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The Committee on Publications of The
Grolier Club certifies that this copy of 4
Descriptive Catalogue of an Exhibition of
Japanese Figure Prints from Moronobu to
Toyokuni is one of an edition of three
hundred copies, printed on Van Gelder
Zonen paper, at The Gilliss Press. The
presswork was completed in the month of
April, 1924.
6 na eres 28 ae
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
FROM
MORONOBU TO TOYOKUNI
ReeeeoCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE
OF AN EXHIBITION OF
peer NE Sok
Meee RE PRINTS
FROM
MORONOBU TO TOYOKUNI
BY
Poe soy Le DOU A
NEW YORK
Poe GROLIER CLUS
1924
‘
, by
List OF PLATES
PREFACE
CATALOGUE
CONTENTS
Krad
* <~a ay os
aignn'?
a+ a
Ife tO uRaeAT ES
PLATE “NUMBER PAGE
FRONTISPIECE HARUNOBU No. 21. . . Title
PLATE I Mitsunopu No. 3. . . 6
PLATE II RIYOMASU ONG. * 4 9% 4 8
PLATE III Ki YONOBU ONO Ae Fol ee Ae Yo
PLATE Iv HOYONORU OMG. 13. 72%" S57 416
PLATE V Tovonosu wNovet4a. 1 7S S418
PLATE VI MASANOBU NG: 715 0°" T° 4°20
PLATE VII Bivonine ts NGs10:..4 48 22
PLATE VIII KIVOMITSU INDE 17° 4 Fe 24
PLATE IX Kryomitsu. No. 18. . . ~ 26
PLATE X Kiyomitsu No. 19. . . 28
PLATE XI HARUNOBUY NO, 32047 2236) 40
PLATE XII HARUSHIGE No. 36. . . 32
PLATE XIII SHUNSHO Nov 42a eae a0
PLATE XIV SHUNSHO NOY a4 ~ ae a
1X
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
PLATE
XV
XVI
XVII
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
LIST OF PLATES
CATALOGUE
NUMBER
SHUNSHO No. 49
SHUNKO No. 54 .
SHUNKO No. 55
SHUNYEI No. 58
SHUNYEI No. 59
SHUNYEI No. 60
SHUNYEI No. 61
KorrusaAl No. 72
SHIGEMASA No. 74
KrvonaGA No. 77
KrvonaGA No. 82
Toyokuni’ No. 121
Toyokuni’ No. 124
Toyokuni’ No. 125
FACING
PAGE
40
42
44
46
48
50
52
54
56
58
62
84
86
88
PREEACE
By the middle of our seventeenth century,
when the ancient feudal wars of Japan had become
legends and the country had been long at peace,
the prosperous middle classes of the capital and,
to a certain extent, of the whole Empire had be-
gun to demand self-expression in art. They were
comparatively rich, they felt secure, they were
light-hearted, bent upon pleasure. Poetry they
had, and the minor arts; but painting, sculpture
and the theatre were in the service of the Bud-
dhist church or of the nobles—a condition not to
be tolerated by a nation which, it may be claimed,
was more keen in its esthetic appreciation than
any other that had been in the world since Athens
fell—when once the great body of the people
had become rich enough, settled enough to get
what it wanted. From the earlier marionette
shows a popular theatre was developed that be-
came the national passion; a popular school of
painting sprang into being, gathering to itself
and expanding certain phases of earlier Japanese
art; and this school, disregarding the canons of
classical painting, unmindful of the Buddhist
xi
PREFACE
spiritualities, or treating them with scant rever-
erence, concerned itself solely with the glamor
of daily existence, the joy of life, the beauty of
the present world. The chosen medium of this
school was the color print. Prints were made
cheaply and sold by thousands. They served
the purpose of our Sunday Supplements. They
depicted the popular actors in favorite réles, the
famous courtesans,—a class of women who appear
to have been often of exquisite cultivation, much
like the Greek hetzerz. They were used as fash-
ion plates; the country gentlemen who were
obliged by law to come up to the capital once a
year, the merchants who came in from outlying
districts, took them home to show the people in
their native villages the styles of the hour, the
gay life of the city. They were the “ Vogue” and
“Theatre Magazine” of their time; but they were
as well marvels of line and color, marvels of tech-
nical achievement, so filled with a sense of the
joy and beauty of life, preserving with such
passionate intensity, such sensitive appreciation
each ephemeral loveliness, that they have won a
place apart in the art of the world and in the af-
fections of those who are familiar with them.
