Original
Posting: 20 October, 2000
Updated:
Prepared by: Steven Boutcher
Genre painting as an independent art form illustrating the daily life of the people, and as deveIoped above all in the field of printmaking, was a new feature of Japanese art life and characterized it for three centuries. It was in this form, moreover, that Japanese art first came to be appreciated in the West, so much so that even today it overshadows, in Western minds, the major achievements of Japanese painting. As much has been written about these woodblock prints in both Europe and America, where they are now fairly well known, all that is called for here is a brief survey of their development and some indication of their place in the history of Japanese painting as a whole.
Scenes of popular life were not of course a modern innovation. Some of the earliest works of secular painting, notably certain scrolls of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, already include varied and realistic illustrations of the ways and manners of the common people. But these were always in the nature of incidental anecdotes or by--play, intended to enliven the main scene or suggest local color. Not until the second half of the sixteenth century do we find works in which scenes of daily life are treated for their own sake as the leading theme of the composition.
As already noted at the beginning of Chapter 7, the social disorders of the late Muromachi period favored the rise of the commercial and industrial class. From that time on, the busy life of the large cities came to form an independent theme for secular painters, even though their patrons, apart from a few wealthy merchants, still belonged the military and aristocratic classes. As we have seen in connection with Kano Eitoku's screen paintings with views of Kyoto, the painters of the Kano school were the first to exploit this subject. Eitoku's uncle, Kano Hideyori (who died in I557), left a screen painting (now in the National Museum, Tokyo) representing the inhabitants of Kyoto admiring the beauty of the red maples on Mount Takao. The stiff linework of the Chinese tradition as applied to rocks and tree trunks is here necessarily softened--but not without some hesitation--to portray the familiar figures of this fete champetre.
From the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century, alongside the large bird and flower compositions sumptuously decorating the interior of vast buildings, genre painting (usually mounted on screens) became increasingly widespread and gave rise to some outstanding works. One of the standard subjects remained the bird's--eye view of Kyoto and its outskirts, combined with scenes of popular life and festivities (rakuchu--rakugai--zu). During the first half of the seventeenth century, these compositions served increasingly as a pretext for illustrating topical events: new monuments, entertainments and public rejoicings, unusual ceremonies (like the commemorative festival for Toyotomi Hideyoshi in I604 or the emperor's visit to the castle of Nijo in I626) and fashionable gatherings (the inauguration of the Kabuki Theater for example). While the mass production of these general views, sold as mementoes or souvenirs of life in the old capital of Japan gradually deprived them of any artistic value, the interest of both patrons and artists shifted to particular scenes treated in detail. A leading theme was chosen, for example the different trades plied in the busy streets of Kyoto, and sets of leaves, each leaf illustrating a specific occupation (shokunin--zukushi ), were produced in quantity and went to form screens or albums. Other themes in high favor were picturesque events like the horse race at the Shinto shrine of Kamo or the memorial celebration at the Hokoku--jinja shrine, the mausoleum of Hideyoshi, on the seventh anniversary of his death. In two surviving works on these themes (one of them signed by Kano Naizen, I570--I6I6) the composition is enlivened by dancers in fanciful disguises, representing each quarter of Kyoto. The fervent homage paid to the dead hero, deepened perhaps by the anxiety caused by the transfer of power, imparts a vivid emotionalism to these screens.
Painters also took a keen interest in the recreations and amusements of the people. The theaters grouped on the banks of the river Kamo, in the Shijo quarter of Kyoto, formed the entertainment center of the city. They are shown in bird's--eye view in spirited compositions full of people in quaint and colorful profusion. Particular entertainments--for example the troupe of Izumo--no--Okuni, a fine actress reputed to have inaugurated the Kabuki dance in front of the Kitano shrine about I603--are illustrated on a great many screens, with the alluring figures of female dancers and musicians (Kabuki--byobu ). Outings in the country, open--air dancing, and all the pleasures freely indulged in now that peace had descended on Japan after a long period of disorder and civil war--these were favorite themes with artists, and in treating them they recreate the brilliant atmosphere of the Japanese Renaissance. The scenes showing the arrival of Westerners (Namban-byobu ) also number among this class of subjects; indeed one of the best of them is signed by Kano Naizen, who also painted screens representing the
memorial ceremony at the Hokoku--jinja shrine. This proves that the academic painters, the Kano in particular, were among the first to take up genre painting, though the bulk of their work consisted of large, solemn compositions decorating official buildings.
