given the name "Kuniyoshi" and set out as an independent artist. During this year he produced his first published work, the illustrations for the kusazoshi gōkan Gobuji Chūshingura, a parody of the original Chūshingura story. Between 1815-1817 he created a number of book illustrations for yomihon, kokkeibon
Kokkeibon
The was a genre and type of early modern Japanese novel. It came into being late in the Edo period during the 19th century. As a genre, it depicted the comical behavior occurring in daily life of the commoners....

, gokan and hanashibon, and printed his stand-alone full color prints of "kabuki" actors and warriors.

Despite his promising debut, the young Kuniyoshi failed to produce many works between 1818 and 1827, probably due to a lack of commissions from publishers, and the competition of other artists within the Utagawa School (Utagawa-ryū). However, during this time he did produce pictures of beautiful women ('bijinga') and experimented with large textile patterns and light-and-shadow effects found in Western art, although his attempts showed more imitation than real understanding of these principles.

His economic situation turned desperate at one point when he was forced to sell used tatami
Tatami
A is a type of mat used as a flooring material in traditional Japanese-style rooms. Traditionally made of rice straw to form the core , with a covering of woven soft rush straw, tatami are made in standard sizes, with the length exactly twice the width...

 mats. A chance encounter with his prosperous fellow pupil Kunisada, to whom he felt (with some justice) that he was superior in artistic talent, led him to redouble his efforts (but did not create any lingering ill-feeling between the two, who later collaborated on a number of series).
During the 1820s, Kuniyoshi produced a number of heroic triptychs that show the first signs of an individual style. In 1827 he received his first major commission for the series, One hundred and eight heroes of the popular Suikoden all told
Water Margin
Water Margin , also known as Outlaws of the Marsh, All Men Are Brothers, Men of the Marshes, or The Marshes of Mount Liang, is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature.Attributed to Shi Nai'an and written in vernacular Chinese, the story, set in the Song Dynasty,...

(Tūszoku Suikoden gōketsu hyakuhachinin no hitori), based on the incredibly popular Chinese tale, the Shuihu zhuan. In this series Kuniyoshi illustrated individual heroes on single-sheets, drawing tattoos on his heroes, a novelty which soon influenced Edo fashion. The Suikoden series became extremely popular in Edo, and the demand for Kuniyoshi’s warrior prints increased, gaining him entrance into the major ukiyō-e and literary circles.

He continued to produce warrior prints, drawing much of his subjects from war tales such as Tale of the Heike (Heikei monogatari) and The rise and fall of the Minamoto and the Taira (Genpei seisuki). His warrior prints were unique in that they depicted legendary popular figures with an added stress on dreams, ghostly apparitions, omens, and superhuman feats. This subject matter is instilled in his works The ghost of Taira Tomomori at Daimotsu bay (Taira Tomomori borei no zu) and the 1839 triptych The Gōjō bridge (Gōjō no bashi no zu), where he manages to invoke an effective sense of action intensity in his depiction of the combat between Yoshitsune and Benkei. These new thematic styles satisfied the public’s interest in the ghastly, exciting, and bizarre that was growing during the time.

The ‘Tenpō reforms’ of 1841-1843 aimed to alleviate economic crisis by controlling public displays of luxury and wealth, and the illustration of courtesans and actors in ukiyō-e was officially banned at that time. This may have had some influence on Kuniyoshi’s production of caricature prints or comic pictures (giga-e), which were used to disguise actual actors and courtesans. Many of these symbolically and humorously criticized the shogunate (such as the 1843 design showing Minamoto Yorimitsu in bed, haunted by the Earth Spider and his demons) and became popular among a largely politically dissatisfied public. Timothy Clark, head of the Japanese section of the British Museum, asserts that the repressive conventions of the day produced unintended consequences. The government-created limitation became a kind of artistic challenge which actually encouraged Kuniyoshi’s creative resourcefulness by forcing him to find ways to veil criticism of the shogunate allegorically.

During the decade leading up to the reforms, Kuniyoshi also produced landscape prints (fūkeiga), which were outside the bounds of censorship and catered to the rising popularity of personal travel in late Edo Japan. Notable among these were Famous products of the provinces (Sankai meisan zukushi, c. 1828-30)—where he incorporated Western shading and perspective and pigments—and Famous views of the Eastern capital in the early 1830s, which was certainly influenced by Hokusai
Hokusai
was a Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Edo period. He was influenced by such painters as Sesshu, and other styles of Chinese painting...

’s 1831 Thirty-six views of Mt. Fuji (Fujaku sanjurokkei). Kuniyoshi also produced during this time works of purely natural subject matter, notably of animals, birds and fish that mimicked traditional Japanese and Chinese painting.