It is not for a catalogue to discuss the influence
of Japanese prints on modern European painting,
or to point out wherein they resemble, or differ
from, the earlier art of the West. It is necessary,
however, to outline briefly, as they are reached,
the stages of technical development. The de-
X11
PREFACE
tails of the process have been described in many
books.
Whenever a reproduction of the actual print
exhibited has been published, the reference is
given. Whenever other impressions of the prints
shown have been reproduced, the effort has been
made to refer to the most important or most
easily accessible book or catalogue in which the
subject appears—the series of Vignier-Inada Cat-
alogues, published in Paris, usually being taken
as the standard. When there is no reference to
a reproduction of a print or subject, it may be in-
ferred that none has been found; and in selecting,
from among the two hundred and fifty prints ex-
hibited by the Grolier Club, forty-two for repro-
duction in these catalogues, the choice has been
confined to those subjects which,have not been
reproduced hitherto, or have been reproduced
only in very obscure places. The negatives have
not been retouched, so that the reproductions
show the actual qualities of impression and condi-
tion of the prints. Sizes are given in inches.
No one could write about Japanese Prints with-
out being under direct and constant obligation to
Mr. Frederick W. Gookin, who has made a long
and special study of the subject—particularly of
the actor prints. The compiler of this catalogue
has had the advantage not only of Mr. Gookin’s
published writings but of years of friendly cor-
respondence and conversation as well.
Xiil
PREFACE
To another friend, Mr. Kihachiro Matsuki of
Kamakura, student of prints, lover and preserver
of the poetry and legend of his land, almost equal
obligation should be acknowledged. During hap-
py hours passed with Mr. Matsuki the writer
gained some insight into the meaning of prints,
some knowledge of the quaint lore and romantic
story that form their obvious background to a
Japanese.
To these names it is a pleasure to add that of
Mr. Shigeyoshi Obata, the distinguished trans-
lator of Li Po, who has given kind assistance in
connection with the interpretation of poems.
Li
XIV
CATALOGUE
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INK-PRINTS
All Japanese prints are from wood blocks, and
in the earlier ones exhibited, which are known as
sumi-ye, or ink prints, one block alone was used—
black outlines being printed on white paper to
make the picture. Later, in the so-called “ Bro-
cade Pictures” of many colors, a separate block
was cut for each color, so that the black outline
impression from what had come to be known as the
key block, sometimes received impressions from
more than twenty-five other blocks before the
finished print was obtained.
MORONOBU (Ca. 1625-1695)
A samurai and his sweetheart seated. Another
woman at the right, at the left a burning candle
in a tall stand. On the floor is a writing box
with brushes, and beside it is an erotic poem by
Narihira,.a celebrity of the 9th Century, who is
as famous for his intrigues as for his verses. This
print is an excellent example of Moronobu’s
power, but it does not show the equally charac-
teristic archness and humor which are apparent
in many of his faces—particularly in those of the
3
THE GROLIER CLUB
Kyoto set. It is unsigned, as is usual with
Moronobu, and undated; but as the pattern of
the woman’s obi, or sash, and the style of hair
arrangement reappear in the prints by the same
artist that are reproduced in the Vignier-Inada
Catalogue, Vol. I, No. 10, and the catalogue of the
Field Collection, No. 12, it is likely that the three
prints were made in the same year—perhaps
about 1680. Fashions changed quickly in Yedo
in those gay days and it was de rigeur for the
courtesans, actors, and prosperous, pleasure-loy-
ing people of the middle class, who are shown
in the prints, to follow them closely. The uni-
dentified mon, or crest, of the lover appears in
another print by Moronobu, which is reproduced
in the French edition of Von Seidlitz, Plate 5.
The print exhibited is reproduced in “Asia,”
August, 1923; Kurth reproduces part of the sub-
ject, spoiling the composition, in his “ Japanische
Holzschnitt,” Plate 6.