We reproduce a detail of a remarkable work bearing the seal of Kano Naganobu (I577--I654), Eitoku's brother. (illustration page 161) This screen painting represents the cherry blossom festival organized by a noble family. On the left is a young prince, cutting a very handsome figure; surrounded by noble ladies, he is watching a group of dancers from the balcony of an octagonal pavilion, perhaps a shrine. Below, serving women are preparing a luncheon while footmen are resting between the pillars of the building, having just put down the palanquins they brought in on their shoulders. So this is not a scene of popular life, but an aristocratic gathering worthy of being represented by an academic painter. The real theme of the picture, however, is the group of four dancers who, together with those on the right, form a merry ring under the full--blown cherry blossoms. (illustration page 161) Three girls with headdresse'd'are dancing briskly to the beat of a small drum, keeping time with their fans, while a young man (or a girl in male disguise) makes spirited gestures of encouragement. Trees and plants are indicated by sharply drawn ink brushstrokes, in accordance with the traditional technique of the Kano school. Figures stand out against the neutral ground of the paper, which brings out to the full the decorative effect of the luxurious costumes. (As a rule, these genre painters are fond of lingering over the delineation of women's costumes, faithfully imitating rich fabrics, brocades, embroideries and hangings, whose manufacture was then greatly on the increase.) The expressive, freely flowing lines of Naganobu's characteristic brush aptly render these feminine figures and their graceful movements. This elegance and freedom already tend to exceed the academic bounds of the Kano school, and we are therefore inclined to attribute to the same artist some of the scenes of popular life decorating the castle of Nagoya.
As this new trend of secular painting gained ground and attracted a wider public, independent artists known as machi--eshi (city painters or popular painters) began to specialize in the production of screens decorated with genre scenes. Presumably trained for the most part in the studios of the Kano school, these artists, by combining the academic style with other techniques, notably that of the Tosa school, achieved a freer mode of expression better suited to the representation of contemporary life. In response to the taste of the public, their interest shifted, as we have seen, from general views to details; figure paintings in particular, above all of beautiful women, unaccompanied either by architecture or landscape, met with an immense success. Many of these charming works have come down to us, nearly always mounted on screens, in which anonymous painters portray different types of feminine beauty, vivacious and appealing, dressed in the latest fashion--for example the richly clad ladies seen in different poses on the screens in the Yamato--bunka--kan at Nara. Moreover, the free and even licentious manners of the period gave rise to pleasure haunts and gay quarters in the cities. Courtesans, dancing girls and yuna (women of easy virtue who worked in the hot baths) accordingly played the leading part in these compositions, the most original of which is the one in the Atami Museum showing six yuna in all their finery walking in the street wearing the kosode, a gaudy, short-sleeved kimono with a thin belt. (illustration page 163)
The rhythmical patterning of these six willowy figures and the agreeable harmony of the colors say much for the talent and ingenuity of this unknown artist. But even more striking is his keen--eyed observation, as ironical as Toulouse--Lautrec's. Instead of depicting conventional female beauty, he has given each of these women a pose and manner all her own, and to each a characteristic physiognomy, a little overdone, whose rather cheerless sensuality evokes the whole tenor of their lives. His technique, moreover, owes nothing to the orthodox styles of either the Kano or the Tosa school. A new style had emerged, already fully worked out in the second quarter of the seventeenth century and well suited to representing the everyday pursuits and amusements of the common people.
Here we have the genesis of ukiyo-e (literally, painting of the "floating world," i.e. passing scene and momentary pleasures), although this term does not actually appear in the writings of the period until I68I.
In the second half of the seventeenth century an important change came over this type of painting: fairly large pictures with groups of figures gave place to smaller pictures of a single figure, mounted on a hanging scroll, which were easier to design and produce. One of the main reasons for the change obviously lay in the fact that these artists were catering for a steadily increasing clientele among the people at large. The growth of the cities under the Tokugawa Shogunate (of Edo particularly, after the great fire of I657) brought increasing prosperity to the middle classes, and they created a demand for paintings answering to their tastes. Many popular artists thus began producing portraits of beautiful women (bijin--ga ) in large numbers, first at Kyoto, then at Edo itself. To meet the demand it was only natural that recourse should be had to the mechanical process of printmaking, which was already in use for the illustration of books.
The technical and esthetic development of these woodblock prints is now known, having been studied in detail by both Western and Japanese specialists; prominent among the latter are Fujikake Shizuya, Shibui Kiyoshi, Narasaki Muneshige and Kondo Ichitaro. Woodcuts were used in classical Japanese painting to lay in the preliminary design; this was the case with the fan--shaped paintings on paper, inscribed with the Lotus Sutra of the Good Law (Hokke--kyo ), which were presented in the form of ten albums to the Shitenno--ji temple at Osaka about II80. From the thirteenth century on the Buddhists often employed this technique for the sacred images they offered to increasing numbers of the faithful; they even published, in I39I, two scrolls decorated solely with engravings in black and white illustrating the origin and development of the Yuzu sect (Yuzu--nenbutsu--engi ). Woodcuts were later used for the illustration of books, whose production rose markedly from the early seventeenth century on. To begin with, the classical novels of the Heian period were copied and illustrated with engravings inspired by drawings in the Tosa style but very feebly imitated. Catering for the demands of the rising middle classes, publishers chose increasingly familiar subjects with a wide appeal, relating to topical events and contemporary life: serial stories (kana--zoshi ), popular ballads (joruri ), anecdotes of famous actors or courtesans (hyoban--ki ), itineraries along main highways like the Tokaido (orai--mono ), etc. The style of the illustrations, following the evolution of genre painting and benefiting by the technical improvements in printmaking, steadily gained in freedom of expression. At first Kyoto and Osaka--a region proud of its long cultural tradition--took the lead in the publication of these works. But with the famous Hishikawa Moronobu (I6I8--I694) the publishing center shifted to Edo, and thanks to him the illustrations, hitherto subordinated to the text, acquired their artistic independence. In the many illustrated books (e--hon ) which Moronobu published in the course of his career (numbering over one hundred and thirty different kinds after I677), the illustrations dominate the text and the painter proudly signs his name, in defiance of the traditional anonymity of all previous illustrators. A large part of these e--hon go to illustrate love scenes enacted in the gay quarter of Yoshiwara; hence the name of ukiyo--e (painting of the floating world) by which his contemporaries referred to this art. But it is interesting to note that Moronobu himself, in signing his pictures, prefixed his name with the words yamato--eshi ("Japanese painter"), which recalls the ancient term yamato--e. There is no knowing whether Moronobu actually had in mind the yamato--e of the Heian and Kamakura periods, but he thereby clearly expressed his desire to create a purely Japanese type of painting reflecting the life and spirit of the times, and to do so by breaking away from the conventional schools imbued with the Chinese tradition. This idea is developed at length in the treatise on painting by Nishikawa Sukenobu (I674--I754) and it may be said to underlie the esthetic of ukiyo--e.