In the late 1840s, Kuniyoshi began again to illustrate actor prints, this time evading censorship (or simply evoking creativity) through childish, cartoon-like portraits of famous kabuki actors, the most notable being "Scribbling on the storehouse wall" (Nitakaragurakabe no mudagaki). Here he creatively used elementary, child-like script sloppily written in kana
Kana
Kana are the syllabic Japanese scripts, as opposed to the logographic Chinese characters known in Japan as kanji and the Roman alphabet known as rōmaji...

 under the actor faces. Reflecting his love for felines, Kuniyoshi also began to use cats in the place of humans in kabuki and satirical prints. He is also known during this time to have experimented with ‘wide-screen’ composition, magnifying visual elements in the image for a dramatic, exaggerated effect (ex. Masakado’s daughter the princess Takiyasha, at the old Soma palace).
In 1856 Kuniyoshi suffered from palsy, which caused him much difficulty in moving his limbs. It is said that his works from this point onward were noticeably weaker in the use of line and overall vitality. Before his death in 1861, Kuniyoshi was able to witness the opening of the port city of Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

 to foreigners, and in 1860 produced two works depicting Westerners in the city (Yokohama-e, ex. View of Honcho, Yokohama and The pleasure quarters, Yokohama). He died at the age of 65 in April 1861 in his home in Genyadana.

Pupils

Kuniyoshi was an excellent teacher and had numerous pupils who continued his branch of the Utagawa school
Utagawa school
The was a group of Japanese woodblock print artists, founded by Toyoharu. His pupil, Toyokuni I, took over after Toyoharu's death and raised the group to become the most famous and powerful woodblock print school for the remainder of the 19th century....

. Among the most notable were Yoshitoshi
Yoshitoshi
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was a Japanese artist.He is widely recognized as the last great master of Ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese woodblock printing. He is additionally regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of feudal Japan, and the first years of...

, Yoshitora, Yoshiiku, Yoshikazu, and Yoshifuji. Typically his students began an apprenticeship in which they worked primarily on musha-e in a style similar to that of their master. As they became established as independent artists, many went on to develop highly innovative styles of their own. His most important student was Yoshitoshi
Yoshitoshi
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was a Japanese artist.He is widely recognized as the last great master of Ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese woodblock printing. He is additionally regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of feudal Japan, and the first years of...

, who is now regarded as the "last master" of the Japanese woodblock print.

Among those influenced by Kuniyoshi was Toyohara Chikanobu
Toyohara Chikanobu
, better known to his contemporaries as , was a prolific woodblock artist of Japan's Meiji period.-Names:Chikanobu signed his artwork . This was his...

. Takashi Murakami
Takashi Murakami
is an internationally prolific contemporary Japanese artist. He works in fine arts media—such as painting and sculpture—as well as what is conventionally considered commercial media —fashion, merchandise, and animation— and is known for blurring the line between high and low art...

 credits the pioneering influence of Kuniyoshi affecting his work.

Print series

Here is a partial list of his print series, with dates:
  • Illustrated Abridged Biography of the Founder (c. 1831)
  • Famous Views of the Eastern Capital (c. 1834)
  • Heroes of Our Country's Suikoden (c. 1836)
  • Stories of Wise and Virtuous Women (c. 1841-1842)
  • Fifty-Three Parallels for the Tōkaidō (1843–1845) (with Hiroshige
    Hiroshige
    was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. He was also referred to as Andō Hiroshige and by the art name of Ichiyūsai Hiroshige ....

     and Toyokuni III)
  • Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety (1843–1846)
  • Mirror of the Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety (1844–1846)
  • Six Crystal Rivers (1847–1848)
  • Fidelity in Revenge (c. 1848)
  • Twenty-Four Chinese Paragons of Filial Piety (c. 1848)
  • Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaido (1852)
  • Portraits of Samurai of True Loyalty (1852)
  • 24 Generals of the Kai Provence (1853)
  • Half-length portrait of Goshaku Somegoro
    Goshaku Somegoro
    Goshaku Somegoro is a fictional hero made popular in Japanese kabuki theatre in the play Koi moyô furisode myoto ....

  • Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre
    Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre
    "Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre" is a woodblock print by the Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi , who was especially renowned for his depictions of historical and mythical scenes. This print portrays the tenth-century witch, Takiyasha, calling up a monstrous skeleton-spectre....


Themes

Kuniyoshi's work may be parsed thematically, as in this group of images which feature cats.

Caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...

s were among Kuniyoshi's themes.

Further reading

  • Merlin C. Dailey, David Stansbury, Utagawa Kuniyoshi: An Exhibition of the Work of Utagawa Kuniyoshi Based on the Raymond A. Bidwell Collection of Japanese Prints at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts (Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, 1980)
  • Merlin C. Dailey, The Raymond A. Bidwell Collections of Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield, 1968) Note: completely different volume from the preceding
  • Klompmakers, Inge, “Kuniyoshi’s Tattooed Heroes of the Suikoden”, Andon
    Society for Japanese Arts
    The Society for Japanese Arts was founded in 1937 by a group of Dutch collectors of, and dealers in, Japanese art. Originally called The Society for Japanese Arts and Crafts, the society became international in the 1960s. It currently has over 800 members in 29 countries. The Society sponsors...

    , No. 87, 2009, pp. 18-26.
  • B. W. Robinson, Kuniyoshi (Victoria and Albert, London, 1961)
  • B. W. Robinson, Kuniyoshi: The Warrior Prints (Cornell University, Ithaca, 1982) contains the definitive listing of his prints
  • Robert Schaap, Timothy T. Clark, Matthi Forrer, Inagaki Shin'ichi, Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints By Kuniyoshi 1797-1861 (Hotei, Leiden, 1998) is now the definitive work on him

External links

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