Size 102 x 153.
OKUMURA MASANOBU (Ca. 1685-1768)
An example of Japanese wit, showing with what
irreverent levity the public for whom prints were
designed treated the solemn legends of old China.
Incidentally it gives an excellent illustration of
how much is lost by those who consider merely
the decorative value of Japanese prints—their
composition, line, and color—without attempting
to discover the meaning. It is the over-tones
4
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
that we miss, just as a Japanese, who was not
sufficiently conversant with Western thought,
might see only line in a Daumier cartoon or a
Descent from the Cross. The difficulty, how-
ever, of finding the ultimate, central meaning
or even the connotations of almost any work of
Japanese or Chinese art is immense, if not insu-
perable, for everything is stated indirectly, by
implication or through hidden meanings; the ar-
tist being able to rely upon the quickness of per-
ception of the spectator and his accumulation of
traditional learning. Fortunately the allusion in
this print is clear. Generations of Japanese
children had been nursed on the typically Chinese
story of a noble hermit sage whose solitary con-
templation had been interrupted by a verbal
message asking him to come back into the world
of men and be-Emperor. When the messenger
had departed, the incorruptible one was found by
his servant seated beside a waterfall busily wash-
ing from his ears the taint of what they had heard;
and the tale of worldly temptation so shocked
the servant that he led back an ox he had been
about to water, refusing to let the beast drink of
the polluted stream. It is a Chinese Sunday
School story with an irreprochable Roman moral,
but what do the Japanese—the Greeks of Asia—
do with it? The print shows a gentleman, who is
not a hermit, washing his ear, while a somewhat
gay lady leads away her pet cat. Behind them,
for sufficient caption, is depicted a classical paint-
y)
QW
THE GROLIER CLUB
ing of a waterfall drawn in the Chinese manner.
Reproduced, Catalogue of Field Collection, No.
37:
The print is signed and sealed by Okumura Ma-
sanobu, and was published by Kikuya about 1715.
Size 112 x 163.
HASEGAWA MITSUNOBU (worked from
about 1720 to about 1755)
Two women in a room opening on a verandah.
One, with toilet articles beside her, is arranging
her hair before a low mirror, the other stands
holding a box of face powder.
The massiveness of design and the bold brush
strokes of Moronobu have yielded to the stately
grace of such figures as these. In the work of the
contemporary Sukenobu the grace has become
sweetness and the stateliness is gone.
Hasegawa Mitsunobu was a painter whose few
prints are excessively rare. He appears to have
been born in Osaka and to have come later to
Yedo. Books are recorded that were illustrated
by him and were published from 1724 to 1754.
He sometimes signed his work Braioken Eishun,
or Shosuiken or Ryusuiken. The print exhibited
probably appeared before 1735 and is the seventh
sheet of a set of nine, four of which are in New
York, the last being signed Ryusuiken Hasegawa
Mitsunobu. No print by this artist appears to
have been previously reproduced.
Size 103 X 15. (Plate 1).
6
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py
SN eget
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\ Ve AT |
\
MITSUNOBU NO. 3
PLATE I
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
PRINTS COLORED BY HAND
Almost from the beginning some impressions of
the black and white ink-prints had been colored
by hand; but as the art of printing developed and
prints became popular, hand coloring became the
rule rather than the exception, and was done
much more carefully, either by the artist himself
or under his direction. At first a dull orange,
called fan, was the only pigment applied, but
soon other colors were added, the total effect fre-
quently being heightened by the use of gold
powder and black lacquer.
KIYOMASU (?-1764)
Monaka reading. A Tan-ye, or print colored by
hand with dull orange. A greenish yellow has
been used in other parts of the design.
Monaka, a famous public beauty of her time,
whose name and address are given, stands in her
gorgeous robes reading a poem, only the essential
part of which is visible to us:
Life is full of trouble, but the plum-
blossoms by the window
The poem, and indeed the whole print, is signifi-
cant of the extent to which the gentle aesthet-
icism and delicate appreciation of nature that
had come through the influence of Zen Buddhism
had influenced even the lower classes. The
nobles had paintings done in Chinese ink, in
7
THE GROLIER CLUB
which the spiritual significance of the subject—
quality in it that was eternal—was indicated by a
few brush-strokes; the people had prints like
this.
