Kunichika
Encyclopedia
was a Japanese woodblock print artist. Talented as a child, at about thirteen he became a student of Tokyo's then-leading print maker, Utagawa Kunisada
. His deep appreciation and knowledge of kabuki
drama led to his production primarily of ukiyo-e
actor-prints, which are woodblock prints of kabuki actors and scenes from popular plays of the time.
An alcoholic and womanizer, Kunichika also portrayed women deemed beautiful (bijinga
), contemporary social life, and a few landscapes and historical scenes. He worked successfully in the Edo period
, and carried those traditions into the Meiji period
. To his contemporaries and now to some modern art historians, this has been seen as a significant achievement during a transitional period of great social and political change in Japan's history.
The artist who became known as Toyohara Kunichika was born Ōshima Yasohachi on June 5, 1835, in the Kyōbashi district, a merchant and artisan area of Edo
(present-day Tokyo
). His father, Ōshima Kyujū, was the proprietor of a sentō
(public bathhouse), the Ōshūya. An indifferent family man, and poor businessman, he lost the bathhouse sometime in Yasohachi's childhood. The boy's mother, Arakawa Oyae, was the daughter of a teahouse proprietor. At that time, commoners of a certain social standing could ask permission to alter the family name (myōji gomen). To distance themselves from the father's failure, the family took the mother's surname
, and the boy became Arakawa Yasohachi.
Little is known about his childhood except that, as a youth, Yasohachi earned a reputation as a prankster and drew complaints from his neighbors, and that at nine he was involved in a fight at the Sanno Festival in Asakusa . At age ten he was apprenticed to a thread and yarn store. However, because he preferred painting and sketching to learning the dry goods trade, at eleven he moved to a shop near his father's bathhouse. There he helped in the design of Japanese lampshades called andon
, consisting of a wooden frame with a paper cover. When he was twelve, his older brother, Chōkichi, opened a raised picture shop, and Yasohachi drew illustrations for him.
It is believed that around age twelve Yasohachi began to study with Toyohara Chikanobu
. At the same time he designed actor portraits for battledores
sold by a shop called Meirindo. His teacher gave him the name "Kazunobu". It may have been on the recommendation of Chikanobu that the boy was accepted the following year as an apprentice in the studio of Utagawa Kunisada
, the leading and most prolific print maker of the mid-nineteenth century.
By 1854 the young artist had made his first confirmed signed print and had taken the name "Kunichika", a composite of the names of this two teachers, Kunisada and Chikanobu. His early work was derivative of the Utagawa
style and some of his prints were outright copies (an accepted practice of the time). While working in Kunisada's studio Kunichika was assigned a commission to make a print illustrating a bird's-eye view of Tenjinbashi Avenue following the terrible earthquake of 1855
that destroyed most of the city. This assignment suggests that he was considered one of Kunisada's better students.
The "prankster" artist got into trouble in 1862 when, in response to a commission for a print illustrating a fight at a theater, he made a "parody print" (mitate-e) which angered the students who had been involved in the fracas. They ransacked Kunichika's house and tried to enter Kunisada's studio by force. His mentor revoked Kunichika's right to use the name he had been given but relented later that year. Decades afterwards Kunichika described himself as greatly "humbled" by the experience.
Kunichika's status continued to rise and he was commissioned to create several portraits of his teacher. When Kunisada died in 1865, his student was commissioned to design two memorial portraits. The right panel of the portrait contains an obituary written by the writer, Kanagaki Robun, while the left contains memorial poems written by the three top students, including Kunichika.
Ukiyo-e artists had traditionally illustrated urban life and society – especially the theater, for which their prints often served as advertising. The Meiji period brought competition from the new technologies of photography
and photoengraving
, effectively destroying the careers of most.
As Kunichika matured his reputation as a master of design and of drama grew steadily. In guides rating ukiyo-e artists his name appeared in the top ten in 1865, 1867, and 1885, when he was in eighth, fifth, and fourth place, respectively. In 1867, one year before the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate
, he received an official commission by the government to contribute ten pictures to the 1867 World Exhibition
in Paris. He also had a print at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
in Chicago.
