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Bunchō
Ippitsusai Bunchō (, ) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, best known for his ''yakusha-e'' actor prints in narrow ''hosoban'' dimensions. Bunchō and Katsukawa Shunshō are credited with having developed kabuki actor portraiture focuses on producing likenesses of the subjects, rather than stereotyped faces. Little is known about Bunchō's life. His birth surname was Mori, and he is believed to have studied painting under Ishikawa Yukimoto of the Kanō school. The earliest known works attributed to Bunchō are the illustrations to Hachimonji Jishō II's ''Eiga asobi nidai otoko'' (1755). Between 1766 and 1774 he made a large number of actor prints in the narrow vertical ''hosoban'' dimensions. In 1770 he produced the three-volume ''Ehon butai ōgi'' (, "Picture-book of Stage Fans") with Katsukawa Shunshō, which depicts the leading kabuki actors of the day on ''ōgi'' hand fans; Bunchō handled the ''onnagata''—male actors who portray female characters. It was popular an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term translates as "picture of the floating world". In 1603, the city of Edo (Tokyo) became the seat of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate. The '' chōnin'' class (merchants, craftsmen and workers), positioned at the bottom of the social order, benefited the most from the city's rapid economic growth, and began to indulge in and patronise the entertainment of kabuki theatre, geisha, and courtesans of the pleasure districts; the term ("floating world") came to describe this hedonistic lifestyle. Printed or painted ukiyo-e works were popular with the ''chōnin'' class, who had become wealthy enough to afford to decorate their homes with them. The earliest ukiyo-e work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yakusha-e
''Yakusha-e'' (役者絵), often referred to as "actor prints" in English, are Japanese woodblock prints or, rarely, paintings, of kabuki actors, particularly those done in the ''ukiyo-e'' style popular through the Edo period (1603–1867) and into the beginnings of the 20th century. Most strictly, the term ''yakusha-e'' refers solely to portraits of individual artists (or sometimes pairs, as seen in this work by Sharaku). However, prints of kabuki scenes and of other elements of the world of the theater are very closely related, and were more often than not produced and sold alongside portraits. ''Ukiyo-e'' images were almost exclusively images of urban life; the vast majority that were not landscapes were devoted to depicting courtesans, sumo, or kabuki. Realistic detail, inscriptions, the availability of playbills from the period, and a number of other resources have allowed many prints to be analyzed and identified in great detail. Scholars have been able to identify the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hosoban
Woodblock printing in Japan (, ''mokuhanga'') is a technique best known for its use in the ''ukiyo-e'' artistic genre of single sheets, but it was also used for printing books in the same period. Widely adopted in Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868) and similar to woodcut in Western printmaking in some regards, the mokuhanga technique differs in that it uses water-based inks—as opposed to western woodcut, which typically uses oil-based inks. The Japanese water-based inks provide a wide range of vivid colors, glazes, and transparency. History Early, to 13th century In 764 the Empress Kōken commissioned one million small wooden pagodas, each containing a small woodblock scroll printed with a Buddhist text ('' Hyakumantō Darani''). These were distributed to temples around the country as thanks for the suppression of the Emi Rebellion of 764. These are the earliest examples of woodblock printing known, or documented, from Japan. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katsukawa Shunshō
Shunshō Katsukawa ( ja, 勝川 春章; 1726 – 19 January 1793) was a Japanese painter and printmaker in the ''ukiyo-e'' style, and the leading artist of the Katsukawa school. Shunshō studied under Miyagawa Shunsui, son and student of Miyagawa Chōshun, both equally famous and talented ukiyo-e artists. Shunshō is most well known for introducing a new form of '' yakusha-e'', prints depicting Kabuki actors. However, his ''bijin-ga'' (images of beautiful women) paintings, while less famous, are said by some scholars to be "the best in the second half of the 8th/nowiki> century".Paine, Robert Treat and Alexander Soper (1955). ''The Art and Architecture of Japan''. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 263. Biography Shunshō first came to Edo to study haiku and painting. He became a noted printmaker of actors with his first works dating from 1760. Though originally a member of the Torii school, he soon broke away and began his own style, which would later be dubbed the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kabuki
is a classical form of Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for its heavily-stylised performances, the often-glamorous costumes worn by performers, and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. Kabuki is thought to have originated in the very early Edo period, when founder Izumo no Okuni formed a female dance troupe who performed dances and light sketches in Kyoto. The art form later developed into its present all-male theatrical form after women were banned from performing in kabuki theatre in 1629. Kabuki developed throughout the late 17th century and reached its zenith in the mid-18th century. In 2005, kabuki theatre was proclaimed by UNESCO as an intangible heritage possessing outstanding universal value. In 2008, it was inscribed in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Etymology The individual kanji that make up the word ''kabuki'' can be read as , , and . ''Kabuki'' is therefore sometimes tran ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kanō School
