Development of Pictures and the Rise of Edo - Essay Example

Development of Pictures and the Rise of Edo Edo was the for the old of Tokyo. However, this also con s the period from 1603 to 1868 when the shoguns, Japan’s military leaders, were ruling the country. This was also known as the period of Tokugawa, the name carried by the shoguns. When Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty decided to locate his capital in Edo, what used to be a simple fishing village soon transformed into e progressive centre where commerce, arts and crafts flourished. It is important to understand the concepts of beauty in Japanese art through the influence of the Edo period. Edo culture saw the living side by side of both the rich and poor in Japanese society. This gave rise to a different point view in interpreting nature which with the combination of the principles taught in Zen Buddhism gave rise to the aesthetic values which characterized Japanese art. These values of suggestion, irregularity, simplicity and perishability, as Donald Keene identified them. Suggestion or yugen is the characteristic wherein the artist suggests a hint of nature. There is no idealization of the subject but connotes a suggestion of what it is in relation to what it truly is. The artwork gives an indication of reality and does not capture the subject in its real form. Irregularity makes use of asymmetry or the imbalance of the composition in relation to space. Opposite parts do not correspond to each other or are imbalanced with regards to size, shape and position. Zen Buddhism influence is reflected in Japanese aesthetics through austerity and simplicity in presentation. Perishability captures the very essence of life and nature, showing the impermanence and sadness that pervades its reality. All these elements are brought to together to constitute the Japanese measure of aesthetics in all its art forms, from painting, literature, architecture, pottery, to wood block prints. Even the tea ceremony as a Buddhist ritual is influenced by the tenets of these aesthetic building blocks which form Japanese culture. Edo culture had a great influence in the development and adoption of these aesthetic cornerstones. A great fire suffered by the city brought about the popularity of wood print blocks or ukiyo-e. Ukiyo-e in general is the stylized school in Japanese painting especially prints using colored wood blocks. Ukiyo-e gained popularity as an affordable means of acquiring art, especially among the middle class population of Edo. The Ukiyo-e style was described as a “floating world” because it describes the instability of common people’s lives. It often portrayed ordinary people, actors, courtesans, vendors, and the like. A woodblock print by Kuryosai Isoda depict a “kamuro” or courtesan in the middle of two other Japanes women. Also called “bijin prints”, ukiyo-e describes the subjects as beautiful women or courtesans . This art work “hints” at the true profession of the kamuro which in reality can more accurately be described as a prostitute. Irregularity in this artwork is depicted by the disproportionately smaller size of the kamuro compared to the two other women in the print. Simplicity is depicted through the use of clear continuous lines outlining the figures standing on a monochrome bare background adorned by Japanese characters. Perishability is also psychologically suggested with the nature of the kamuro’s profession which connotes the hardship and sadness in her life despite the façade of physical beauty. It also shows the distinction between the kamuro’s social status in relation to respectable women in society based on the irregularity between their sizes. Thus, the wood block print used in this example shows the suggestiveness of the art work, not explicitly stating the true nature of the subject, especially her profession. However, there was no attempt to deny the true character of the subject. Life’s circumstance in relation to the subject was relayed or told, and the irregularity of the print showed the unequal status between the subject and the other two figures depicted. Perishability was also depicted in the choice of the subject itself, being a common person in Edo society, in this case, a prostitute. In contrast, the Nihonbashi print can be considered as more aesthetic in the western cultural sense, preserving composition and harmony. Often depicting scenes using perspective and scale, the Nihonbashi does away with the irregularity which characterizes ukiyo-e. The figures are more idealized and much detail is rendered into the scenery. The work comes together and offers more cohesion. Aside from details, more intricate lines are incorporated to provide texture and the use of colour also becomes more diverse. Although the Nihonbashi shows day to day activities, it provides proportion and balance in its visual composition. Most notable is the sense of perspective and scale which is not given emphasize in Edo art. The scenes are far removed from the simplistic style common to the Edo period. There are more numerous activities being depicted and there are a wide range of actions and elements of architecture and nature that are incorporated into the overall artwork. Given this characteristic, the artist left Zen Buddhist tradition and teaching by being more worldly in his employment of colors and lines. There was a total abandonment, though there also the absence of abuse, of simplicity as a fundamental character. The cornerstones of Japanese aesthetics remain the same to this day. They represent nature as they are, yet is able to capture beauty and emotion through a very unique set of rules. This is what makes Japanese art precious and unique and a treasure for the rest of the world to behold. Ukiyo-e Styles and Artists It is important to look into the works of the most influential artists of the period to gain abetter appreciation of the transformations that happened during the Edo period. These artists, from Harunobu to Hiroshige, contributed greatly to the popularity and development of the woodblock print as an art form. Their styles and temperaments vary both as artists and as individuals, yet their overall contribution to Japanese art is