Kunichika often portrayed beautiful women (bijinga), but his finest works are considered to have been bust, half- and three-quarter length, and close-up or "large-head" portraits of actors, and triptychs that presented "wide-screen" views of plays and popular stories.
Although Kunichika's Meiji-era works remained rooted in the traditions of his teachers, he made an effort to incorporate references to modern technology. In 1869 he did a series jointly with Yoshitoshi
, a more "modern" artist in the sense that he depicted faces realistically. In addition, Kunichika experimented with "Western" vanishing point
perspective.
The press affirmed that Kunichika's success continued into the Meiji era. In July 1874, the magazine Shinbun hentai said that: "Color woodcuts are one of the specialties of Tokyo, and that Kyôsai
, Yoshitoshi, Yoshiiku
, Kunichika, and Ginkô are the experts in this area." In September 1874 The same journal held that: "The masters of Ukiyoe: Yoshiiku, Kunichika and Yoshitoshi. They are the most popular Ukiyo-e artists." In 1890, the book Tôkyô meishô doku annai (Famous Views of Tokyo), under the heading of woodblock artist, gave as examples Kunichika, Kunisada
, Yoshiiku, and Yoshitoshi. In November 1890 a reporter for the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun
wrote about the specializations of artists of the Utagawa school
: "Yoshitoshi was the specialist for warrior prints, Kunichika the woodblock artist known for portraits of actors, and Chikanobu
for court ladies."
Contemporary observers noted Kunichika's skillful use of color in his actor prints, but he was also criticized for his choices. Unlike most artists of the period, he made use of strong reds and dark purples, often as background colors, rather than the softer colors that had previously been used. These new colors were made of aniline
dyes imported in the Meiji period from Germany. (For the Japanese the color red meant progress and enlightenment in the new era of Western-style progress.)
Like most artists of his era and genre, Kunichika created many series of prints, including: Yoshiwara beauties compared with thirty-six poems; Thirty-two fashionable physiognomies; Sixteen Musashi parodying modern customs; Thirty-six good and evil beauties; Thirty-six modern restaurants; Mirror of the flowering of manners and customs; Fifty-four modern feelings matched with chapters of The Tale of Genji
; Scenes of the twenty-four hours parodied; Actors in theatrical hits as great heroes in robber plays; Eight views of bandits parodied.
In 1863 Kunichika was one of a number of artists who contributed landscape prints to two series of famous Tokaido scenes commissioned to commemorate the journey made by the shogun Iemochi from Edo to Kyoto to pay his respects to the emperor. Otherwise, his landscapes were primarily theater sets, or backgrounds for groups of beauties enjoying the out-of-doors. He recorded some popular myths and tales, but rarely illustrated battles. When portraying people he only occasionally showed figures wearing Western dress, despite its growing popularity in Japan. He is known to have done some shunga
(erotic art) prints but attribution can be difficult as, like most artists of the time, he did not always sign them.
Kunichika had many students but few attained recognition as print artists. In the changing art scene they could not support themselves designing woodblock prints, but had to make illustrations for such popular media as books, magazines and newspapers. His best-known students were Toyohara Chikanobu
and Morikawa Chikashige. Both initially followed their master's interest in theater, but later Chikanobu more enthusiastically portrayed women's fashions, and Chikashige did illustrations. Neither is considered by critics to have achieved his master's high reputation.
Kunichika had one female student, Toyohara Chikayoshi, who reportedly became his partner in his later years. Her work reflected the Utagawa style. She competently depicted actors, and the manners and customs of the day.
In 1861 Kunichika married his first wife, Ohana, and in that same year had a daughter, Hana. The marriage is thought not to have lasted long, as he was a womanizer. He fathered two out-of-wedlock children, a girl and a boy, with whom he had no contact, but he does appear to have remained strongly attached to Hana.