The tying of the ob1, or sash, in front indicates
the station of the wearer, but these women were
creatures of exquisite culture, trained in all the
amenities of life; and while elopement with one
of them was apt to lead to a double suicide, they
were not looked down upon as they have been at
other times and in other lands. Comparison with
Athens is again inevitable.
There is a peculiar stateliness about this design,
a bigness in a small space, that is somewhat
unusual. The print was published by Yamakichi
probably about 1715, and is attributed with
considerable confidence to the young Kiyomasu,
though certain critics have tended to consider it
the work of Moroshige, or the first Kiyonobu, or
some member of the Kwaigetsudo group. It has
been reproduced in color as the frontispiece of
the 1922 edition of “The Book of Tea.”
Size 124 x6. (Plate I).
KONDO KIYOHARU (worked Ca. 1715-1735)
A Buddhist nun, or possibly the actor Sanjo
Kantaro in the réle of a Buddhist nun, carrying
a box. The large shade hat is sprinkled with
gold powder.
This print was probably issued about 1718. It
is unsigned but is attributed to Kondo Kiyo-
8
PLATE II KIYOMASU NO. 4
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
haru because of certain characteristics of drawing
which seem to distinguish his work from that
of the equally rare artist, Kondo Katsunobu, to
whom otherwise the attribution might be made.
Formerly in the Jaekel Collection, this print was
reproduced in color by Miinsterberg, Vol. III,
p. 318.
Size 12} x 53.
KIYONOBU First (1664-17209)
The actor, Ichikawa Monnosuke the first, in the
role of an exhibitor of trained monkeys.
The names of actors went on from generation to
generation, being given to adopted sons when
there were no descendants capable of bearing
them with sufficient distinction. In some cases
the new bearer of a name that had lapsed was
chosen by vote of his peers, and actors changed
their names and identifying mon, or crests, with
bewildering frequency. Sometimes it is only by
the surprisingly exact portraiture that came into
vogue with the actor prints of a slightly later
date that it is possible to tell which generation is
depicted.
This print, which is unusually fine in line and
color, as well as in condition, must have appeared
between 1719, when the first Monnosuke adopted
the mon shown, and 1729 when he, as well as the
artist, died. There is no dispute as to the attri-
bution. .
In this Catalogue the attempt has not always
9
THE GROLIER CLUB
been made to distinguish between different gen-
erations of actors of the same name, the Exhibi-
tion being intended primarily for those who are
not specialists in the subject. If these notes
help some to understand and appreciate, they
will have served their sole purpose. The human
background of Japanese prints should be of in-
terest to all, the erudite historical problems
connected with them are for specialists alone.
Print reproduced, “Asia,’’ August, 1923.
Subject reproduced in color, Plate No. 16 of the
unfinished work by Barboutau (1914) which was
interrupted by his death.
Size 13} X 64.
7 KIYONOBU First
The actor Tatsuoka Hisagiku, as a woman carry-
ing on a small stand the conventional decoration
for a wedding ceremony, which is made up of the
four symbols of longevity—the pine, the peach,
the crane, the tortoise.
On account of various scandals which culminated
in a celebrated murder, it became the law that
no woman should appear on the stage. In prints,
the actors are always men; the illusion, however,
is perfect, as, except for the artificial voice to
which one grows quickly accustomed, it is perfect
in the Japanese theatre of to-day. When a boy
was born in an actor’s family, his parents decided
quickly whether he should play male or female
parts, and his training was in accordance with
10
KIYONOBU NO. 7
PLATE. {II
SL A
bear
Te et ew ae a, 6
i 7 “5 a
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
their decision. Everything in women’s rdles is
played differently, even to all the gestures; and
actors trained from childhood for these parts
achieve an astonishing grace of carefully thought
out rhythmic motion.
Print reproduced in the Catalogue of the Kinbei
Murata Sale of September, 1918.
Signed Torii Kiyonobu and published by Mura-
taya, probably about the same date as the pre-
ceding number.
Size 12 x 6. (Plate III).
