Daily Ukiyoe

浮世絵, ukiyo-e, u.ki.jo.e

[dailyukiyoe]

Fire at Ryogoku from Hama-cho Kobayashi Kiyochika, 1881

The threat of fire was constant in old Japan. With buildings made of wood, paper, and clay, a single wayward spark could mean the total destruction of an entire neighborhood. The Great Fire at Ryogoku, said to be the act of an arsonist, resulted in the devastation of large swaths of old Tokyo. The story goes that two fires broke out on the morning of January 26, 1881. Driven by strong wings, the fires moved along the banks of the Kanda and Sumida Rivers, jumped the river at the Ryogoku bridge, and went on to gut much of the old city of Tokyo. Kobayashi Kiyochika left his house after the fire broke out to sketch what he could see and returned home that evening to find his own home completely destroyed. The following month, however, Kobayashi was able to turn those sketches into the woodblock paintings seen above, depicting the fire jumping the Ryogoku Bridge (top), the fire at the Asakusa Bridge (left), and the devastation the fire left in its wake (right).

[dailyukiyoe]

Lady Murasaki Okumura Masanobu, 1710 Lady Murasaki wrote what is considered to be the world’s first novel, The Tale of the Genji, sometime between 1000 and 1012. The novel follows the rise and fall of Genji as he navigates romantic relationships and the aristocracy of the imperial court. Okumura specialized in a painting style called urushi-e, which was popular in the early 1700s. Painters used dark inks mixed with glue in conjunction with thick lines, resulting in paintings that glistened to resemble lacquer.

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Zojoji Temple, Shiba Kawase Hasui, 1925 Perhaps one of the most impressive elements of Kawase’s Zojoji Temple, Shiba is the extreme amount of detail and care that was used in the carving of the hundreds of delicate snow flakes that dot the canvas. Equally worthy of note is the shading of the woman’s umbrella and the temple walls, a technique that can can be difficult to achieve in wood block paintings and often produces inconsistent results across prints.

Zojoji Temple, Shiba is considered to be Kawase’s most impressive work, with the original wood block carvings used to create an estimated 3,000 prints over more than a decade.

[dailyukiyoe]

Takanawa Sengakuji Temple Koitsu Tsuchiya, 1933

Paint brushes will never touch the canvas when an artist set out to make an ukiyoe painting. Instead, the artist and his team carve the painting into a series of wood blocks, which they then apply paint to, and then use the blocks as a stamp to create the artwork one color at a time. Each color requires its own block that is hand aligned to the canvas until the piece is completed.

Using wood blocks to create paintings gives the artist the ability to change paints across prints. Koitsu’s Takanawa Sengakuji Temple, for example, has a variety of prints that range in tone from the dark and solemn to the warm and vibrant. In the case of Takanawa Sengakuji Temple, remember that each individual color required its own specific wood black carving, from the light bouncing off the leaves to the reflection in the water.

[dailyukiyoe]

The Witch Takiyasha and the Skeleton Specter Kuniyoshi of the Utagawa School, 1844

Takiyasha was forced into hiding after her father’s bloody and failed attempt at taking over the capitol in the 900s. The central government released an edict declaring Takiyasha and her siblings enemies of the state and dispatched warriors to bring them to justice. As the emperor’s official, depicted in the center frame, searches a ruined palace for her and other conspirators, Takiyasha uses her powers of sorcery to call down the skeleton specter upon him.

As impressive as the artwork itself is the fact that the mythology of Takiyasha and her father, Masakado, are still present in Japan, even though the historical events that led to Masakado’s death and his daughter’s exile occurred more than 1000 years ago. A shrine dedicated to Masakado can be found in Tokyo, and Takiyasha makes appearances in comic books and video games even today. Other ukiyoe depictions of Takiyasha and a photograph of Masakado’s shrine at the Imperial Palace can be seen above.

[dailyukiyoe]

Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi bridge and Atake Hiroshige of the Utagawa School, 1857

The sense of overpowering rain crashing upon the men and women crossing the Shin-Ōhashi bridge is achieved through Hiroshige’s use of long, parallel lines that move in two different directions, a technique that could have blurred the rest of the painting if done incorrectly. Sudden Shower, one of Hiroshige’s paintings from his series 100 Famous Views of Edo, is perhaps one of the most recognizable from the series and one of Hiroshige’s most famous works -- so famous that Vincent van Gogh was known to copy elements from it in some of his own paintings. The modern day Rainbow Bridge crosses the Sumida River in the Minato Ward of Tokyo, in an area similar to where the Shin-Ōhashi was located in its time.

[dailyukiyoe]

Snowy Miyajima Koitsu Tsuchiya, 1937

Even though ukiyoe is usually associated with the 17th-19th centuries, this form of painting continued on through the 1900s as well. Koitsu Tsuchiya started painting in the late 1800s and continued until his death in 1949, focusing primarily on landscapes. This print features the famous Miyajima shrine located on a small island off the coast of Hiroshima prefecture, which also happens to be the home of a slew of tourist friendly deer.

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Foreign Traders in Yokohama Sadahide of the Utagawa School, 1861

Japan’s self-imposed isolationist policy lasted for over 200 years, spanning from about 1633 until 1854. The policy ended when American naval officer Matthew Perry sailed into Yokohama and demanded that Japan open its ports for commerce. The Tokugawa Shoganate that ruled over Japan at the time signed the Treaty of Peace and Amity and officially opened Yokohama for commerce in 1859. The end of Japan’s seclusion is a clear inspiration for Sadahide, whose work includes maps of the world and depictions of life in foreign countries. Despite the anti-foreigner social and political sentiment of the time, several of Sadahide’s works depict pleasant interactions between foreigners and Japanese, more of which can be seen above.

[dailyukiyoe]

Dawn at Futami-ga-ura Kunisada of the Utagawa School, 1832

Even though Kunisada might not be one of the more well known ukiyoe artists today, he was the most successful, popular, and prolific wood block artist of the 1800s. It’s estimated that Kunisada produced between 20 and 25 thousand pieces during his lifetime.

The “wedded rocks” depicted in Kunisada’s work above actually exist and can be found in the small village of Futami-ga-ura, Fukuoka Prefecture in southern Japan. Despite the title, the view of the rocks is actually westward facing, making Kunisada’s depiction of dawn impossible, albeit beautiful.