Moronobu largely owed his triumph to the charm of his style. Taking advantage of the latest technical improvements, he was able to produce prints whose quality was in no way inferior to that of drawings. Deft and unerring lines record all the grace of his female models, and by the skillful interplay of two tones, black and white, he obtains simple but sharp and striking effects. His art opened the way to separate prints, the logical conclusion of the autonomy acquired by these illustrations; still produced in sets by Moronobu, they were soon to take the place of paintings properly so called. The style and technique of this new art form evolved rapidly during the initial flowering of the Japanese print (up to I765). Torii Kiyonobu (I664--I729) and his sons Kiyomasu (I694--1716?) and Kiyonobu II (I702--I752), for example, developed Moronobu's style, laying particular emphasis on line and stylization, especially when they portrayed the Kabuki actors (yakusha--e ). Their descendants maintained these close ties with the Kabuki theater and perpetuated the mannered expression of actor portraits.
The painter Kaigetsu--do Ando and his school specialized in the theme of women out for a walk. These mass--produced paintings achieved a peculiar stylization which added a plastic effect to the rhythmic movement of luxurious robes. Then the theme was taken up by print designers. Many other ukiyo--e "primitives" can boast of a charming style all their own: Okumura Masanobu (I686--I764), Nishimura Shigenaga (?-I756), Ishikawa DnObU (I7II-I785), and also Nishikawa Sukenobu who represents the Kyoto school.
Thanks to these artists, the technique of printmaking underwent a rapid and logical evolution, particularly in the use of color. To meet the demand of the public for bright, eye--catching colors, Moronobu himself had experimented with adding colors by hand. But it was left to fellow artists, shortly after his death, to exploit the effect produced on black and white prints by a few dabs of a single color, orange--red (tan, red lead). This technique, known as tan-e, was very popular in the early eighteenth century, and it formed one of distinctive features of the very fine prints executed by the first artists of the Torii family. By the Kyoho era (I7I6--I736), a more advanced technique, probably invented by Okumura Masanobu, a painter and publisher, aroused the interest of the public. A wider variety of bright colors (red, yellow, green or violet) were added to prints, but always by hand. This new style was called beni--e, owing to the agreeable effect of the rose--red (beni ) which replaced orange--red. But to avoid any confusion with the expression beni--zuri--e (explained below), beni-e I s geverally replaced today by the term urishi--e , which refers to the glowing, deep--toned black of these prints, similar to lacquer (urushi).
To illustrate this initial phase of the Japanese print, we have chosen a charming work of the urushi--e type by Torli Kiyonobu II, whose skill in this technique was equal to that of Okumura Masanobu. (illustration page 168) It represents the actor Ogino Isaburo in the role of Araoka Genta, which he interpreted in I726 at the Ichimuraza theater in the play Hinazuru--tokiwa--genji. Following the practice of Masanobu who often produced portraits in set of two or three, this print forms a pendant with the portrait of Arashi Wasaburo disguise as a girl--which thus accounts for the actor's movement toward the left. His body, the long curving sabre and the pine all go to form a well--balanced whole, while the simple colors and the sharp black lines emphasize the impression of movement. Herein lies the charm of these early prints, which have a more direct appeal than the later, more highly developed works.
Nevertheless, the public and even the artists of that day regarded both the absence of color and the use of these simple color schemes as the chief drawback of the print. So it was that Miyakawa Choshun (I683--I753) and his disciples ignored printmaking and confined themselves to painting for their pictures of women, which gave them scope for lavish displays of color. But publishers and artists continued to seek a way of coloring prints by means of wood blocks. Presumably following the methods used in Chinese
polychrome prints (in particular the lavishly decorated sheets of paper used for calligraphy), they began by adding several colors (rose--red and bluish green) to the black and white engraving, each color being printed with a separate wood block, and the blocks kept in perfect register by means of guide marks (kento ). This technique, known as beni--zuri--e (painting printed with rose--red), first used only for the printing of de luxe calendars (e--goyomi ) about I745, was soon adopted for commercial printmaking. It remained in vogue for nearly twenty years, and the addition of new colors (violet and yellow) gradually prepared the way for the full development of polychrome prints. Among the artists of this period Ishikawa Toyonobu (I7II--I785) admirably explored the possibilities of this technique, occasionally adding bright colors in fanciful harmonies beautifully adapted to his mild and seductive style.