The is one of the most famous schools of Japanese painting. The Kanō school of painting was the dominant style of painting from the late 15th century until the Meiji period which began in 1868, by which time the school had divided into many different branches. The Kanō family itself produced a string of major artists over several generations, to which large numbers of unrelated artists trained in workshops of the school can be added. Some artists married into the family and changed their names, and others were adopted. According to the historian of Japanese art Robert Treat Paine, "another family which in direct blood line produced so many men of genius ... would be hard to find". The school began by reflecting a renewed influence from Chinese painting, but developed a brightly coloured and firmly outlined style for large panels decorating the castles of the nobility which reflected distinctively Japanese traditions, while continuing to produce monochrome brush painti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hand Fan
A handheld fan, or simply hand fan, is any broad, flat surface that is waved back-and-forth to create an airflow. Generally, purpose-made handheld fans are folding fans, which are shaped like a sector of a circle and made of a thin material (such as paper or feathers) mounted on slats which revolve around a pivot so that it can be closed when not in use. Hand fans were used before mechanical fans were invented. On human skin, the airflow from handfans increases evaporation which has a cooling effect due to the latent heat of evaporation of water. It also increases heat convection by displacing the warmer air produced by body heat that surrounds the skin, which has an additional cooling effect, provided that the ambient air temperature is lower than the skin temperature – which is typically about . Fans are convenient to carry around, especially folding fans. Next to the folding fan, the rigid hand screen fan was also a highly decorative and desired object among the higher cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onnagata
(also ) are male actors who play female roles in kabuki theatre. History The modern all-male kabuki was originally known as ("male kabuki") to distinguish it from earlier forms. In the early 17th century, shortly after the emergence of the genre, many kabuki theaters had an all-female cast (), with women playing men's roles as necessary. ("adolescent-boy kabuki"), with a cast composed entirely of attractive young men playing both male and female roles, and frequently dealing in erotic themes, originated circa 1612. Both and (or ), actors specializing in adolescent female roles (and usually adolescents themselves), were the subject of much appreciation by both male and female patrons, and were often prostitutes. All-male casts became the norm after 1629, when women were banned from appearing in kabuki due to the prevalent prostitution of actresses and violent quarrels among patrons for the actresses' favors. This ban failed to stop the problems, since the young male () act ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bijin-ga
is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women () in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre. Definition defines as a picture that simply "emphasizes the beauty of women", and the ''Shincho Encyclopedia of World Art'' defines it as depiction of "the beauty of a woman's appearance". On the other hand, defines as pictures that explore "the inner beauty of women". For this reason, the essence of cannot always be expressed only through the depiction of a , a woman aligning with the beauty image. In fact, in ukiyo-e , it was not considered important that the picture resemble the facial features of the model, and the depiction of women in ukiyo-e is stylized rather than an attempt to create a realistic image; For example, throughout the Edo period (1603-1867), married women had a custom of shaving their eyebrows (), but in , there was a rule to draw the eyebrows for married women. History Ukiyo-e itself is a genre of woodblock prints and pain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suzuki Harunobu
Suzuki Harunobu ( ja, 鈴木 春信; ) was a Japanese designer of woodblock print art in the style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints () in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of subjects, from classical poems to contemporary beauties. Like many artists of his day, Harunobu also produced a number of , or erotic images. During his lifetime and shortly afterwards, many artists imitated his style. A few, such as Harushige, even boasted of their ability to forge the work of the great master. Much about Harunobu's life is unknown. Influences Though some scholars assert that Harunobu was originally from Kyoto, pointing to possible influences from Nishikawa Sukenobu, much of his work, in particular his early work, is in the Edo style. His work shows evidence of influences from many artists, including Torii Kiyomitsu, Ishikawa Toyonobu, the Kawamata s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An'ei
was a after ''Meiwa'' and before ''Tenmei.'' This period spanned the years November 1772 through March 1781. The reigning emperors were and . Change of era * 1772 : The era name was changed to ''An'ei'' (meaning "peaceful eternity") to mark the enthronement of Emperor Go-Momozono and in hopes of turning attention from the serial catastrophic devastation from fires and storms in ''Meiwa'' 9. The previous era ended and a new one commenced in the 11th month of ''Meiwa'' 9. Events of the ''An'ei'' era * 1775 (''An'ei 4''): Epidemic diseases spread across the country – in Edo alone, an estimated 190,000 perished.Hall, John Whitney. (1955). ''Tanuma Okitsugu, 1719-1788: Forerunner of Modern Japan, '' p. 121. * 1775 (''An'ei 4''): Swedish physician and botanist Carl Peter Thunberg arrives at VOC outpost or "factory" in Nagasaki bay; and ultimately, his scientific activities will result in the first detailed, descriptive survey of the flora and fauna of the Japanese archipelag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_Three_Beauties_of_the_Present_Time%2C_MFAB_21.6382.jpg "Click for more on -> Bijin-ga")
