JAPAN -- Tokugawa Period (Part II)
(1800 to 1868)
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The Work:
Bonsai Gardener
is
an illustration from the 1803
Kyoka Picture Book of Craftsmen.
The
surimono
print is perhaps
a
koban
(approx. 21 x 15 cm). It depicts a seated merchant,
scissors on the ground in front of him, arranging the leafless branch (deadwood?)
at the base of a thick-trunked pine. The tree would be perhaps a
little more than a meter tall. Two pieces of rockery are also seen,
along with a four-leafed plant which, from behind the tree's base, sends
a flowering branch to the left. All of this is directly on a large
flat, four-lobed table with a curving leg under each lobe. The very
base of the pine appears to have been hollowed out a little, but there
is no pot or sign of any soil. Is it a
hachi-no-ki
or
ikebana?
A customer holding a flower is at the front left viewing the pine.
Several rows of cursive vertical writing make up the top half of this
surimono.
The Artist: Hishikawa Sori (aka Sori III, fl. 1798 - c.1840) remains somewhat a mystery, neither his birthplace nor family name being recorded. He did live at Bakuro-machi in Edo where many famous artists lived at one time or another. He adopted many names, but is best known as Sori, a name he gave himself in 1798. An early pupil of Hokusai (see below), his brushwork closely resembles that of his teacher, especially Hokusai's style of the mid-1780s. Sori produced designs for commercially printed woodblock prints but also worked on surimono, such as book illustrations, picture calendars and privately ordered prints. 1 The Work: From the same or a similar work of 1802, Thirty-six Craftsmen (Shokunin Sanj rokuban), is also the surimono Carpenter (Daiku). The series was later issued as an illustrated book. This 14 x 18.4 or 19.2 cm piece has verses by two poets. A young woman holds up a newly made tray-table at center. The craftsman, perhaps a shrine carpenter, looks on from the right. Behind him are a few of his tools, and behind these is a bare plum tree with a medium-sized trunk and three branches, growing in a fairly tall cylindrical pot with a wide thin lip. 2 The Work: Empress Komyo ( Komyo Go ) is from the 1813 series of Three Historical Beauties. The Empress, wife of Emperor Shomun (r. AD 701-706), is depicted as an attractive courtesan in the artist's time. She has just finished her first bath of the New Year and is cooling off in a gentle spring breeze out on the veranda ( engawa ). To the left in a medium-sized deep round pot is a stone-clinging medium-sized hachi-no-ki with silvery round berries or leaves and a thin trunk. The pot is white with bluish-gray characters and a forest scene on it. To the immediate front and right of it is a deep bowl/cup bearing a companion plant. This smaller container has horizontal bluish-gray lines or rings. Could this work have been inspired by the Chinese Southern Song Peeping at the Bath, which concerns the consort of the Tang Emperor who happened to reign just after the Japanese Emperor Shomun? The Artist: Ryuryukyo Shinsai (1764 ? – 1830, fl. c.1800-1830) was also a student of Hokusai, and later became master of his own school. He published and illustrated large numbers of kyoka books and contributed to many other illustrated books. His landscape prints often showed influence from Europe in their Western-style perspective and shading. Specializing in surimono, however, he would be recognized as an innovator in still-life compositions. 3
The Work:
From 1822 is a print
Bundles
of Iron and Copper Ingots With a Potted Sago Palm, Plum, and Adonis Plant.
The last two – the most popular flowers of the New Year -- are front left
in a small rectangular tray, which has long feet and is decorated with
geometric patterns in gold or copper, red and dark gray. The three-trunked
or plant sago is in a squat grayish container with scalloped lip.
This pot rests on a flat thin red board. There are eight stake-like
iron ingots in a double-tied bundle towards the back; the three flattish
square copper ingots in front are tied up with a rope “present-style” (across
all four edges).