After a century--long evolution, the Japanese print finally attained to technical and
esthetic perfection in the polychrome print called nishiki--e. It so happens--and this is
very unusual in the history of art--that this result was obtained at one blow, at a given
date, thanks to a group of art lovers and craftsmen and a single painter. At Edo, early in the new year, I765 (the second year of the Meiwa era), a group of haikai poets (a witty
poem of seventeen syllables) designed and printed some illustrated almanacs (e--goyomi) whose beauty and esprit made them objects of friendly rivalry, which they exchanged with each other. Edo at that time was enjoying a period of undisturbed peace which left its inhabitants free to pursue an ideal of elegance and refinement in all the arts of good living. To these groups of amateur poets, which included both military men of the middle class and rich tradesmen, their elegant pastimes seemed more important than anything else in life, and they accordingly spared no expense to make the decorative design of each leaf of the abridged calendar of that year (ryaku--reki ) as perfect as possible. Several of these dilettanti conceived the idea of printing a de luxe edition of their almanac in seven or eight colors. Thanks to the collaboration of Suzuki Harunobu (I725--I770), a talented artist, and the best block--cutters (hori--shi ) and printers (suri--shi ), all thoroughly familiar with the art of beni--zuri--e, the undertaking achieved astonishing results. The wide range of delicate colors greatly enhanced the graceful designs of Harunobu, and the print acquired a beauty far surpassing anything seen before. The public responded enthusiastically to the new works and the publisher lost no time in issuing a commercial edition of these luxurious surimono (prints in a limited edition for distribution among friends), which came to be called nishiki--e ("brocade painting"), the effect obtained being reminiscent of fine brocade (nishiki ). This was naturally a triumph for Harunobu, whose career as a painter had hitherto been by no means remarkable in any way. The highly refined compositions of these first surimono (reissued later in commercial editions of nishiki--e ) were undoubtedly inspired by these elegant amateur poets and designed in accordance with their taste; a hatamoto (direct vassal of the Shogun), for example, often had his artistic pseudonym Kyosen inscribed on prints, accompanied by the suffix ko (meaning "based on the idea of..."). But without Harunobu's genius, those ideas might never have been so successfully realized.
Encouraged by the reception of these prints, Harunobu worked unremittingly until his death in I770, leaving over six hundred wood blocks executed in the space of six years. Having assimilated the style of his predecessors, of Ishikawa Toyonobu and even Tishikawa Sukenobu of Kyoto, he succeeded in endowing his female figures with the almost superhuman grace of weightless bodies, with slender waists and tiny feet and hands, whose stylized faces convey no expression of feeling. Unlike those of his precursors, the "primitives," who portrayed their beautiful women against a neutral background, his compositions stand in a natural or architectural setting. Not that he is concerned with realistic effects; on the contrary, the setting of Harunobu's fanciful figures, whether indoors or out of doors, is imbued with lyricism and an appealing sense of poetry. His wide range of colors, with their harmonies or contrasts, renders the appropriate texture of every detail and tends toward a purely pictorial effect. The girl making her way on a stormy night to the Shinto shrine--to pray for the success of a love affair and perhaps to curse her rival--is an almost fantastic vision in which the lantern alone suggests the darkness, and the broken umbrella the violence of the storm: her delicate features betray no hint of heartache or sorrow, but an extraordinary, well--nigh mystic beauty emerges from the design and color harmony. (illustration page 169) Is there not a parallel to be drawn here with the scroll paintings of the Tale of Genji ? Is there not a mysterious correspondence between these pretty girls and the fine ladies of six centuries before, seated in their aristocratic palaces, with their characteristic features, the eyes reduced to a slit, the nose a mere hook, the lips a small dot of red? It is here, in our opinion, that the expression yamato--eshi ("Japanese painter"), which Moronobu proudly prefixed to his signature, finds its full and explicit meaning. Moreover, the interest Harunobu took in the classical arts of Japan often prompted him to insert in his pictures the ancient poems from which he took the subject. This was a deliberate evocation of the aristocratic period, and Harunobu's works thereby hark back to the oldest classical tradition of Japanese painting.
His art, whose roots lie deep in the Japanese soul, exerted a decisive influence on the prints of the Meiwa era (I764--I772). Not only the masters of the female figure, like Isoda Koryusai, imitated his style, but those who specialized in actors'portraits, like Katsukawa Shunsho (I726--I792) and Ippitsusai Buncho, also adopted his elegant mode of expression. It was not until after Harunobu's death in I770 that these artists reverted to a more personal style. Koryusai, like Kitao Shigemasa (I739--I820) and his disciples, then proceeded to give female figures a realistic expression quite devoid of poetic overtones. Seen against a neutral background, as in the early prints, they unaffectedly display the graceful curves of their body and the beauty of their costume. Katsukawa Shunsho also treats his portraits of actors with straightforward realism, thus breaking away from the conventional expression of the Torii school. (At the end of his life he painted beautiful women with unfailing finesse and discrimination in settings of everyday life.)