Kunichika was described as having an open, friendly and sincere personality. He enjoyed partying with the geisha
s and prostitutes of the Yoshiwara
district, while consuming abundant amounts of alcohol. His greatest passion, however, was said to be the theater, where he was a backstage regular. His appearance said to be shabby. He was constantly in debt and often borrowed money from the kabuki actors he depicted so admiringly. A contemporary said of him: "Print designing, theater and drinking were his life and for him that was enough." A contemporary actor, Matsusuke IV, said that when visiting actors backstage for the purpose of sketching them, Kunichika would not socialize but would concentrate intensely on his work.
Around 1897, his older brother opened the Arakawa Photo shop, and Kunichika worked in the store. Because Kunichika had a dislike for both the store and photography, only one photograph of him exists.
In October 1898 Kunichika was interviewed for a series of four articles about him, The Meiji-period child of Edo, which appeared in the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun
. In the introduction to the series, the reporter wrote:
During the interview, Kunichika claimed to have moved 107 times, but it seems more likely that he moved only ten times.
Kunichika died at his home in Honjo (an eastern suburb of Edo) on July 1, 1900 at the age of 65, due to a combination of poor health and bouts of heavy drinking brought on by the death at 39 of his daughter Hana while giving birth to his grandson, Yoshido Ito, some months previously. He was buried at the Shingon Buddhist
sect temple of Honryuji in Imado, Asakusa
.
His grave marker is thought to have been destroyed in a 1923 earthquake, but family members erected a new one in 1974. In old Japan, it had been a common custom for people of high cultural standing to write a poem before death. On Kunichika's grave his poem reads:
In 1915, Arthur Davison Ficke
, an Iowa lawyer, poet, and influential collector of Japanese prints, wrote Chats on Japanese Prints. In the book he listed fifty-five artists, including Kunichika, whose work he dismissed as "degenerate" and as "All that meaningless complexity of design, coarseness of color and carelessness of printing that we associate with the final ruin of the art of color prints." His opinion, which differed from that of Kunichika's contemporaries, influenced American collectors for many years, with the result that Japanese prints produced in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially figure prints, fell out of favor.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s an author, adventurer, banker and great collector of Japanese art, Kojima Usui, wrote many articles aimed at resurrecting Kunichika's reputation. He was not successful in his day, but his work became a basis for later research, which did not really begin until quite recently.
In 1876 Laurance P. Roberts wrote in his Dictionary of Japanese Artists that Kunichika produced prints of actors and other subjects in the late Kunisada tradition, reflecting the declining taste of the Japanese and the deterioration of color printing. Roberts described him as, "A minor artist, but represents the last of the great ukiyo-e tradition." The cited biography reflects the author's preference for classical ukiyo-e. Richard A. Waldman, owner of The Art of Japan, said of Roberts's view, "Articles such as the above and others by early western authors managed to put this artist in the dustbin of art history."
An influential reason for Kunichika's return to favor in the western world is the publication, in 1999, in English, of Amy Reigle Newland's Time present and time past: Images of a forgotten master: Toyohara Kunichika 1835–1900.
In addition, the 2008 show at the Brooklyn Museum
, Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770–1900, and a resulting article in The New York Times
of 03/22/08 have increased public awareness of and prices for Kunichika prints.
Looking at Kunichika
Museum Sites
Image Sources
Kunisada
Utagawa Kunisada was the most popular, prolific and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan...
. His deep appreciation and knowledge of kabuki
Kabuki
is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers.The individual kanji characters, from left to right, mean sing , dance , and skill...
drama led to his production primarily of ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
actor-prints, which are woodblock prints of kabuki actors and scenes from popular plays of the time.
An alcoholic and womanizer, Kunichika also portrayed women deemed beautiful (bijinga
Bijinga
Bijinga , is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre, which predate photography...
), contemporary social life, and a few landscapes and historical scenes. He worked successfully in the Edo period
Edo period
The , or , is a division of Japanese history which was ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family, running from 1603 to 1868. The political entity of this period was the Tokugawa shogunate....