The Artist: Ryuryukyo Shinsai 4 The Work: Tea Whisk, Tea Scoop, and Miniature Plum Tree, a shikishiban (approx. 21 x 18.6 cm) from c.early 1820s, is part of Keisai Eisen's Famous Places and Products of Yamashiro Province ( Yamashiro meisho meibutsu ) series. Two poems complement the graphic of the front to back arrangement of the title objects. The short but thick-trunked plum in near-full bloom resides in a squat container whose opening is narrower than the pot is wide. A mountain landscape scene decorates the outside of the pot. The Artist: Keisai Eisen (b. Ikeda Yoshinobu, 1790-1848) was an erratic, uneven, prolific Edo artist who studied the Kano and Tosa schools before that of Ukiyo-e. He did some collaboration with Hiroshige (see below) and re-edited the main source books for the history of Ukiyo-e. In the 1820s he produced lurid bust portraits of women of cloying sensuality, which rival the work of Kunisada. 5 The Work: A Dwarf Plum, Adonis Plant, Inkstone and Envelope,1825, (21.0 x 18.1 cm) is a surimono which has eleven lines of calligraphy in its upper half. The lower right corner shows a plum planted on the right side of a round cream-colored pot. The Adonis is on the left. The blue-and-white porcelain container displays a now faded to green-gray scene on its front, shows three small round feet, and has a brown thin lip which is the same width as the pot is below its indented neck. The Artist: Keisai Eisen 6 The Work: From the late 1820s comes Women Sewing and Ironing. Verses by five poets comment on the graphic of this 21.3 x 18.8 cm surimono. To the right behind the two women is a large deep upside-down bell-shaped pot, decorated with some repeating geometrical patterns and resting on a square of some material, a board perhaps. In the pot is what appears to be a typically spindly plum bonsai in blossom. The Artist: Keisai Eisen 7 The Work: Chushingura (probably a standard woodblock print) represents a scene from the same titled play written in 1748 about the 1701 incident involving the 47 Ronin (masterless samurai). A pine bonsai is left of center in a deep, upside-down bell-shaped geometric pattern decorated pot. The medium-sized tree shows very good rootage, curving trunk and branches – and the end of the right most branch lies on the engawa upon which the pot rests. The samurai sitting to the right and behind raises his short dagger to deliver another nonartistic cutting blow to the bonsai (oh, shades of To Boldly Grow !). To the right a second person (with his forehead more shaved) sits in the opening of the building just off the engawa, his hands palm up in what to us would be a meditative pose even though he is watching this carnage (“vegage”?).
The Subject:
This particular print is one in a set of eleven
the artist created based on the play, one print for each act. This
play is the most famous of over 100 plays written on the historical event,
the most popular piece in the Kabuki theatre.
The Artist: Keisai Eisen. 8
The Work:
The Talisman
(
Mayoke
)
was issued in 1822. In that year of the horse, Hokusai designed a
series of elegant
surimono
still-life compositions relating very
obliquely to the general theme of horses. The series of which this
20.1 x 17.6 cm print is part is titled
A Set of Horses
(
Uma-zukushi
).