Another great artist, Torii Kiyonaga (I752--I8I5), whose style was shaped by the realism of the An--ei era (I772--I78I), successfully created a new type of elegance. A pupil of Torii Kiyomitsu (I735--I785), he began his career about I770 with portraits of actors. But he soon abandoned the tradition of the school to try his hand at female figures, following the example of his master Kiyomitsu. Kiyonaga freed himself in turn from the influences of Harunobu, Koryusai and Shigemasa, and by the beginning of the Temmei era (I78I--I789) he was in possession of a personal style, to which he remained faithful until his death in I8I5. His illustrations of fine ladies with beautifully proportioned figures and gentle features, usually before a landscape (sometimes a famous site in Edo) or in an elegant interior, strike a happy mean between realism and idealism. But while the setting is always imbued with the poetry of a particular season, the reality of their presence is never weakened by the lyrical atmosphere or the pictorial design of the whole. Thanks to the technical progress made by this time, his works are remarkable for their bright and harmonious coloring. One cannot help feeling that the equilibrium and serenity of this art may well be a reflection of the character and the smooth, untroubled career of the artist, who, born into a family of booksellers, became in time the head of the school of the Torii family (I785). Or should we rather see in his art an echo of the sobriety and common sense of the bourgeoisie of Edo in the Temmei era? A highly skilled designer, Kiyonaga was not content with the limited format of nishiki--e (usually about I5 inches by IO). He was the first to conceive the ingenious idea of assembling several sheets either horizontally or vertically, thus obtaining a large composition, each part of which, taken separately, was independent and sufficient unto itself (tsuzuki--mono ).
The beauty of the female form, raised to a "classical" perfection by Kiyonaga, found a fresh interpretation in the art of Kitagawa Utamaro (I753--I806). His talent was discovered by an intelligent publisher, Tsuta--ya Juzaburo (known to art lovers by his emblem, an ivy leaf--tsuta --surmounted by Mount Fuji), who established him as Kiyonaga's rival. His early works of the Temmei era, skillful compositions of girls grouped in picturesque settings, followed the way opened up by Kiyonaga. But about I790 Utamaro created a style of his own with his "large--faced" prints in close--up (okubi--e ). This innovation, enabling him to focus expression wholly on bust and face, ensured his success. Tireless interpreter of feminine charm, he took as his models not only the ladies of what Edmond de Goncourt called the "green houses," but all types of womanhood of different ages and social classes. So much has been said and written about this master physiognomist and psychologist that we can most fittingly pay homage to him here by reproducing one of his most fascinating and accomplished works.
In the series of Love Poems (Kasen--koi--no--bu ) Utamaro interpreted the different aspects and changing moods of love (melancholy, unavowed, disclosed, etc.), according to the time--honored classification of the classical anthologies; and each shade of feeling is reflected on the faces of these young wives. In "Melancholy Love" (mono--omou--koi ) the profile of a woman wrapped in her thoughts stands out against the yellow background symbolizing the glow of the oil lamp. (illustration page 172) Tender colors--gray, mauve, bright yellow--evoke the secret charm of tender thoughts, while the dab of red on lips and sleeves hints at hidden passions whose chagrin peeps out, moreover, through the half--closed eyes. Without any literary allusions or lyrical setting, the whole psychology of love is conveyed by purely pictorial means.
We may note a technical refinement of which Utamaro took advantage with a good deal of skill. Already in Harunobu's time the new technique of nishiki--e called for the use of high--quality paper capable of withstanding several successive impressions. Hosho paper, thick and immaculately white, provided the solution, and its soft, spongy texture added a new element of beauty to the print. To represent any white object, linen or snow or example, it was enough to print the outlines without any color (kara--oshi, uninked impression). Utamaro explored every possibility afforded by the "tactile" quality of the paper's texture. Sometimes, in defiance of the Japanese tradition of draftsmanship, he even dispensed with the contour lines, first of the face, then of the body, and built up the form with color alone.
But Utamaro's brilliant style, of which the artist himself was so proud, even to the point of arrogance, failed to overshadow the work of his contemporaries, as had been the case with Harunobu. Kiyonaga, who survived him by nearly ten years, went on working with undiminished success and extended his field of activity to the world of actors portrayed in their everyday pursuits. Hosoda or Chobun--sai Eishi (I756--I8I5), owing perhaps to his military origin, gave an expression of noble distinction to his beautiful women with their slender figures and elongated faces. Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769-I825) began his career as a designer of actors' portraits and female figures. It was his host of disciples, moreover, who throughout the nineteenth century perpetuated the traditional prints of beautiful women, but the heights attained in the art form in the late eighteenth century were never again equaled.
