Utagawa Yoshitora

Musha-e from the series The More Than 60 Famous Generals of Japan , 1866

Utagawa Yoshitora ( Japanese 歌 川 芳 虎 ; active from 1836 to 1882 ) was a master of Japanese color, woodcut and painting in the style of ukiyo-e who lived and worked in Edo .

life and work

Almost nothing is known about his life. He was born as Nagashima Tatsugorō ( 永島 辰 五郎 , also 辰 之 助 or 辰 三郎 ). It is known that between 1876 and 1880 he moved a total of four times within Edo. In 1849 he was sentenced to 50 days of house arrest ( oshikome ) in handcuffs. The reason for the punishment was the draft for a color woodcut, on which Oda Nobunaga , Akechi Mitsuhide , Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu were depicted in a satirical form and which violated Bakufu's censorship regulations. After working as a newspaper journalist in the Meiji period , he illustrated a few books in the early 1880s. The last of these appeared in 1882; after that there is no further information about him.

He began his training as a woodcut artist in the first half of the 1830s in Utagawa Kuniyoshi's studio . He is considered one of the most important students of Kuniyoshi. Around 1850 and possibly as a result of the punishment by the Bakufu, Kuniyoshi expelled him from his studio, but this did not affect his artistic activity. In 1853 he was named one of the best on a list of woodcut artists, and in 1868 he was ranked second on a similar list, behind Utagawa Sadahide .

On the prints designed by him he signed with the surname Ichimōsai ( 一 猛 斎 ), Kinchōrō ( 錦 朝 楼 ) or Mōsai ( 孟 斎 ) before his stage name Sadahide. He had a few students: Toratane ( 虎 種 ) and Torashige ( 虎 重 ), both only briefly worked as woodcut artists at the beginning of the Meiji period , and Yoshie, who worked as a tattoo artist under the name Horiyoshi.

Print from the anthology of past and present Kabuki actors , Bandō Mitusgorō VI. as Yushide, 1862

Yoshitora's first known work were the illustrations for the 1836 four-volume short story by Kantei Denshōs Karasu Kanzaemon chūgi den ( Eng . The story of Karasu Kanzaemons loyalty ), which he designed together with Utagawa Yoshishige. The first colored woodblock prints he designed appeared in the early 1840s. His focus was on drafting images of warriors ( Musha-e ) depicting famous Japanese heroes, scenes of battles and legendary events. Among other things, he illustrated the heroes of Chūshingura in several series . He drew designs for the prints of bijin-e , kabuki scenes and kabuki actor portraits. Among them, at the invitation of the publisher Ebisuya Shōshichi, twelve prints for Utagawa Kunisada's series anthology of past and present Kabuki actors , which represents a high point in Kunisada's work and whose prints were made to the highest printing standards of their time. Participation in this series was therefore a special honor for Yoshitora. Yoshitora's field of activity also included the design for Shini-e (devotional prints for deceased personalities, mostly actors), Sumō -e (prints of well-known sumo wrestlers), Giga-e (prints with funny content), some fan prints with fabulous animals and some Meisho-e (prints Famous Places, e.g. Famous Places in Edo series, a new selection ). Among his landscape prints is a twelve ōban sheet (approx. 3 m) wide panorama print of the Tōkaidō from 1864 ( Famous Places on Tōkai Street ).

In the early 1860s, he concentrated on prints depicting foreigners and their way of life in the Yokohama branch assigned to them , the Yokohama-e . In the 1870s, he finally switched to the design of Kaika-e , prints that were to enlighten the achievements of the West in the Meiji period, as well as of "toy pictures", the Omocha-e , which were used as toys and Educational materials for children were used.

In addition, he was involved in the illustration of almost 150 books, mostly contemporary novels and short stories, in the course of his artistic career.

A picture of him drawn from memory can be found in Kawanabe Kyōsai's 1887 book Kyōsai Gadan (dt. Kyōsai's conversations about painting ). In this book, Kyōsai remembered his own training with Kuniyoshi from 1837 to 1840 and illustrated the instructions he received with an everyday scene from Kuniyoshi's studio, in which, among other things, Yoshitora can be seen as an adolescent.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ An at least occasional activity as a painter is evidenced by the sale of an ink painting by his hand by Christie's auction house in 1993. See Chrisie's website , accessed on January 21, 2014, English.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} A. Marks, p. 146.
3. ↑ A. Marks, p. 146 and p. 147.
4. ↑ " ukiyo-e-shi sōran " (浮世 絵 師 総 覧) , "Complete bibliography of ukiyoe artists" (Japanese)
5. ↑ The prints are shown on the website of the "Kunisada Project" , accessed on January 21, 2014. (English)
6. ^ AR Newland, p. 505.
7. ↑ The database of the National Institute of Japanese Literature lists exactly 142 titles that were created with his participation, Union Catalog of Early Japanese Books. (Japanese, entry in Kanji required)
8. ↑ A. Marks, p. 146 and p. 148.
9. ↑ Figure in the database of the Waseda University library , accessed on January 21. In the left half of the picture Yoshitora having a scuffle, bent over his classmate Yoshikazu.

literature

• Andreas Marks: Japanese Woodblock Prints. Artists, Publishers, and Masterworks 1680-1900. Tuttle, Tokyo et al. 2010, ISBN 978-4-8053-1055-7 , p. 146 ff. (English)
• Amy Reigle Newland (Ed.): The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints. 2 volumes. Hotei, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-74822-65-7 , p. 505. (English)

Web links

Commons : Utagawa Yoshitora  - 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 Utagawa is the family name, Yoshitora the first name.