Utagawa Sadahide

Yokohama-e from Sadahide, around 1860

Utagawa Sadahide ( Japanese 歌 川 貞 秀 ; * 1807 ; † 1878 or 1879 ) was a master of the Japanese color woodcut in the style of ukiyo-e . He also became famous for the design of several hundred Yokohama-e , which represented the life and customs of the foreigners living in Yokohama .

life and work

Almost nothing is known about his life. He was born as Hashimoto Kenjirō ( 橋本 兼 次郎 ) in Shimousa Province (now Chiba and Ibaraki prefectures ). For the year 1875 it is documented that he lived in the Fukagawa district of Edo (today the Kōtō district in Tokyo ). In the early 1820s, he began his training as a woodcut artist in the studio of Utagawa Kunisada I and is considered one of Kunisada's most important students.

In 1867 he was one of eleven artists whose work represented contemporary Japanese art at the Paris World's Fair . In 1868 he was listed in Edo as the leading woodcut artist of his time. With the beginning of the Meiji period, it was quickly forgotten.

On the prints he designed, he signed with the surnames Gyokuransai ( 玉蘭 斎 ), Gountei ( 五 雲亭 ) or Gyokuō ( 玉 翁 ) before his stage name Sadahide, occasionally supplemented by the original family name Hashimoto.

Sakura in Shimousa Province , with the twin peaks of Mount Tsukuba on the horizon

Sadahide's first known work was the illustrations for the first volume by Jippensha Ikkus Misaogata tsuge no ogushi , which appeared in 1824. The first actor print drawn by him appeared in 1827. In the following years he shifted increasingly to the design of prints depicting beautiful women ( bijin-e ). In the 1830s and 1840s he designed numerous warrior prints ( musha-e ) and landscape views. In the 1860s he was particularly valued by his contemporaries as a draftsman of the Yokohama-e , prints depicting foreigners and their lifestyles in the branch assigned to them in Yokohama . His panoramic depictions of Japanese cities and landscapes earned him special recognition. From a bird's eye view, numerous details of cities such as Edo, Yokohama, Kyōto , Osaka and Nagasaki are depicted on these up to six ōban sheets (approx. 1.5 m) wide . Or they contain views of famous pilgrimage sites and temples with precise details of the sights in their vicinity.

In addition, in the course of his artistic career he was involved in the illustration of more than 230 books, mostly contemporary novels and short stories.

Remarks

1. ↑ In older literature, the year of death is given as 1873. In recent Japanese literature referred to by A. Marks: Japanese woodblock prints. P. 144, is assumed to be in 1878 or 1879.
2. ↑ From the series Famous Places in the Provinces and Counties of Greater Japan (大 日本国 郡名 所), 1868

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Julia Meech-Pekarik: The World of the Meiji Print: Impressions of a New Civilization. Weatherhill, Trumbull 1987, ISBN 0-8348-0209-0 , p. 40.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} A. Marks, p. 144.
3. ^ AR Newland, p. 503.
4. ↑ Inagaki, Shin'ichi: Gountei Hashimoto Sadahide. Pp. 116 to 117. In: Ukiyoe Nyūmon. Kawade, 1990. ISBN 4-309-72476-0 .
5. ↑ Jun'ichi Okubo: Bird's-eye view pictures of urban centers at the end of the Early Modern period. , online from the National Museum of Japanese History , accessed May 21, 2019. (English)
6. ↑ The database of the National Institute of Japanese Literature lists exactly 233 titles that were created with his participation, Union Catalog of Early Japanese Books. (Japanese, entry in Kanji required)

literature

• Amy Reigle Newland (Ed.): The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints. 2 volumes. Hotei, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-74822-65-7 , p. 503. (English)
• Andreas Marks: Japanese Woodblock Prints. Artists, Publishers, and Masterworks 1680-1900. Tuttle, Tokyo et al. 2010, ISBN 978-4-8053-1055-7 , pp. 144 f. (English)

Web links

Commons : Utagawa Sadahide  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Japanese name: As is common in Japan, the family name comes before the first name in this article . Thus Utagawa is the family name, Sadahide the first name.