, and carried those traditions into the Meiji period
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
. To his contemporaries and now to some modern art historians, this has been seen as a significant achievement during a transitional period of great social and political change in Japan's history.
Early life and education
Edo
, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...
(present-day Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
). His father, Ōshima Kyujū, was the proprietor of a sentō
Sento
is a type of Japanese communal bath house where customers pay for entrance. Traditionally these bath houses have been quite utilitarian, with one large room separating the sexes by a tall barrier, and on both sides, usually a minimum of lined up faucets and a single large bath for the already...
(public bathhouse), the Ōshūya. An indifferent family man, and poor businessman, he lost the bathhouse sometime in Yasohachi's childhood. The boy's mother, Arakawa Oyae, was the daughter of a teahouse proprietor. At that time, commoners of a certain social standing could ask permission to alter the family name (myōji gomen). To distance themselves from the father's failure, the family took the mother's surname
Surname
A surname is a name added to a given name and is part of a personal name. In many cases, a surname is a family name. Many dictionaries define "surname" as a synonym of "family name"...
, and the boy became Arakawa Yasohachi.
Little is known about his childhood except that, as a youth, Yasohachi earned a reputation as a prankster and drew complaints from his neighbors, and that at nine he was involved in a fight at the Sanno Festival in Asakusa . At age ten he was apprenticed to a thread and yarn store. However, because he preferred painting and sketching to learning the dry goods trade, at eleven he moved to a shop near his father's bathhouse. There he helped in the design of Japanese lampshades called andon
Traditional lighting equipment of Japan
The traditional lighting equipment of Japan includes the andon , the bonbori , the chōchin , and the tōrō .-Andon:...
, consisting of a wooden frame with a paper cover. When he was twelve, his older brother, Chōkichi, opened a raised picture shop, and Yasohachi drew illustrations for him.
It is believed that around age twelve Yasohachi began to study with Toyohara Chikanobu
Toyohara Chikanobu
, better known to his contemporaries as , was a prolific woodblock artist of Japan's Meiji period.-Names:Chikanobu signed his artwork . This was his...
. At the same time he designed actor portraits for battledores
Battledore and Shuttlecock
Battledore and Shuttlecock or Jeu de Volant is an early game similar to that of modern badminton.This game is played by two people, with small rackets, called battledores, made of parchment or rows of gut stretched across wooden frames, and shuttlecocks, made of a base of some light material, like...
sold by a shop called Meirindo. His teacher gave him the name "Kazunobu". It may have been on the recommendation of Chikanobu that the boy was accepted the following year as an apprentice in the studio of Utagawa Kunisada
Kunisada
Utagawa Kunisada was the most popular, prolific and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan...
, the leading and most prolific print maker of the mid-nineteenth century.
By 1854 the young artist had made his first confirmed signed print and had taken the name "Kunichika", a composite of the names of this two teachers, Kunisada and Chikanobu. His early work was derivative of the Utagawa
Utagawa school
The was a group of Japanese woodblock print artists, founded by Toyoharu. His pupil, Toyokuni I, took over after Toyoharu's death and raised the group to become the most famous and powerful woodblock print school for the remainder of the 19th century....
style and some of his prints were outright copies (an accepted practice of the time). While working in Kunisada's studio Kunichika was assigned a commission to make a print illustrating a bird's-eye view of Tenjinbashi Avenue following the terrible earthquake of 1855
1855 Ansei Edo earthquake
The , also known as the Great Ansei Earthquake, was one of the major disasters of the late-Edo period. The earthquake occurred at 22:00 local time on 11 November. It had an epicenter close to Edo , causing considerable damage in the Kantō region from the shaking and subsequent fires, with a death...
that destroyed most of the city. This assignment suggests that he was considered one of Kunisada's better students.
Kunichika's status continued to rise and he was commissioned to create several portraits of his teacher. When Kunisada died in 1865, his student was commissioned to design two memorial portraits. The right panel of the portrait contains an obituary written by the writer, Kanagaki Robun, while the left contains memorial poems written by the three top students, including Kunichika.
