Yoshitaki Kunikazu Nansuitei Yoshiyuki 100 Views of Osaka

Yoshitaki

Kunikazu Nansuitei Yoshiyuki

100 Views of Osaka

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Cristina Berna and Eric Thomsen

2024

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Yoshitaki Kunikazu Nansuitei Yoshiyuki

100 Views of Osaka 

(Utagawa Yoshitaki, Utagawa Kunikazu & Nansuitei Yoshiyuki: 100 Views of Naniwa (Osaka), published by Ishiwa 1860s)

Copyright© by Cristina Berna and Eric Thomsen  

Copyright ©2021, 2024 by Cristina Berna and Eric Thomsen

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The pictures of the prints are in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less. This book is void of sale where disallowed.

About the authors

Cristina Berna loves photographing and writing. She writes to entertain a diverse audience.

Eric Thomsen has published in science, economics and law, created exhibitions and arranged concerts.

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Contact the authors

missysclan@gmail.com 

Published by www.missysclan.net  

Cover picture:       Front:  View of the Sakura-no-miya Shrine (Sakura-no-miya kei), Utagawa Yoshitaki            Rear:  Gappô-ga-tsujii intersection at the Shitennô-ji Temple (Shitennô-ji Gappô-ga-tsuji), Nansuitei Yoshiyuki

Inside: The Precincts of the Shitennô-ji Temple (Shitennô-ji garan) (detail), Utagawa Kunikazu

This book is available in color print versions

In the United States under      ISBN US 978-1-956-773-378 

In the EU under      ISBN DE 978-3-757-807-726 (In English)

German, French and   Spanish version forthcomng.

Introduction

Viewing Osaka through the series 100 Views of Naniwa (Osaka) is an amazing experience. It is a well executed repetition over a format by Hiroshige. Some add a Famous to the title.

This series is by three artists, Utagawa Yoshitaki, Utagawa Kunikazu and Nansuitei Yoshiyuki.

Hiroshige I created his revolutionary series 100 Famous Views of Edo over three years, 1856-1859.

This led to the publishing of copy series 100 Views of Naniwa (Osaka) by other artists. The book here is based mainly on prints in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Osaka Municipal Museum collections.

Hiroshige I had done his own series Famous Views of Naniwa (Osaka), 10 prints, as early as 1834, but it was his 100 Famous Views of Edo that caused the significant copy production.

Copying ideas and prints was quite normal in the Edo Period Japan print business.

Utagawa Yoshitaki

Utagawa Yoshitaki (歌川 芳滝, April 13, 1841 – June 28, 1899), is also known as Ichiyōsai Yoshitaki (一養斎 芳滝). Yoshitaki was a Japanese designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints who was active in both Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka. He was also a painter and newspaper illustrator. His father was a paste merchant, and Yoshitaki became a student of Utagawa Yoshiume (1819–1879). Yoshitaki was the most prolific designer of woodblock prints in Osaka from the 1860s to the 1880s, producing more than 1,200 different prints, almost all of kabuki actors. Judging from archives of sold prints since 2001, most of Kunikazu's output were actor and kabuki theater subjects. But he also made a few landscape series. One is titled Hundred Views of Naniwa - Naniwa Hyakkei published by Wataki. Naniwa is another name for Osaka. After the success of Hiroshige Ando (Hiroshige I) in the landscape genre, these Views of ... series had gained some popularity among the Japanese print buying public.