unparalleled, specifically in making the Edo period among the most significant in Japanese culture and tradition. Suzuki Harunobu (1724-1770) was closely associated with nishiki-e which in Japanese means “brocade prints”. In amore general usage, nishiki-e refers to prints made using different colours. Harunobu is considered as the “father of Japanese colour prints”. It is known that Harunobu was not the first to make the transition from black and white to colour prints. However, he was responsible for making full advantage of the technique and is credited for making nishiki-e popular. He brought Japanese wood block printing to new heights. Market demand was the catalyst which brought about the development of multi-coloured wood block prints. During Harunobu’s lifetime, picture calendars or egoyomi were very popular. They were given as gifts and everyone was engaged in producing the richest and most beautiful egoyomi. There were two basic ways of producing wood block prints. One was to create them in black and white and then add colour by hand. The other way was to is an additional block can be carved for each colour and were later added to the black and white print. The second method was popular among the Japanese, while hand colouring was popular among Europeans. Haronobu’s style is characterised as delicate, subtle, sophisticated or stylish. His favourite subjects were young girls and men, lovers and courtesans. He also depicted everyday life. His female figures are slender and graceful, depicting them as if they were teenage girls. He combined the characteristics of fragility and idealisation in his figures. Harunobu was also the first artist to portray scenes in snow at night. The rich Japanese merchant class patronized his works. Very little is known of the artist’s life but he is known to have been born in Edo in 1724 or 1725. Based on his artistic style, it can be concluded that he came from a bourgeois clan, and was comfortable in intellectual and poetic environments. Other experts speculate that he was of the samurai class. Haronobu’s works consisted of paintings, drawings and at least 700 colour prints. He also illustrated around twenty-four book. Like most ukiyo-e artists, Harunobu was also a prolific creator of shunga, erotic pictures which are also referred to as “springtime pictures”. The development of his craft could be discerned in his prints. His early works consisted of two or three colours, usually red and green. Later works used up to ten different colours. He died at the age of 45. Kiyonaga (1752-1815) was a student of the Torii School and was a painter and designer of woodcuts. His teacher was Kiyomitsu, with whom he studied after working after working as a bookseller in Tokyo. His subjects were mostly of beautiful women and warriors. He is credited for publishing over 100 illustrated books. His individualized linear style and unmannered, vivid representations was popular and won him a vast following. The height of his popularity was during the Tenmei era, and his training in the Torii School dealt with theatrical subjects. He became the fourth generation head of the Torii School. His early subjects were actors, then he started to draw ukiyo-e for illustrated books. It was during the mid- An-ei period (1780) that he began to draw numerous pictures of beautiful women. He was greatly influenced by Suzuki Harunobu, Isoda Koryusai and Kitao Shigemasa. Kiyonaga established what is now called “Kiyonaga beauty”, during the height of his drawings of beautiful women. His influence grew as an ukiyo-e artist. His ukiyo-e women are tall with small and long faces. Utamaro Kitagawa is recognized as the dominant ukiyo-e artist of the late eighteenth century. Little is known about him except that his original name was Ichitaro Kitagawa. He was a pupil of Toriyama Sekien and his early works were of portraits of actors and illustrations for theatre programs. These works were published under the name Utagawa Toyoaki. In cooperation with the publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo, Kitagawa published several books of illustrations and his early works reveal the influence of Kiyinaga and Harunobu. Beginning in 1791, Utamaro focused on the painting of single portraits of women. His models were from the pleasure-districts of Yoshiwara and his love affairs with the prostitutes of these areas became legendary. He won fame in 1793 with a new series of women prints. Common expressions describing his work include, “No other ukiyo-e artist has painted the beauty of women as deeply as he did". This attests to his ability to capture the sensitive qualities of his subjects by exploring new techniques that convey the flesh tones of his women in a softer and unique manner. However, his women were also idealized in their representation with extremely tall statures and slender bodies. The heads are twice longer than they are broad. Their noses are exaggerated in their length and the eyes are depicted as tiny slits. Utamaro’s women have long necks and small shoulders. His depiction of women can be compared to the slim and svelte models of today’s fashion magazines, a far cry from the real Japanese women of his period. Perhaps his idealized versions were the key attractions which made his prints successful and highly demanded. Utamaro was briefly imprisoned when he violated censorship laws. He portrayed an historic print wherein he showed the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi with his wife and five concubines, which was a violation of the laws under the Tokugawa Shogunate. It was said that he was either forced to wear handcuffs or an iron collar for 50 days. This had a heavy impact on the artist who fell into depression and died after two years at the age of 53. Despite his condition, he continued to produce prints until his death. His pupil Koikawa Shuncho married Utamaro’s widow and assumed his name. He produced prints in the tradition of his master until 1820. Since he used the same signature as his master, he created difficulties for today’s experts and art collectors in distinguishing which works are his or his master’s. It is estimated that there are around 2,000 Utamaro prints and a number of paintings. There are also