Katsukawa Shunsho
Katsukawa Shunshō ( Japanese. 勝 川 春 章 ; * 1726 ; † January 19, 1793 in Edo (today: Tokyo )) was a Japanese woodcut artist and painter in the Ukiyo-e style and founder of the Katsukawa school .
Life
The established facts about Shunsho are sparse. His real name is known as Yōsuke, from 1774 Yūsuke. He was a student of Miyagawa Shunsui, from which he has taken over the later name Katsugawa, and students of from Hanabusa school coming Kō Sukoku . The Ukiyo-e Ruikō (Eng. Thoughts on Ukiyo-e ), compiled by Ōta Nampo around 1790, mentions that he used the name Katsumiyagawa for a while and initially had no artist name of his own. Instead, he would have used the name of Hayashiya Shichiemon, in whose house in Ningyō-chō, a district of Edo, he lived at the time. This information speaks for Shunshō's signature on his early work, which consisted of a seal in the shape of a pot, in the middle of which the Kanji 林 ( Onyomi rin or Kunyomi hayashi , dt. Grove) was.
Some evidence suggests that Shunshō comes from a samurai family . B. his acquaintance with Ippitsusai Bunchō (1755-1790), from whom this is also assumed; the fact that he was with great certainty a drawing teacher of the high-ranking samurai Koikawa Harumachi I , and his designation as Zatsugakusha ( 雑 学者 , dt. "person with high education") in a book Morishima Chūryōs . That Shunshō was also active as a haiku poet is proven by a poem published in an anthology in 1774 . It is likely that he wrote Kyōka poems in the 1780s , but it is not known to be certain. From the surviving tombstone on the site of Matsudaira Saifuku-ji in Asakusa and the burial records that have also been preserved, the exact day of Shuncho's death is known, as well as the fact that he lived in the Tadakoro-chō district in Edo before his death.
plant
In 1764, the first print drawn by Shunshō appeared with the representation of a Kabuki actor in the narrow Hosoban format. At the same time as Ippitsusai Buncho he began to draw a new kind of actor portraits. In contrast to the previous prints by the members of the Torii school , the actors in his Yakusha-e (portraits of actors and scenes from the Kabuki theater) could be recognized by their individual facial features. The prints were alive, especially because he managed to capture the actor's personality. Most characteristic of him was his ability to reproduce the actors realistically; none of his contemporaries could come close to him in this regard. His mastery as a portraitist distinguished him from all previous Japanese woodcut artists. The new style in portrait art became particularly clear in the book Ehon Butai Ōgi ( 絵 本 舞台 扇 , German Illustrated Book of Stage Subjects ) drawn together with Ippitsusai Bunchō in 1770 . It contains the images of all the kabuki theater actors who were popular in Edo at the time, shown with a portrait of the upper body on the background of a Japanese folding fan ( 扇 , Ōgi ). Shunshō chose the same form of representation a few years later for his actor series Azuma Ōgi ( 東 扇 , dt. Fan from the east ), which appeared in Ōban format. In the field of Yakusha-e , Shunshō's work is considered a milestone in the development of Japanese woodblock prints .
Shunshō also proved to be an innovator in the portrayal of the poets of the anthology Hyakunin Isshu ( 錦 百 人 一 首 あ つ ま 織 , Nishiki Hyakunin Isshu Azumaori , dt. Real representation of the hundred poets of the hundred poems in brocade pictures , 1774). Up until now, the poets had been portrayed in a uniform and conventional manner and hardly differed in their facial features. Shunshō broke with this tradition and gave the poets individual appearances that made them appear as personalities.
His influence on the development of the bijinga (depictions of beautiful women) was also considerable. In the late 1760s, Shunshō drew a few designs for Bijinga , the ( 深 川 八景 , Fukagawa Hakkei , Eng . Eight Views of Fukagawa ), which were heavily influenced by Suzuki Harunobu's conception and style of drawing, but overall these prints were rather stiff and lifeless. He had his first success in the field of bijinga at the beginning of the 1770s with the series The Tales of Ise ( 伊 勢 物語 , Ise Monogatari ). The 48 sheets of the series already differed greatly from Harunobu's style by the use of classical themes reminiscent of Chinese models. In 1772 he and Kitao Shigemasa designed the series of silk worms ( 蚕 養 草 , Kaiko Yashinai Gusa ), which show Bijin at work, a rather unusual representation for the time. Shigemasa and Shunshō continued their collaboration in 1776 with the illustrated book Comparison of the Beauties of the 'Green Houses': A Mirror of Their Forms ( 青楼 美人 合 姿 鏡 , Seirō Bijin Awase Sugata Kagami ). It depicts the women of the Yoshiwara brothel district in their private life together with other women. The women appeared in the current kimono , sported the latest hairstyles and acted completely natural. This type of presentation, which was enthusiastically received by the audience, quickly found numerous successors such as B. Kitao Masanobu and Isoda Koryūsai .