Artist on the cusp of a new era
At the time Kunichika began his serious studies the late Edo period, an extension of traditions based on a feudal society, was about to end. The "modern" Meiji era (1868–1912), a time of rapid modernization, industrialization, and extensive contact with the West, was in stark contrast to what had come before.Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and photoengraving
Photoengraving
Photoengraving also known as photo-chemical milling is a process of engraving using photographic processing techniques. The full form of photoengraving is photo mechanical process in the graphic arts, used principally for reproducing illustrations. The subject is photographed, and the image is...
, effectively destroying the careers of most.
As Kunichika matured his reputation as a master of design and of drama grew steadily. In guides rating ukiyo-e artists his name appeared in the top ten in 1865, 1867, and 1885, when he was in eighth, fifth, and fourth place, respectively. In 1867, one year before the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate
Tokugawa shogunate
The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the and the , was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period is known as the Edo period and gets its name from the capital city, Edo, which is now called Tokyo, after the name was...
, he received an official commission by the government to contribute ten pictures to the 1867 World Exhibition
Exposition Universelle (1867)
The Exposition Universelle of 1867 was a World Exposition held in Paris, France, in 1867.-Conception:In 1864, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that an international exposition should be held in Paris in 1867. A commission was appointed with Prince Jerome Napoleon as president, under whose direction...
in Paris. He also had a print at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago.
Although Kunichika's Meiji-era works remained rooted in the traditions of his teachers, he made an effort to incorporate references to modern technology. In 1869 he did a series jointly with Yoshitoshi
Yoshitoshi
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was a Japanese artist.He is widely recognized as the last great master of Ukiyo-e, a type of Japanese woodblock printing. He is additionally regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of feudal Japan, and the first years of...
, a more "modern" artist in the sense that he depicted faces realistically. In addition, Kunichika experimented with "Western" vanishing point
Vanishing point
A vanishing point is a point in a perspective drawing to which parallel lines not parallel to the image plane appear to converge. The number and placement of the vanishing points determines which perspective technique is being used...
perspective.
The press affirmed that Kunichika's success continued into the Meiji era. In July 1874, the magazine Shinbun hentai said that: "Color woodcuts are one of the specialties of Tokyo, and that Kyôsai
Kawanabe Kyosai
was a Japanese artist, in the words of a critic, "an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting"....
, Yoshitoshi, Yoshiiku
Utagawa Yoshiiku
, also known as or , was a Japanese artist of the Utagawa school.-Early life:Yoshiiku was the son of a teahouse proprietor and became a student of Utagawa Kuniyoshi.-Career:Yoshiiku is known as a ukiyo-e print designer and as a newspaper illustrator....
, Kunichika, and Ginkô are the experts in this area." In September 1874 The same journal held that: "The masters of Ukiyoe: Yoshiiku, Kunichika and Yoshitoshi. They are the most popular Ukiyo-e artists." In 1890, the book Tôkyô meishô doku annai (Famous Views of Tokyo), under the heading of woodblock artist, gave as examples Kunichika, Kunisada
Kunisada
Utagawa Kunisada was the most popular, prolific and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan...
, Yoshiiku, and Yoshitoshi. In November 1890 a reporter for the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun
Yomiuri Shimbun
The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five national newspapers in Japan; the other four are the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and the Sankei Shimbun...
wrote about the specializations of artists of the Utagawa school
Utagawa school
The was a group of Japanese woodblock print artists, founded by Toyoharu. His pupil, Toyokuni I, took over after Toyoharu's death and raised the group to become the most famous and powerful woodblock print school for the remainder of the 19th century....
: "Yoshitoshi was the specialist for warrior prints, Kunichika the woodblock artist known for portraits of actors, and Chikanobu
Toyohara Chikanobu
, better known to his contemporaries as , was a prolific woodblock artist of Japan's Meiji period.-Names:Chikanobu signed his artwork . This was his...
for court ladies."