The Artist: Katsushika Hokusai (b. Nakajima Tamekazu, 1760-1849) was trained as an engraver and produced perhaps 30,000 prints, sketches and paintings in his lifetime. The leading Ukiyo-e artist of the later Edo period, he had the longest career of any of the artists – more than seventy years – and during this time changed his style many times, making unique contributions in all fields. He had many pupils and was always inventive, fascinating, dexterous, and daring. This great Edo master's most famous print in the West is the often seen In the Hollow of the Wave off the coast of Kanagawa, which exquisitely freezes the motion of a large breaking wave. 9 The Work: Also from the above same series is Colts of the Shogi Board ( Shogi komi ) (21.2 x 18.6 cm, with three verses by two poets). A rather nondescript thin needle of a miniature plum tree in bloom shares a blue-and-white squat, somewhat upside-down bell shaped porcelain pot with a larger adonis plant. The container rests on a black lacquered game board. The Artist: Katsushika Hokusai. 10 The Work: From 1823 [sic] comes A Woman in the Pose of Ebisu. This is part of the S even Women as the Gods of Good Fortune for the Hanagasa Poetry Club ( Hanagasa-ren Shichi Fukujin ) parody series. Ebisu was the god of wealth and the patron saint of merchants, and the print's surrounding green border is composed of auspicious symbols associated with the gods. A potted plum tree, in bloom and with a thin double trunk, is at the far left of the 20.5 x 18.4 cm design in a round pot which is placed on the engawa and has a wide thin lip. Three of the four poets' pieces refer to plum blossoms. The Artist: Katsukawa Shuntei (b. Yamaguchi Chojuro, 1770-1820) produced book illustrations in addition to surimono and other forms. 11 The Work: Women of the Genroku Period Admiring a Pot of Adonis Flowers. Dated Spring, Dragon Year (1820), this 20.3 x 17.6 cm surimono has a medium-sized bowl with a wide lip to the left of the title figures. Its bonsai appears to be a plum with a fair-sized trunk cut low and sprouting at least seven thin vertical branches of assorted height. The verse above left and center is by Enjudo. The Artist: Tosaian Namboku (fl. 1820) 12 The Work: Still Life (1831) has verses by four poets covering the upper third of this 20.5 x 18.5 cm surimono portrayal of an inkstone and slab, hand scroll, miniature plum, and silver rabbit. (The picture was published in a Rabbit Year.) On three paw-like feet, the squat Chinese-style decorated container is encircled by a number of emblems, each with a character. The tree seems to be older and is better developed than previous ones we've seen: the branches show good taper, are more curved and horizontal. A couple of adonis appear to be also planted in the pot. The Artist: Katsushika Taito II (fl. mid-1810s - c. 1850) was a pupil of Hokussai and worked in both Edo and Osaka. He frequently forged his master’s signature. 13 The Work: Husband and Wife ( Fufu ) (early 1830s) of the Three Bonds for the Asahi Circle ( Asahiren sanko no uchi ) series. Three Takeshima poets are represented on this 20.2 x 17.5 cm surimono of our old friends: Sano Genzaemon Tsuneyo to the right, his wife Anjuhime [sic] to the left/center, and their three miniature trees (see Hachi-No-Ki ). The pine is front/center, one of the others is along the right edge next to the samurai, and the third tree is barely visible in the center behind him. The couple is shown younger than the story tells and Tsuneyo is dressed in quality samurai garb. The Artist: Apparently also Katsushika Taito. 14 |
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The Work:
Edo Meisho Zue
(
Painting
of Famous Places in Edo
) from 1836 includes illustrations of merchants
selling bonsai at a street market near a temple.
The Artist: Ando Hiroshige (aka Ichiyusai, 1797-1858), the son of an Edo fireman, began studying at age fourteen Ukiyo-e under Utagawa Toyohiro (1774-1829, a storybook illustrator who was a less successful competitor of Toyokuni). Hiroshige later adopted techniques from the Kano, Maruyama and Shijo schools, as well as the Chinese Southern style and even Western style of painting. He moved beyond the endless re-runs of actors and courtesans into the boundless natural world around us. From these diverse elements he developed a distinct style of his own. He had an enormous production of single sheets, prints in series, book illustrations, fan designs, sketches, and paintings -- over eight thousand known items during a forty-year career. Delightful, charming, and dexterous, he was an artist of Japanese life and topography. The prints and sketches show great technical virtuosity and a naturalistic viewpoint, although his paintings are rather dull and less interesting. During the 1840s, landscape prints, nearly all of them designed by Hiroshige, were published in large numbers, and more intense colors began to be used. 15
The Work:
Chushingura
(
Loyal
subject warehouse
[
of stories about the 47 Ronin
], see above),
Act 4, Senichi issue, shows what appears at first glance to be a large
potted tree on the
engawa, with two smaller ones at the base of
the steps in front of this porch, just right of bottom center of this standard
woodblock print. Of the latter plants, a light-colored well-foliaged
tree is on the right, exposed root or root over rock style in a cylindrical
container with wide feet around its base and a white and light checkerboard
design below its wide thin lip. To the left and slightly behind in
what might be a lipped hexagonal pot with a peg foot at the base of each
facet is a well-developed slightly weeping plum (perhaps) with dark secondary
branches and foliage and some thirty oval fruits (persimmons?).