It would be unjust to leave the eighteenth century without some mention of another great artist, Toshusai Sharaku, a superlative portrayer of actors and a man whose life is shrouded in mystery. It has already been said that the chief sources of inspiration ukiyo--e were the Kabuki theater and the gay quarter of Yoshiwara. Portraits of famous actors in each of their new roles were much sought after by the theater--goers of Edo and indeed of all Japan. Katsukawa Shunsho and his disciples introduced a personal note into their prints by laying a maximum of emphasis on graceful gestures and attractive faces. But one group of portraits lies conspicuously outside this tradition: all of them bear the signature of Toshusai Sharaku and the mark of the publisher Tsuta--ya Juzaburo. Ever since attention was focused on Sharaku's genius by European critics, Dr Kurth among others, some hundred and forty prints have been attributed to him, and their dating carefully worked out on the basis of the actors' names or emblems (inscribed on the prints) and their roles. This chronological study results, however, in an astonishing conclusion: Sharaku would seem to have published his first works immediately after the theatrical season of May I794 and to have abandoned art altogether at the beginning of the follo ing year. His career as an artist, then, seems to have lasted about ten months, and to this enigma is added the mystery that surrounds his life. According to a book (Shin--ukiyoe--ruiko ) published in I869, he was a No actor under the name of Saito Jurobei, and was patronized by the lord of Awa; but this legend is unsupported by any proof.
In any case, the first published set of Sharaku's prints consists of twenty--eight portraits in close--up of famous actors playing in the three theaters of Edo in May I794. Their heads and upper bodies stand out against a dark, silvery gray background (of powdered black mica); their faces and gestures, characteristic of their personality and role, are unforgettable. (illustration page 173) Take, for example, the portrait of Ichikawa Ebizo in the role of Takemura Sadanoshin at the Kawarasaki--za theater. The striking features of the veteran actor are recorded with astonishingly acute powers of observation: the semicircular eyes heavily made up, the long hooked nose, the broad slit of the mouth, the clenched hands. The straightforward contrast of the three colors further emphasizes the power and boldness of the expression. All the portraits of this series (some of them coupled two by two, the contrast between them throwing the salient features of each into relief) are handled with the same vigor, the same relentless exaggeration, diametrically opposed to the grace, refinement or showiness to which the ukiyo--e owed their beauty. The second set of Sharaku's prints refers to the July performances. This time all the actors are shown full length in arresting attitudes. In the next two sets, however (of November I794 and February I795), the scope of the composition tends to broaden still further and includes the stage--except for ten or twelve busts, less impressive than those of the first set--while facial expressions are appreciably less bold. Here, then, we find the artist moving progressively back from his subject; beginning with close--ups of heads, he went on to full--length portraits and ended with "long shots" of actors on stage amid the sets. This receding viewpoint is curiously contrary to the main evolution of Japanese genre painting, which had developed from the general to the particular, from overall views to details. This change of approach and the artistic deterioration that ensued have often been explained as follows: the bold expression of the first set of prints, though encouraged by his publisher, must have offended the public, which preferred to have its favorite actors idealized. Sharaku accordingly attenuated the violence of facial expressions, while stepping back from the subject and attempting to convey something of the same effect in the gestures of his figures. This ill--fated artist then disappeared from the art world, leaving behind him a whole series of virtually unrecognized masterpieces.
With fashionable beauties and actors' portraits as its staple themes, the Japanese print reached its height in the late eighteenth century. But it had not yet said its last word. It was still to achieve great things in another field, that of landscape. Leaving the pleasure haunts and the Kabuki theater which had hitherto been their sources of inspiration, and to which their art owes its name of ukiyo--e (painting of the "floating world"), the print designers turned now to a more stable world common to all men.
The pioneer of this new venture was Katsushika Hokusai (I760--I849), the fou de peinture to whom Edmond de Goncourt paid homage so movingly. "I was born at the age of fifty," he liked to say, alluding to the long artistic pilgrimage that prepared the way for the flowering of his art at the end of the eighteenth century. Born on the eastern outskirts of Edo, in what was then still a countrified part of the city, he never lost the "peasant spirit of the Katsushika district"; not for him the genteel manners of Edo's bourgeoisie. After trying several handicrafts, he entered the studio of Katsukawa Shunsho in I778 and worked there for fifteen years on actors' portraits and illustrations for serial stories, under the name of Shunro. On the death of his master in I792, he left the studio owing to a conflict with his colleague Shunko. It was then that, with indomitable perseverance, he set himself to study the techniques of the Kano, the Shumiyoshi (a derivative of the classical Tosa school), and the Sotatsu--Korin schools (adopting the name Tawara--ya Sori in his enthusiasm for the latter), and even Dutch engravings! This encounter with Western art was to play a key part in the formation of his style.
Despite the strict policy of isolationism maintained by the Tokugawa government, Dutch traders were granted permission to communicate with Japan through a single port, Nagasaki (though their privileges were limited to a small concession on the artificial islet of Dejima). Through this loophole on the West, following the adoption in I720 of a more tolerant policy by the eighth Shogun Yoshimune, a few Dutch books on scientific subjects, illustrated with engravings, filtered into Japan. The technique of these copper engravings, and above all the rules of perspective they embodied, did not fail to exert a certain influence on Japanese painters of the period, on Maruyama Okyo, for example (who will be dealt with in the next chapter). Print designers working in the urushi--e style (roughly between I7I6 and I736) had already made some rather naive and clumsy attempts at perspective landscapes called uki--e (painting in depth). Utagawa Toyoha: (I735--I8I4), founder of the powerful Utagawa school, reverted to this "trompe--l'oceil technique, but in a more refined style, and used it to represent famous sites in Edo and even to produce a view of Venice!