8 SHIGENAGA (1697-1756)
The actor Arashi Wakano, as a woman under an
umbrella walking in the snow and turning to look
at the blossoms on a gnarled tree. In Japan,
blossoms and snow actually are seen together,
the rose camelias are bright under the first soft
snow of autumn, and the blooms come on the
plum trees before winter has begun to turn to-
ward spring. Thecurious decoration of the outer
_ kimono is formed of miniature portraits of some
of the Thirty-six Famous Poets, of whom Nari-
hira (see note on Number 1.) was one. These
thirty-six poets were a favorite subject of art,
their names and their verses being familiar to all.
Reproduced as No. 25 in the Catalogue of the
Frederick May Collection.
The print is signed by Shigenaga and was pub-
lished by Igaya about 1725.
Size 13% x 64.
11
THE GROLIER CLUB
9 OKUMURA MASANOBU
A man and a woman in a room watching a youth
who is about to write. Note the position of the
brush and hand, so different from the Occidental
one. Painting, which was closely akin to the
equally prized art of calligraphy, was done in the
same manner. In the foreground area writing box
with its slab of black Chinese ink, and a smoking
box with a pipe that would hold the usual three
puffs of tobacco which are so dear to the Japanese.
Opium smoking was never practised in Japan.
Behind the group of people are a saké pot, a cup
on a stand, and a tray of food with chopsticks.
The rear wall is decorated with a lovely snow land-
scape; and on the left is a poem of the short sev-
enteen-syllable form, written by the artist, which
refers to a particularly dainty small plum that is
nicknamed, by way of humor, after those gigantic
and grotesque guardians of the temple gates—
called Nio, and really is a love poem in disguise.
The allusions in the print are not wholly clear.
The subject is reproduced in the V. I. Catalogue,
Vol. I., No. 141, but from an impression that
lacks the signature and seal.
Signed and sealed by Masanobu.
Date probably a little later than that of Number
2 by the same artist.
Size 9% x 14}
10 TOSHINOBU (worked Ca. 1725-1742)
A dandy of more than questionable morals out
12
I!
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
walking on a cold day. His umbrella, which
bears the characters wishing long life, is sprinkled
with gold and he is mounted on geta, or pattens,
high enough to protect him from any depth of mud
or slush. The heavy outer coat that he wears is
decorated with the mon of various popular actors.
The similarity in the names of many of the print
designers is because a pupil was given, as a sort of
diploma, when he became proficient enough, the
right to adopt a part of his master’s studio name.
The man who called himself, as an artist, Mas-
anobu was the teacher as well as the father of
Toshinobu. This rule has many notable excep-
tions, for there are similarities of sound that have
nothing to do with the studio in which an artist
received his training.
Toshinobu appears to have died young; while his
father, Masanobu, lived on to a ripe old age, pro-
ducing many designs that were printed in two
colors, and even surviving to the beginning of the
polychrome period.
This print probably appeared about 1725, and
probably is an early Toshinobu showing the in-
fluence of his father. It was formerly in the
Jaekel Collection and was reproduced in color by
Miinsterberg, Vol. III, p. 319, who attributed it
to Masanobu.
Size 124 x 6.
KI YOMASU
A later print than Number 4, by the same artist.
13
THE GROLIER CLUB
Sanjo Kantaro, as a woman arranging her hair
before a lacquer mirror. He is in the réle of
Yao-ya O Shichi, a grocer’s daughter, who, when
her father’s house burned down, was sent to stay
in a temple where she promptly fell in love with
a young student. On her return home she set
fire to the recently completed new house in the
hope of being sent back to her lover; but was
unfortunate enough to choose a windy day so
that half the town burned. There was a prompt
investigation and the lady was executed—to be-
come thereafter a heroine of romance.
The original creator of the part made such a
success in it that in revivals of the play his mon—
a sealed letter—was used by the leading actor
with his own, and eventually came to be an indi-
cation of the rdle.
The decorations on the robe represent wooden
clappers strung together to be hung in the wind
and frighten birds from the rice-fields; they are
the Japanese equivalent of our scare-crows.
This print is known to be by Kiyomasu because
the impression in the Vever Collection, which is
reproduced by Von Seidlitz, French Edition,
Plate 10, bears his signature.