The Artist: Ando Hiroshige 16 The Work: The Story of the Potted Trees (c.1843-1847), a triptych standard print. This is the most dramatic of the versions our researches have thus far uncovered. The Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (b. Igusa Kuniyoshi, 1797-1861) was a pupil of Toyokuni and studied several schools before founding his own style. He is particularly noted for his warrior prints throughout his career and was even asked to tatoo his paintings on the bodies of young men who liked the style of his artwork He did fine Western-style landscape prints during the 1830s and early 1840s as well as large numbers of comic prints and erotica. 17 The Work: Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido as Bonsai [sic] ( Tokaido Gojusan-eki Hachiyama Zue ) pictured each of the 53 stations as a highly detailed miniature landscape in a ceramic tray (known as "bonkei"). This 1848 e-hon had 12.4 x 17.1 cm (4-7/8 x 6-3/4") pages.
The Artist:
Yoshishige (active 1840s), a pupil of Kuniyoshi.
18
The Work: A triptych standard print (dated 1853) which shows four women with perhaps two dozen dwarfed potted trees in the marketplace. At least three of the many pots have diagonal striping. Most of the pots are decorated. The Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (b. Tsunoda Kunisada, 1786-1864) became a pupil of Toyokuni at age fifteen. With Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige, Kunisada was the leading Ukiyo-e artist of the late Edo period. He is said to have produced a larger number of works than any other Ukiyo-e artist. In 1844 he assumed the name Toyokuni III and afterwards led an atelier of some twenty-eight pupils in producing ever-larger series of actor portraits and prints of beauties, of increasingly technical complexity. 19 The Work: Yuki Hachi No Ki (The story of the potted trees) , an oban from an 1856 Kabuki series of 47 prints which portray the various syllables of the katakana "alphabet." The character "yu" is here shown as a variation on our old Noh theatre friends, now as a Kabuki theatre topic. The three lightly snow-covered trees are in the lower right corner of the scroll and are all in deep pots with wide openings. The bare cherry is just right of center in a container whose outside is white with dark-blue or black flower and vine designs; to the right of this is the heavily pink-blossomed plum in a container dark blue with a white and medium-blue wavy bottom; to the right of this at the picture's right edge is the evergreen pine in a medium-blue container with dark blue and white designs, possibly a representation of a snowy flat-topped Mt. Fuji. The Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III). 20 The Work: Amerika no shōnin shōju no sakura o motomete ōi ni kanki no zu (American merchant delighted with miniature cherry tree) (1861), a print which shows a man admiring a bonsai tree in bloom, it possibly reminds him of his wife and brings to mind her portrait hanging in the upper left corner.
The Artist:
Sadahide Utagawa
(1807-1873, original name: Hashimoto) was a pupil of Kunisada. A
highly talented artist with a somewhat mixed output, the majority of
his early production seems to have been warrior prints, which follow in
the style of Kuniyoshi, though he also made some
bijin-ga
in
the style of Kunisada. Best appreciated and noted are his
Yokohama-e prints from the Western enclave of Yokohama depicting scenes
with Westerners. At his time he was obviously among the top
appreciated designers, as his works were displayed in the World
Exhibition in Paris in 1866 at the Japanese pavillion. After the
Meiji Restoration, Sadahide produced some of the best Yokohama-e
available, and introduced some new pictorial styles that broadened the
scope of
ukiyo-e. These include his multi-sheet maps/views of
Yokohama and Edo from the air, and triptychs in which figures were not
confined to a single sheet, but swelled in closeup over all three.