His earliest prints were published when he had barely entered his teens. In 1855 he left Yoshiume to be an independent artist. For a period of twenty years, Yoshitaki was the most prolific of Osaka print artists, producing more than 1,200 designs, nearly all yakusha-e (actor pictures.) In addition to creating woodblock prints of actors and of landscapes, Yoshitaki, using the artist names Sasaki Yoshitaki 笹木芳瀧 (starting in 1875) and Nakai Yoshitaki 中井芳瀧, created (wrote and illustrated) specialized woodblock prints called nishki-e shinbun for several Osaka newspapers including the Osaka nishikiga shinbun, Osaka nishikie shinwa, Kanzen choaku nishikiga shinbun, and Shinbun zue. Yoshitaki also remained active as a painter, exhibiting both in Japan and internationally, winning bronze medals at the first two Naikoku Kaiga Kyoshin Kai (National Paintings Fair) in 1882 and 1884 and a meritorious mention at the fourth Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai (National Expo for the Promotion of Industry.) As with many woodblock artists he also worked as a commercial artist, creating theater billboards and illustrations for a sake company. In 1880, he moved to Kyoto and in 1885 he moved to Sakai where he died in 1889. He is buried at Nanshuji on Ryukozan in Sakai.

Utagawa Kunikazu

Utagawa Kunikazu (歌川国員) also known as Utagawa Isshusai was born around 1830 and died in 1919. He had a famous teacher, the ukiyo-e artist Kunisada Utagawa, who at his time was considered the best ukiyo-e artist. Best or not, Kunisada was quite successful and maintained a huge studio with many young students who may have produced a large number of the many thousands of designs that were published under Kunisada's name.

Kunikazu Utagawa was a printmaker from Osaka. The Osaka printmakers are known among collectors of Japanese prints for their production of kabuki theater prints and actor portraits in a somewhat peculiar style. Kunikazu however was more of an all-round artist. Apart from the theater prints, he made also landscape designs and even kuchi-e.

The writer Laurance P. Roberts lists Kunikazu Utagawa in his Dictionary of Japanese Artists as a highly accomplished technician.

This is mentioned by the famous Japanese print dealer Dieter Wanczura that this only as a humorous side note as Roberts usually regards all Japanese printmakers after Utamaro as hardly noteworthy examples of decline and as minor artists. How kind that this man does at least concede the status of a highly accomplished technician. The influence of Hiroshige's vertical ôban series 'Meisho Edo hyakkei' (One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, issued from 2/1856 through 10/1858) on Kunikazu's Tamae print is, of course, obvious - note the virtual copying of the series and title cartouches and many of the prints. Still, Kunikazu’s prints could hardly be mistaken for a design by Hiroshige. Kunikazu emphasized the receding perspective and there is often obvious humor in the choreographed placement of his figures.

Woodblock prints by Kunikazu Utagawa are like most prints by Osaka artists, rather inexpensive and thus affordable for all kinds of art budgets.

Nansuitei Yoshiyuki

Nansuitei Yoshiyuki (南粋亭芳雪).  Also known as Mori Yoshiyuki, Nansui, Mori Yonejiro, Rikukaen (Rikkaen), Rikukaken (Rikkaken), Keisetsu. Born 1835 and died 1879.

Rakkaken Yoshiyuki (六花軒芳雪) was a student of Yoshiume (1819-1879). He should not be confused with the Edo artist Ichireisai Yoshiyuki (active 1850s - 1860s), who signed with a different character for yuki and was a pupil of the famous Edo master Kuniyoshi. There was also an earlier Osaka artist named Takagi Yoshiyuki who worked in the early 1820s and used the same characters in his name as Ichireisai Yoshiyuki. It appears that Rakkaken Yoshiyuki worked in Osaka until around 1868, when he then moved to Tokyo (formerly Edo).

Nansuitei Yoshiyuki did prints of actors and landscapes, and from 1868 to 1875 of ‘civilization and enlightenment.’

Publishers

Ishikawaya Wasuke (Ishiwa) was a publisher in Osaka. He published the series Naniwa hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Osaka).

The series Naniwa hyakkei (One Hundred Views of Osaka) was published by Ishiwa circa late 1850s-early 1860s.

Some times the title will be with added information One Hundred Views of [Famous Places in] Osaka (Naniwa [meisho] hyakkei).

The prints were nishiki-e (錦絵, brocade picture) which is a type of Japanese multi-coloured woodblock printing.  The technique is used primarily in ukiyo-e. It was invented in the 1760s, and perfected and popularized