But starting out from these elementary landscapes and from the settings used by Harunobu and Kiyonaga for their fashionable beauties, how did Hokusai achieve so original an expression of nature? The opinion of the late Kondo Ichitaro, a leading specialist in ukiyo--e , carries most weight and may be summed up as follows. Hokusai--to use the pseudonym finally chosen by the artist in I798 after a long string of other names--began by publishing a set of pure landscapes in the Western style inspired by Duch engravings. These views of Edo and maritime scenes of the surrounding region, with Japanese inscriptions in syllabic characters imitating the Latin alphabet, are seen in exaggerated perspectives and chiaroscuro which form a curious contrast with the linear expression of the figures. Hokusai here adopted for the first time a single, very lc viewpoint, utterly foreign to the Japanese tradition. And it was these two principles which enabled him to create his masterpieces, among others his famous views of Mount Fuji. This unexpected meeting of East and West was to have further repercussions half a century later when Hokusai's prints were discovered and studied by artists in Paris.
Hokusai then produced several sets of views of the Tokaido (from I804 on) and famous spots in Edo. In I8I4 began the publication of the famous Hokusai Manga, a kind of picture encyclopedia in which he incorporated his whole repertory of drawings, the fruit of a lifetime's experience. (Thirteen books appeared during his life, and two more after his death.) Finally he published the first Mount Fuji series (from about I825 to I831), which, in spite of its title (Thirty--six Views ), actually includes forty--six scenes. Departing from the Japanese tradition, he generally adopted a low angle of vision, which enabled him to achieve picturesque and impressive effects--Mount Fuji, for example, seen in the distance beyond a huge wave. At the same time a few human figures serve to enliven his landscapes. Here, nevertheless, we have chosen to reproduce the wonderful "Red Fuji," untroubled by any sign of human life. (illustration page 175) "The south wind brings fine weather"(Gaifu--kaisei ), reads the inscription on the upper left, and thus we have a view, almost a vision, of the sacred mountain standing out against a blue sky streaked with wispy, fair--weather clouds. I know, for having admired it so many times myself, that when the rays of the sun strike Mount Fuji at the dawn of a summer's day, the upper part of the cone, covered with volcanic ash, kindles to a blood--red glow which the dark green of the virgin forest on the slopes only serves to emphasize. Hokusai's coloring is therefore quite authentic, but in the telling simplification of his design the artist departs from reality, the better to convey the grandeur of the great volcano within the limits of this small print. The "Red Fuji" of Hokusai comes like an echo of the charming background landscapes of medieval scroll paintings; of the independent landscapes of Sesshu, sturdily built up with powerful brushstrokes; of the decorative scenery of Sotatsu, composed of colored planes; and indeed it conjures up in the mind's eye the whole glorious past of Japanese painting. After a Iifetime of passionate research and unswerving devotion to his art, can he really be said to have found the sincerest expression of his "impression?"
Encouraged by the favorable reception of his prints (the Red Fuji, the Stormy Fuji with a Thunderbolt, and the Fuji seen beyond a Wave all belong to the first period of this series), Hokusai finished this mighty group of works in I83I and, though now over seventy, embarked on a new series even more grandiose, the Hundred Views of Mount Fuji, published from I834. It was then that his supremacy was challenged by the unexpected success of a young rival: Ando or Ichiyu--sai Hiroshige (1797--1858), who aroused general enthusiasm in 1833 with the publication of his Tokaido--goju--santsugi (Fifty-three Stages of the Tokaido Highway, a scenic route connecting the two capitals, Edo and Kyoto).
Hiroshige differed from Hokusai both in his temperament and his way of life. Son of the chief of a fire brigade, belonging to a well--to--do military family of the lower rank, he began as an amateur painter and, after abandoning his father's profession, entered the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro (I773--I828), an artist who was less famous than Toyokuni, but whose bland and dispassionate style was better suited to his temperament. He tried his hand at the different types of print in vogue in the early nineteenth century: historical scenes, actors' portraits, and beautiful girls. After his master's death he turned to landscape, taking inspiration from Hokusai's views of Mount Fuji, and to bird and flower compositions. His first set of ten prints, Famous Sites of the Eastern Capital (Toto--meisho ), published in I83I or I832, at once revealed his gifts and the qualities of his design, despite the strong influence of Hokusai. Then in August I832 he took the opportunity of accompanying an official messenger of the Shogun dispatched to the imperial court at Kyoto. He made the journey there and back by way of the great Tokaido highway, executing countless sketches of the landscape scenery and relay stations (shukuba ) along the road. The experience thus gained helped him to work out a style of his own, and with the Fifty--three Stages of the Tokaido, issued in the following year by the publisher Hoei--do, he gave the full measure of his genius.
