Tosa Mitsuyoshi

Tosa Mitsuyoshi ( Japanese 土 佐 光 吉 , stage name : Kyūyoku (久 翌); born 1539 ; died June 22, 1613 ) was a Japanese painter of the Tosa School during the Muromachi and Momoyama periods .

life and work

Tosa Mitsuyoshi was a student (or according to another opinion, second son) of Tosa Mitsumochi and the father of Mitsunori . In any case, he took over the main branch of the Tosa School , since Mitsumochi's eldest son was killed during the attack that Kinoshita Tōkichirō carried out in 1569 on the province of Tajima (但 馬 kam). In connection with the decline of the imperial court and the shogunate at the end of the Muromachi period, this was a major blow to the status of the Tosa family. This, and also the young age of his successor, meant that the position of head of the painting department at court (繪 所, E-dokoro) was lost.

The elderly Mitsumochi later entrusted the care of his three grandchildren and the future of the Tosa School to his pupil Genji. Genji settled in Sakai and continued his painting activities under the name of Tosa. He and Mitsuyoshi seem to have been the same person. Sakai, which had developed into a flourishing commercial and port city that ruled itself through the activities of the citizens, offered the opportunity for Mitsuyoshi to also act as a contractor for the Kanō School and as an "urban painter" (町 絵 師, Machi eshi).

In the works of Mitsuyoshi that came upon us, little of the vitality of the citizens or the warriors of his time can be seen. But it is believed that the multi-colored screens and murals (障 壁画, Shōheki-ga) on a gold background of the Kanō school owe part of their effect to the technique of the Yamatoe style, which was introduced by Mitsuyoshi and his eldest son Mitsunori .

The screen pair with the themes Sekiya (関 谷), Miyuki (御 幸), Ukifune (浮 船), which are taken from the Genji-Monogatari , and the scroll with the title “Genji-Monogatari zugachō” (源氏物語 図 画 帳) in the National Museum Kyoto includes traditional themes in a good and detailed conservative form. They prove in an exemplary way that the Tosa style differs both from that of the Kanō school, which was in great demand at the time, and from the new painterly direction of Tawaraya Sōtatsu .

photos

• 

  Ashikaga Yoshiteru

• 

  Genji Monogatari 2

• 

  Genji Monogatari 1

• 

  From the Genji-Zugachō.

• 

  Genji monogatari

• 

  Genji monogatari

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Tosa Mitsuyoshi workshop, owned by the Freer Gallery of Art .

Remarks

1. ↑ The name Kinoshita Tōkichirō (木 下 藤 吉 郎) was used by Toyotomi Hideyoshi in his early years.

literature

• Tazawa, Yutaka: Tosa Mitsuyoshi . In: Biographical Dictionary of Japanese Art. Kodansha International, 1981. ISBN 0-87011-488-3 .
• Laurance P. Roberts: Mitsuyoshi . In: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists. Weatherhill, 1976. ISBN 0-8348-0113-2 .

Web links

Commons : Tosa Mitsuyoshi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

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