The Work:
Picture of a Foreign Building
in Yokohama
(December 1861), a triptych standard print which depicts
the building of Walsh & Co. just before Dr. George R. Hall's departure
for the United States. The artist captured some of the plants that
Dr. Hall was shipping to the States. In early 1862
Frances
Hall
joined the firm, which then became known as Walsh, Hall &
Co.
The Artist: Suzuki Hiroshige II (1826-1869), pupil and adopted son of Ando Hiroshige, Suzuki Shigenobu took over the name after his teacher’s death and was used by him until his retirement to Yokohama c.1865 when he changed his name to Kisai Ryusho. Owing to their similar styles and use of similar signatures and seals the late paintings of Hiroshige I and Hiroshige II have yet to be differentiated satisfactorily. 22
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1.
Seen at the Phoenix
Art Museum's "Surimono: Japanese Prints from the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives"
display (Oct. 6, 1990 - Jan. 27, 1991);
Index of Japanese Painters,
compiled by the Society of Friends of Eastern Art (Toyo Bijutsu Kokusai
Kenkyukai)(Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company; 1940. First Tuttle edition
published 1958), pg. 111 gives artist's name as Tawaraya Sori, family name
of Mototomo;
Mirviss, Joan B. The Frank Lloyd Wright Collection of Surimono ; (New York: Weatherhill, Inc. and Phoenix, AZ: Phoenix Art Museum; 1995), pg. 178.
2. Keyes, Roger
S.
Surimono, Privately Published Japanese Prints in the Spencer Museum
of Art
(Tokyo/New York: Kodansha International Ltd.; 1984), small b&w
Fig.
219, pp. 186-187, and the date 1803;
Mirviss, small b&w Fig. 274, pg. 270. 3. Seen at Phoenix Art Museum's Frank Lloyd Wright "Surimono" display; also shown as small b&w Fig. 238 on pg. 258 of Mirviss, where it is dated c.1820, and biography on pg. 150. 4. Mirviss, color Fig. 46, caption on pg. 156.
5.
Keyes,
Surimono,
small b&w Fig.
10, pg. 148;
Smith, Lawrence (ed.)
Ukiyoe,
Images of Unknown Japan
(London: British Museum Publications Ltd.;
1988), pg. 25;
Kikuchi, Sadao A Treasury of Japanese Wood Block Prints, Ukiyo-e (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.; Translation ©1969 by Tokyo International Publishers, Illustrations ©1963 Kawadeshobo, Tokyo. Translated by Don Kenny), pg. 6.
6. Seen at
Phoenix Art Museum's Frank Lloyd Wright "Surimono" display; also in Mirviss,
small b&w fig.
62
on pg. 196;
Roberts, Laurance P.
A
Dictionary of Japanese Artists
(Tokyo: John Weatherhill, Inc.; 1976),
pg. 21;
Index SFEA, pg. 2. 7. Keyes, Surimono, small b&w Fig. 22, pg. 151.
8. Watzik, Edward
M. “Forty-Seven Ronin and One Bonsai,”
Bonsai Journal, American
Bonsai Society, Vol. 9, No. 3, Fall 1975, pp. 55, 70. Reprinted by
permission. B&w on pg.
55, from the author's collection;
Scidmore, Eliza Ruhamah
Jinrikisha Days in Japan
(New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers; 1899, 1891), pg. 111.
9. Smith, Lawrence,
Victor Harris and Timothy Clark
Japanese Art: Masterpieces
in the British Museum
(New York: Oxford University Press;
1990), pg. 224, Fig.
218
with color photo;
Index
SFEA, pg.
41;
Roberts, pg. 48;
Smith (ed.) Ukiyoe, pg. 26. 10. Mirviss, color Fig. 35, caption on pg. 134.
11. Mirviss, color
Fig.
56, caption on pg. 176 which gives 1820 as death date and 1823
as date
of the Year of the Goat, which Stewart, Basil
A Guide to Japanese
Prints and their Subject Matter
(New York: Dover Publications, Inc.,1979.