Contrary to Hokusai's spirited style, Hiroshige steeped nature in a subdued atmosphere of gentle poetry conveyed in terms of delicate strokes and harmonious color schemes--an all--pervading mildness and lyricism better suited to the taste of the public His vision of nature is always bound up with man and charged with a poetic appeal. (illustration page 178) A perfect examp]e of Hiroshige's pictorial and poetic genius is the well--known scene oi Shono which, by courtesy of the National Museum, Tokyo, we were able to photograph from one of the best of the original prints, until recently still in the possession of the artist's family. The slanting, criss--crossing lines of the hillside, the roofs, the swaying bamboo and the pelting rain convey the movement and bustle brought on by the shower, as people run for shelter, and convey it without impairing the balance and harmony of the composition. The figures, drawn straight from life, reveal the sureness of his draftsmanship; but, a great colorist as well, he successfully unifies the whole scene by means of a prevailing darkness of tone evoking the sadness of a rainy day in the country. (illustration page 178) One of the most striking things about the work is the effect produced by the clumps of bamboo silhouetted against the sky. Much of the beauty of Hiroshige's art springs from his sensitive response to variations of weather and the changing seasons, and this feeling for nature links his work with the lyrical landscapes of the yamato--e of the Heian period.
The fame Hiroshige enjoyed proved to be more lasting and widespread than that of Hokusai, and it encouraged him to go on publishing landscapes and bird and flower compositions in successive sets until his death. By the time he had composed forty different sets of views of the Tokaido highway, his inspiration had, not unnaturally, begun to fail him. But the full refinement and depth of his sense of poetry and form are apparent in the Kiso--kaido series (the great highway running east and west through the central mountains of Honshu), dating to about I837--I842, and in the large composition with three landscapes, published toward the end of his life (in I857) and featuring the three essential elements of Japanese scenery: snow, flowers and the moon. As for Hokusai, though fallen on evil days, he went on working in proud solitude, indulging in a mannered style increasingly marked as he grew older. With the freshness of his vision gradually clouded by care, he reached the end of his tragic life in I849, dying at the age of ninety. On his death bed he said, "If Heaven had given me but ten years more, I should have become a true painter."
The long domination of the Tokugawa was drawing to a close. The feudal regime was now unable to cope with the problems facing it: economic difficulties, the movement for the restoration of the imperial power, and pressure from abroad for the opening up of the country to the West. The prevailing uncertainty of the times led the people at large, and the inhabitants of Edo above all, to seek relief in the pleasures and excitements of the moment. Mirrors of this "floating world," the ukiyo--e prints of courtesans and actors faithfully reflect this state of mind. Despite the efforts of Utagawa Kunisada (I786--I864) and Utagawa Kunlyoshi (I797--I86I), the best pupils of Toyokuni I, and the efforts too of Kikukawa Eisen (I790--I848), influenced in his art and eccentric way of life by Hokusai, the Japanese print now lost the spacious design and grace of the eighteenth entury and lapsed into sensual expression. Being issued in increasingly large editions, it suffered a fatal decline both in workmanship and in the quality of the materials employed. The vivid colors, red and blue especially, which had been so impressive in the great landscapes of Hokusai and Hiroshige, become showy and crude in the later prints of pretty girls and actors.
The Japanese print reached the end of its cycle of development in the mid--nineteenth century, just as it was beginning to arouse the interest of artists and art lovers on the other side of the world, in France in particular. This is not the place to study the delicate problem of the "influence" exerted by Japanese prints on Western art, notably on the Impressionists. It is interesting to observe, however, that the "marvels" from the land of the Rising Sun which fired the enthusiasm of Manet, Monet, Degas, Whistler, Gauguin, Van Gogh, and so many others, were actually but debased, third--rate works of the nineteenth century. This is quite clear not only from the Japanese prints that figure in pictures by these artists (for example, in Manet's Portrait of Emile Zola and Van Gogh's Pere Tanguy ), but also from the many prints in Van Gogh's own collection bequeathed to the Musee Guimet, Paris, by the family of Dr Gachet. Recently published records preserved in the National Library, Tokyo, are equally enlightening in this respect. These are the official archives relating to one hundred prints ordered by the shogunal government for exhibition at the Paris World's Fair of I867. Fifty of these prints, divided into two albums, consisted of female figures representing different occupations and intended to illustrate Japanese life; the other fifty were landscapes, for the most part views of Edo. The artists who shared this official commission numbered among the leading print designers of the day, but they all belonged to the last generation of ukiyo--e (Hoen, Kuniteru, Sadahide, Hiroshige III, Kunisada II, etc.). Sold off after the exhibition, these prints contributed powerfully to the first wave of "japonisme " that swept over the Paris art world. Such was the "Japanese revelation," as it has been called, and one cannot help marveling that French artists should have been able to draw so important and fruitful a lesson from prints which strike us today as banal and decadent. How could they grasp the whole esthetic of ukiyo--e from the mannerism of this art? How could they divine the message of the great masters of the eighteenth century through the works of these minor artists? (As a matter of fact, it was not until the Paris World's Fair of I889 that they discovered the seductive grace of Utamaro, and much later still before they became acquainted with the idyllic beauty of Harunobu and the dynamic design of the "primitives.") So once again it was the decadent mannerism of a country's art that made it known and influential abroad.
Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Bibliography