surimono prints and illustrated books, and the erotic shunga books. Many woodblock prints were imported into Europe, mostly by the Dutch who handled the smuggling before Japan opened itself to the West. Majority of these works were Utamaro Kitagawa prints composed of a few originals and numerous reproductions. There were also Utamaro II prints and many fakes. The French were the primary market for these woodblock works of art. Katsushika Kokusai became an apprentice in a woodcut workshop when he was fifteen years old. Katsukawa Shunsho took him in as his pupil when he was eighteen, and he took the nae Katsukawa Shunro. Like Utamaro, Hokusai’s early works were of actors’ portraits done under the supervision of Shunsho. He was loosely associated with the Shunsho school for fourteen years, while he went into tutelage with another master, Yusen of the Kano school. It was during this period that he studied Western-style painting, the influence of which can be noticed in his use of perspective in some of his prints. This moving around with other art schools got him expelled from the Katsukawa school after Shunsho’s death. The restless spirit Hokusai possesses can also be seen his changing residences 93 times. The average Japanese does not exceed moving once in his lifetime. He also changed his name several times which is cause for much difficulty for art experts and historians. Hokusai’s best works can be found in the 36 Views of Mt. Fuji. This series took ten years to produce before it was published in 1830. Another famous work is Shokoku Taki Naguri – A Journey to the Waterfalls of All the Provinces. Starting in 1814, he published a series of fifteen Manga sketchbooks which contained sketches and illustrations on a variety of subjects from all walks of life. His subjects were both serious and comic in character. Hokusai seemed obsessed in producing ukiyo-e prints and his life was defined by his works. He got up early in the morning and worked until after the sun had set. He used the art name Gakyo-rojin from 1834 to 1849, which meant “old man mad with painting”. He described himself in his autobiography as follows: "From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of fifty I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of seventy there is truly nothing of great note. At the age of seventy-two I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fish and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore, at eighty I shall have made some progress, at ninety I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at one hundred I shall have become truly marvelous, and at one hundred and ten, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own. I only beg that gentlemen of sufficiently long life take care to note the truth of my words." His being prolific is evidenced by the production of over 30,000 print designs. Born in Edo, Hiroshige was the son of a samurai and fireman. His parents died when he was twelve and he joined the famous Utagawa painting school two years later in 1811. In 1812, he was allowed to formally take the name Utagawa and became known as Utagawa Hiroshige, but ukiyo-e literature often refers to him as Hiroshige Ando. He published his firt work, a book of illustrations in 1818 when he was 21 years old. He continued to make prints in the traditional style which he learned from his master, Toyohiro Utagawa. His subjects included kabuki actor prints, beautiful women and warrior prints. Beginning in 1830, Hiroshige tried making landscape prints. He created his series Tokaido gojusan-tsugi no uchi from 1833 to 1834. This series has 55 Hiroshige prints done in the oban format. The Tokaido was a coastal highway which connected Edo with the emperor’s palace in Kyoto. The stations were similar to turnpikes were tolls were paid and they had lodges where travelers could stay and have simple meals. The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido became the foundation for Hiroshige’s fame and commercial success. Hiroshige devoted the next twenty years to landscape painting. Ukiyo-e can be compared to book publishing or the production of motion pictures in contemporary times. A success would find the public demanding a follow-up. It is as much a commercial enterprise or business as any we can find in this century. This led Hiroshige to print more Tokaido prints. Thus, Hiroshige was also prolific in his production of prints. Among these are: Tokaido gojusan-tsugi - 56 prints in chuban size, published ca. 1840 - also known as the Kyoka Tokaido (from the kyoka verses on each print); Tokaido gojusan-tsugi no uchi - 55 prints in aiban size, published ca. 1841-42 - also known as the Gyosho Tokaido. Gyosho in Japanese means an informal, more scribbling-like type of characters, which was used for the cartouches of this series; Tokaido - 55 prints in oban size, published ca. 1848-49 - also known as the Reisho Tokaido. Reisho is the formal type of characters used for the cartouches of this series; Tokaido gojusan-tsugi - 54 prints in chuban size, published ca. 1850 by Tsuta-ya; So-hitsu gojusan-tsugi - 55 vertical prints in oban size, published ca. 1854-57. This series was made in cooperation with Kunisada. The title means The fifty-three Stations from Two Brushes; Gojusan-tsugi meisho-zue - 55 prints in oban size, published in 1855 by Tsuta-ya; and, Tokaido gojusan-tsui - 62 prints in oban size, published in 1855. This series was a cooperation of three artists: Ando Hiroshige, Kunisada and Kuniyoshi. Hiroshige produced an estimated 16 to 19 editions of his Tokaido. The ukiyo-e masters of the Edo period have greatly enriched Japanese culture. But aside from the individual artists whose contributions are invaluable, the Edo environment itself contributed greatly to the great artistic wealth that the old city of Tokyo has bestowed upon humanity. References: Richard Lane, "Images from the Floating World", Konecky & Konecky, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, 1978, ISBN 0-914427-54-7 Tadashi Kobayashi, "Ukiyo-e - An Introduction to Japanese Woodblock Prints", published by Kodansha International Ltd., 17-14 Otowa 1-chome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112, ISBN 4-7700-1657-3 Read More