Originally published by E.P. Dutton and Company, New York in 1922 as
Subjects
Portrayed in Japanese Colour-Prints
), pg. 337 “Comparative Table of
Japanese Chronology From 1800 to 1868” verifies Year of the Goat was 1823;
Smith (ed.)
Ukiyo-e, pg. 31 also as 1820 as artist’s final year;
Roberts, pg. 158. 12. Keyes, Surimono, small b&w Fig. 156, pg. 174. 13. Keyes, Surimono, small b&w Fig. 227, pg. 188. 14. Keyes, Surimono, small b&w Fig. 230, pg. 189, the 20.2 x 17.5 cm scroll as shown, is captioned "the picture and series title have been trimmed."
15. Sawada, Ikune
"Notes on Antique Chinese Bonsai Pots,"
Bonsai, Bonsai Clubs International,
September/October 1988, Vol. XXVII, No. 5, pg. 25;
Liang, Amy The Living Art of Bonsai: Principles & Techniques of Cultivation & Propagation (New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.; 1992), pg. 107 gives the author as Saito Ichizaemon.
16. Stewart, b&w
Plate
40
(first part, bottom) and pg. 253 which mentions “a large
bowl of rare cherry-blossoms”;
another b&w copy of this, twice as large,
illustrates Watzik, Edward M. "The Bonsai of Lady Kaoyo,"
Bonsai Journal,
American Bonsai Society, Vol. 10, No. 3, Fall 1976, pg.
60, from
the author's collection;
Tazawa, Yutaka (super.ed.)
Biographical
Dictionary of Japanese Art
(Tokyo: Kodansha International, Ltd. In
collaboration with the International Society for Educational Information,
Inc.; 1981), pg. 343;
Index
SFEA, pg. 126;
Roberts, pp. 44-45.
17.
The Raymond
A. Bidwell Collection of Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)
(Springfield,
MA: Museum of Fine Arts; 1968), b&w Fig.
67, pg. 85;
Smith (ed.)
Ukiyo-e,
pg. 28;
Clark, Timothy
Ukiyo-e Paintings in the British Museum
(Washington
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), pg. 205;
Index SFEA, pg. 72; 18. http://www.ukiyoe-gallery.com/detail-b322.htm through http://www.ukiyoe-gallery.com/detail-b327.htm , accessed 07/19/2004, and http://www.robynbuntin.com/ukiyo-e/browse_by_artist.asp?ArtistID=357, accessed 09/05/2004.
19.
Killam, Walt
“Bonsai in Ukiyo-e,”
Bonsai, BCI, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, January/February
1979, b&w photo on pg. 24, with close-up on pg. 25; From Takagi Bonsai Museum Japanese/English guide booklet, c.2002.
Left and middle panels of a trypych.
Smith
(ed.)
Ukiyo-e, pg. 28;
Clark, pg. 203;
Index
SFEA, pg. 71.
20. http://www.kunisada.de/kunisada-1856/Iroha-letter/iroha-letter-1.htm#yu, per personal e-mail from Gunter Lind to RJB, Feb. 1, 2006. New 02/01/2006
21.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, result of
search using the term "bonsai," accessed 01/03/2005. CALL NUMBER:
FP 2 - Chadbourne, no. 80 (A size) [P&P]. REPRODUCTION
NUMBER: LC-USZC4-9992 (color film copy transparency)
22.
Hall, Frances
Japan
Through American Eyes, the Journal of Francis Hall, Kanagawa and Yokohama
1859-1866
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; 1992),
pg.
391
with b&w photo. "Print made available through
the courtesy of the DAVAL Foundation from the collection of Ambassador
and Mrs. William Leonhart of Washington, D.C.";
slightly smaller copy in
Hall, John Whitney
Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times
(New
York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc; 1970), b&w Fig.
31
as "The Foreign
Concession at Yokohama.";
Clark, pg. 182. |
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