In 1782 Shunsho began creating designs for pictures of sumo wrestlers and depicting famous sumo wrestling matches. The way he portrayed the subject remained trend-setting for Japanese woodblock prints until the late 1820s. Likewise the representation of the Musha-e (pictures of historical scenes and famous heroes), which Shunshō has drawn again and again in the course of his work, and whose design was only renewed 40 years after his death by the style of the Utagawa school .
In the course of his work, Shunshō drew drafts for several hundred actor prints, most of which were created as individual prints; However, there are also multi-sheet prints from the diptych to the pentaptych . He designed his prints for 18 different publishers. The actor prints are predominantly made in Hosoban format, Bijiin prints are mostly in Chūban format, only a few sheets have the larger Ōban format (including actors, Musha-e , Sumō-e and a few landscape prints ) and individual Bijinga and Musha -e are designed as a "post image " ( Hashira-e ).
He illustrated around 50 books alone or together with other artists. In addition, about 20 Shunga , of which the Ehon haikai Yobokodori ( 絵 本 拝 開 夜 婦 子 取 , Haikai Book of the Cuckoo , 1788) is considered to be one of the best of its time.
A little more than a hundred paintings by him are known, the earliest of which can be dated to the end of the 1770s, most of them to the last years of his life. For the last two years of his life he was obviously only active as a painter. Shunshō's paintings mostly show Bijin, mostly several together, busy with everyday chores, playing or at the festivities associated with the seasons.
The three hanging pictures Snow, Moon and Flowers ( 雪 月 花 , Setsu gekka), which are kept in the MOA Museum of Art , are classified as an important cultural asset of Japan .
Students and signatures
Shunshō had numerous students, including Katsukawa Shunchō , Katsukawa Shun'ei and Katsushika Hokusai , who as Katsukawa Shunrō had learned the craft of drawing and painting from Ukiyo-e drafts at Shunshō, but after his death left the school and started his own Established painting and drawing tradition. For the list of students see also: Katsukawa School .
Shunshō's real name was Yōsuke, from 1774 Yūsuke (祐助). As a stage name ( Gō ) he used next to Shunshō the names Jūgasei (縦 画 生), Kyokurōsai (旭 郎 斎), Ririn (李林), Shuntei (春亭), Rokurokuan (六 々 庵), Yūji (爾) . Early works are marked with a seal in the shape of a pot and the Kanji 林 ( rin or hayashi , dt. Grove).
literature
- Timothy T. Clark, Osamu Ueda, Donald Jenkins: The Actor's Image. Printmakers of the Katsukawa School (= The Art Institute of Chicago. The Clarence Buckingham Collection of Japanese Prints. Vol. 3). The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL 1994, ISBN 0-86559-097-4 , pp. 17-22, (English).
- Inagaki, Shin'ichi: Katsugawa Shunshō. In: Ukiyoe Nyūmon. Kawade, 1990. ISBN 4-309-72476-0 .
- Andreas Marks: Japanese Woodblock Prints. Artists, Publishers, and Masterworks 1680-1900. Tuttle, Tokyo et al. 2010, ISBN 978-4-8053-1055-7 , p. 52 (English).
- Tazawa, Yutaka: Katsugawa Shunshō . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .
- Laurence P. Roberts: Katsugawa Shunshō . In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .
- Friedrich Succo: Katsukawa Shunshō (Haruaki) (= East Asian graphics. Vol. 3, ZDB -ID 534716-6 ). CF Schulz & Co., Plauen 1922.
Remarks
- ↑ The year of Shunshō's birth is not certain; there is no source from which it can be clearly deduced. Since many of the contemporary Japanese scientists assume (without having any definite proof) that Shunshō died at the age of 67, it is usually assumed that the year of birth was 1726. See: Timothy T. Clark, Osamu Ueda, Donald Jenkins: The Actor's Image. Printmakers of the Katsukawa School. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago 1994, p. 26, footnote 1. In the case of Clark's statement, it remains open whether the age of Shunshō is given according to Japanese or Western counting. If it follows the Japanese tradition, the year of birth would actually have to be given as 1727, since Japanese people of the Edo period already celebrated their second birthday on the first New Year's day following their birth and thus always the number of their years of life compared to the western count of years of life was a year ahead.
- ↑ On the name change of Miyagawa Shunsui see note 1 in the article Katsukawa School
- ↑ a b c For the format information see: List of technical terms of the Japanese woodcut
- ↑ Advertised: Mokichi Okada Association Museum of Art in Atami , Shizuoka Prefecture .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Illustrations by Nishiki Hyakunin Isshu from Shunshō (Japanese), accessed June 20, 2019.
- ↑ 青楼 美人 合 姿 鏡 - Illustration from Shunshō's illustration (Japanese), accessed June 20, 2019
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Katsukawa, Shunshō |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 勝 川 春 章 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Master of Japanese Woodblock Prints (Ukiyo-e) |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1726 |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 19, 1793 |
| Place of death | Edo (today: Tokyo ) |