Contemporary observers noted Kunichika's skillful use of color in his actor prints, but he was also criticized for his choices. Unlike most artists of the period, he made use of strong reds and dark purples, often as background colors, rather than the softer colors that had previously been used. These new colors were made of aniline
Aniline
Aniline, phenylamine or aminobenzene is an organic compound with the formula C6H5NH2. Consisting of a phenyl group attached to an amino group, aniline is the prototypical aromatic amine. Being a precursor to many industrial chemicals, its main use is in the manufacture of precursors to polyurethane...
dyes imported in the Meiji period from Germany. (For the Japanese the color red meant progress and enlightenment in the new era of Western-style progress.)
Genji
was a after Bunkyū and before Keiō. This period spanned only slightly more than a single year from February 1864 through April 1865. The reigning emperor was .-Change of era:...
; Scenes of the twenty-four hours parodied; Actors in theatrical hits as great heroes in robber plays; Eight views of bandits parodied.
Shunga
' is a Japanese term for erotic art. Most shunga are a type of ukiyo-e, usually executed in woodblock print format. While rare, there are extant erotic painted handscrolls which predate the Ukiyo-e movement...
(erotic art) prints but attribution can be difficult as, like most artists of the time, he did not always sign them.
Kunichika had many students but few attained recognition as print artists. In the changing art scene they could not support themselves designing woodblock prints, but had to make illustrations for such popular media as books, magazines and newspapers. His best-known students were Toyohara Chikanobu
Toyohara Chikanobu
, better known to his contemporaries as , was a prolific woodblock artist of Japan's Meiji period.-Names:Chikanobu signed his artwork . This was his...
and Morikawa Chikashige. Both initially followed their master's interest in theater, but later Chikanobu more enthusiastically portrayed women's fashions, and Chikashige did illustrations. Neither is considered by critics to have achieved his master's high reputation.
Kunichika had one female student, Toyohara Chikayoshi, who reportedly became his partner in his later years. Her work reflected the Utagawa style. She competently depicted actors, and the manners and customs of the day.
Personal life
As a young man, Kunichika had a reputation for a beautiful singing voice and as a fine dancer. He is known to have used these talents in amateur burlesque shows.In 1861 Kunichika married his first wife, Ohana, and in that same year had a daughter, Hana. The marriage is thought not to have lasted long, as he was a womanizer. He fathered two out-of-wedlock children, a girl and a boy, with whom he had no contact, but he does appear to have remained strongly attached to Hana.
Geisha
, Geiko or Geigi are traditional, female Japanese entertainers whose skills include performing various Japanese arts such as classical music and dance.-Terms:...
s and prostitutes of the Yoshiwara
Yoshiwara
Yoshiwara was a famous Akasen district in Edo, present-day Tōkyō, Japan.In the early 17th century, there was widespread male and female prostitution throughout the cities of Kyoto, Edo, and Osaka. To counter this, an order of Tokugawa Hidetada of the Tokugawa shogunate restricted prostitution to...
district, while consuming abundant amounts of alcohol. His greatest passion, however, was said to be the theater, where he was a backstage regular. His appearance said to be shabby. He was constantly in debt and often borrowed money from the kabuki actors he depicted so admiringly. A contemporary said of him: "Print designing, theater and drinking were his life and for him that was enough." A contemporary actor, Matsusuke IV, said that when visiting actors backstage for the purpose of sketching them, Kunichika would not socialize but would concentrate intensely on his work.
Around 1897, his older brother opened the Arakawa Photo shop, and Kunichika worked in the store. Because Kunichika had a dislike for both the store and photography, only one photograph of him exists.
In October 1898 Kunichika was interviewed for a series of four articles about him, The Meiji-period child of Edo, which appeared in the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun
Yomiuri Shimbun
The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five national newspapers in Japan; the other four are the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and the Sankei Shimbun...
