Ukiyo-E

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Report of the "UKIYO-E" conference, by Michel Maucuer, Chief Curator of Heritage at the Cernuschi Museum, richly illustrated with reproductions of works.

Michel Maucuer points out that the second part of the exhibition " Splendors of courtesans "Is visible from the November 17 at the Cernuschi Museum.

He recalled that for a long time, in the Western mind, the term ukiyo-e summarized Japanese painting in general. So much so that the first work on Japanese art by Louis Gonse, published in 1883, illustrates the painting with "images of the floating world" and its cover reproduces a print, representing a group of crows in front of a setting sun belonging to Henri Cernuschi. In his book, Louis Gonse opposes the aristocratic schools (Kanô and Tosa) to the vulgar school of the ukiyo-e which is according to him a bourgeois painting and more popular.

The cover of the book on Japanese painting by Teruzaku Akiyama, published by Skira in 1961, also takes a print of Suzuki Harunobu representing a girl visiting a temple. Ukiyo-e still seems to be the most representative kind of "deep Japan".

It is very difficult to define theukiyo-e (images of the floating world) which is as well in painting as on prints or as illustrations of books.
Originally the Buddhist term ukiyo refers to the ephemeral nature of life, and means "a world of miseries" ("this valley of tears"). To 1662 the term appears in the title of a successful novel, Ukiyo monogatari, in which the character that signifies "miseries" is replaced by the "floating" character, with the diametrically opposite meaning of the pleasures of life in a better world where one lets oneself float at the mercy of the current like a gourd floats on the torrent. The Floating World therefore corresponds to a vision of existence, an attitude that engenders a lifestyle, a world where we "go soft".

The first "floating world novel" (ukiyo-zōshi) is due to the satirical author Ihara Saikaku. This great success of 1682, Kôshoku ichidai otoko (the man who lived only to love) tells the story of Yonosuke who has relationships with hundreds of women (men too).

Three elements can however characterize the images ukiyo-e :

• the themes represented are in the era, in a modern and modern world, whereas classical Japanese painting or Yamato-erather places them in a medieval world. The new capital Edo, or the big metropolises (Kyoto and Osaka) being the frame.
• Gallantry: we represent actors and pretty girls and especially the courtesans and geishas.
• Painting as an allusion, a riddle, with a need for interpretation, re-reading by the spectator; painting in the second degree. Particularly represented subjects are:
• the private banqueting scenes in dating houses as well in painting as on printmaking.
• Scenes or famous actors of Kabuki theater.
• The pretty girls " (bijin), especially actresses, courtesans and (from the eighteenth century) geishas are one of the favorite subjects in painting as on print. The scenes of Yoshiwara's meeting places (Moronobu's theme in both painting and print) or the parade of courtesans on the central aisle, Nakanochô, Yoshiwara's "path of love" are often represented. . Works show views of the Shimabara district, the reserved district of Kyoto, or give the map of Yoshiwara with the names and prices of the main courtesans. Utamaro is a "portrait" of the great courtesans of the house of fans (these portraits are always idealized and have nothing to do with a faithful representation of the model). At the end of the eighteenth century, courtesans and geishas are represented as a social type. These ladies could be as famous for their beauty as for their culture and practiced calligraphy.
  

  MACHI-ESHI

  This title defines the "master painters of cities" that are the painters of theukiyo-e. These artists no longer depend on a single patron or a single family but work for a diverse clientele. This leads them to illustrate secular books or to create prints in series or isolated from the seventeenth century. These works can be literary but also "tour guides" of the city of Edo and its district Yoshiwara, or travel like "the Fifty-three stages of the highway of Tôkaidô" of Hiroshige or "the thirty-six views Mount Fuji "from Hokusai.

  The ukiyo -e inaugurates new relationships between artists, patrons and the market. Street scenes showing shops and neighborhood life that can also be used as advertising for a merchant: a young man chooses a print representing a courtesan in the Nishimuraya store, a printmaker, in a print by Torii Kiyonaga, published by Nishimuraya in 1787. A restaurateur, Kuriyama Zenshiro, owner of the famous restaurant Aoyazen, has a cookbook published on Edo ryuko Ryori tsu, illustrated with representations of his clients and the artists who participated in the publication: Sakai Hôitsu, Tani Bunchô, Ôta Nanpo, ....

  One of the characteristics of artists ukiyo-e is that they can work by mixing different styles or schools (Utamaro also painted in the technique of the wash painting (sumi-e) landscapes evoking the painting of the Song.In a general way, the ukiyo- e is a kind of interweaving (of styles, themes, eras), transpositions, using a great variety of pictorial processes.

  MEGANE-E

  Optical system that allows you to see an image by emphasizing the effect of depth and perspective.

  UKI-E

  Pictures or perspective paintings influenced by Western painting through Chinese Qing painting. This use of perspective was considered vulgar but was very much used by ukiyo-e painters. A painting by Katsukawa Shunshô (1726-1792) uses an elusive construction to represent distinguished young women choosing paintings from the Kanô school.

  Mitate-E

  This term defines a work whose theme refers to an ancient work or story (mitate-e). The modern era is connected to the ancient times that it plays again. Sometimes there may be a mixture of two stories (yatsushi). The painting ukiyo-e is almost always to read in the second degree: pastiche or parody are a form of homage to the imitated subject. Some elements give the viewer indications to identify characters and stories transposed in the modern world: Onnasannomiya, heroine of Genji Monogatari (Dit du Genji), pursuing his little cat is a very popular theme. A transposition identifies a courtesan mounted on a leaf like Daruma (Boddhidarma), the first patriarch of Chan (Zen).

  Paintings and prints of the ukiyo-e allow to better apprehend the Floating World, its representation and its universe, and through him the time of Edo (1615-1868).