. In the introduction to the series, the reporter wrote:
...his house is located on the (north) side of Higashi Kumagaya-Inari. Although his residence is just a partitioned tenement house, it has an elegant, latticed door, a nameplate and letterbox. Inside, the entry...leads to a room with worn tatami mats upon which a long hibachi has been placed. The space is also adorned with a Buddhist altar. A cluttered desk stands at the back of the miserable two-tatami room; it is hard to believe that the well-known artist Kunichika lives here...Looking around with a piercing gaze and stroking his long white beard, Kunichika talks about the height of prosperity of the EdokkoEdokkois a Japanese term referring to a person born and raised in Edo . The term is believed to have been coined in the late 18th century in Edo. Being an Edokko also implied that the person had certain personality traits different from the non-native population, such as being assertive, straightforward,...
...
During the interview, Kunichika claimed to have moved 107 times, but it seems more likely that he moved only ten times.
Kunichika died at his home in Honjo (an eastern suburb of Edo) on July 1, 1900 at the age of 65, due to a combination of poor health and bouts of heavy drinking brought on by the death at 39 of his daughter Hana while giving birth to his grandson, Yoshido Ito, some months previously. He was buried at the Shingon Buddhist
Shingon Buddhism
is one of the mainstream major schools of Japanese Buddhism and one of the few surviving Esoteric Buddhist lineages that started in the 3rd to 4th century CE that originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra...
sect temple of Honryuji in Imado, Asakusa
Asakusa
is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals.- History :...
.
His grave marker is thought to have been destroyed in a 1923 earthquake, but family members erected a new one in 1974. In old Japan, it had been a common custom for people of high cultural standing to write a poem before death. On Kunichika's grave his poem reads:
"Since I am tired of painting portraits of people of this world, I will paint portraits of the King of hell and the devils."
Yo no naka no, hito no nigao mo akitareba, enma ya oni no ikiutsushisemu.
The forgotten artist
Arthur Davison Ficke
Arthur Davison Ficke was an American poet and lawyer known for several books of poetry, including Sonnets of a Portrait-Painter and for his involvement in the literary hoax of Spectrism . He is also known for his relationship with Edna St...
, an Iowa lawyer, poet, and influential collector of Japanese prints, wrote Chats on Japanese Prints. In the book he listed fifty-five artists, including Kunichika, whose work he dismissed as "degenerate" and as "All that meaningless complexity of design, coarseness of color and carelessness of printing that we associate with the final ruin of the art of color prints." His opinion, which differed from that of Kunichika's contemporaries, influenced American collectors for many years, with the result that Japanese prints produced in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially figure prints, fell out of favor.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s an author, adventurer, banker and great collector of Japanese art, Kojima Usui, wrote many articles aimed at resurrecting Kunichika's reputation. He was not successful in his day, but his work became a basis for later research, which did not really begin until quite recently.
In 1876 Laurance P. Roberts wrote in his Dictionary of Japanese Artists that Kunichika produced prints of actors and other subjects in the late Kunisada tradition, reflecting the declining taste of the Japanese and the deterioration of color printing. Roberts described him as, "A minor artist, but represents the last of the great ukiyo-e tradition." The cited biography reflects the author's preference for classical ukiyo-e. Richard A. Waldman, owner of The Art of Japan, said of Roberts's view, "Articles such as the above and others by early western authors managed to put this artist in the dustbin of art history."
An influential reason for Kunichika's return to favor in the western world is the publication, in 1999, in English, of Amy Reigle Newland's Time present and time past: Images of a forgotten master: Toyohara Kunichika 1835–1900.
In addition, the 2008 show at the Brooklyn Museum
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an encyclopedia art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At 560,000 square feet, the museum holds New York City's second largest art collection with roughly 1.5 million works....
, Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770–1900, and a resulting article in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
of 03/22/08 have increased public awareness of and prices for Kunichika prints.
External links
Biography- Artelino biography
- Oe Naokichi Collection of Toyohara Kunichika's Ukiyo-e prints at the Kyoto University of Art and Design collection.
Looking at Kunichika
Museum Sites
Image Sources