Date about 1725.
Size 122 x 53.
12 TOYONOBU (1711-1785)
The two end sheets of a triptych representing the
“Beauties of the Three Cities,” Kyoto, Osaka,
14
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
and Yedo (now called Tokyo). The color effect
is greatly heightened by the use of lacquer and
gold powder.
These prints were published by Maruya and are
signed Nishimura Magosaburo, a signature which
has recently been discovered to be an early one of
the great Toyonobu, who also signed in his youth
Shigenobu; the two earlier signatures being found
on prints that appeared between 1730 and 1743.
The triptych of which these are a part must have
been printed nearer to the earlier than to the
later of the dates given.
Size of each sheet 124 x 6.
EXPERIMENTS IN COLOR
PRINTING
Shortly after 1740, it was discovered that by
the use of a simple device to insure perfect regis-
ter, two color blocks could be added to the black-
outline keyblock, the sheet on which the finished
print was to appear being pressed on each of these
in turn. These two-color prints are called Bent-
ye because beni—a somewhat evanescent rose—
always was used, the other color being at first
green and afterwards either green or blue. A
little later a third block was added, but was not
always used; and, as experiments in over-printing
were made, the range of color was greatly in-
creased, before the final development of full
polychrome printing, about 1764 and 1765.
15
THE GROLIER CLUB
13 TOYONOBU
An example of the two-color prints of an artist
whose earlier hand-colored work is shown as
Number 12.
This print was issued for the revival of another
famous play, “The Revenge of the Soga Broth-
ers,’ a story of vendetta coming down from the
period of the twelfth century feudal wars, that
holds its place on the stage to-day.
Japan is the only important nation in the present
world whose legendary and heroic past lives in
the hearts of the people, as familiar to them as
were the legends of Troy and Thebes to the audi-
ences for whom /Eschylus and Sophocles wrote.
It is as though the stories of King Arthur, the
death of Roland, the Crusades, the Wars of the
Roses, were so vital a part of our imaginative
outlook that we would pack the theatres, year
after year, to see them produced.
The Soga brothers accomplished their revenge
and died tragically, both in early youth. The
poem on the print reads: “Youthful Brothers,
comparable only to young maples in early leaf.”’
For the way to identify the Soga brothers in
prints see note under Number 48. The actors
here are Onoe Kikiyord (right) as Soga no
Gord, and Ichimura Kamiz6 as Soga no Juro.
The drama was “ Nannakura Wakayagi Soga, and
was performed at the Ichimura Theatre, Yedo, in
the first month of Eukyé Isire (February, 1742).
16
% : A> 4 - . i
F
[Ss ZS W
TOYONOBU NO. 13
PLATE TV
ae aad iwi
-
7
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Sie
as
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Signed by Toyonobu and published by Maruko
in 1744.
Size 15 x 11%. (Plate IV).
14 TOYONOBU
Nakamura Kiyozo as a girl called Matsuyama
(Pine mountain), and Ichimura Kamezo as an
attendant holding her umbrella. At least the
lower mon on the right sleeve of Kiyoz6 appears
to have been put in by a plug in the block, per-
haps to replace that of an actor who died during
the run of the play.
Subject reproduced, ‘‘Estampes appartenant aun
Amateur de |’Etranger.”’ Paris, Hotel Drouot,
June 14, 1909, No. 20.
Compare Moslé Catalogue, No. 1878.
Signed and sealed by Toyonobu and published by
Urokogataya probably between 1748 and 1750.
Size 162 x 12. (Plate V).
MASANOBU
Numbers 2 and 9 in this exhibition show earlier
work of the long-lived Masanobu, the first in
black and white only, and the second hand-col-
ored. Neither one compares in beauty of line
with this two-color print, and the soft fading by
time of its characteristic rose and green has given
it an added charm all its own.
The print was issued in 1750 for another revival
of the play described under Number 11, and
shows the fair incendiary strolling with her lover,
while music is the food of love. The instrument
17
16
THE GROLIER CLUB
in her hand is a samisen, or Japanese banjo, and
his a kokyu, or three-stringed fiddle. Note the
sealed letter—a reminder once again of the ori-
ginal creator of the rdle.
The poem on the print reads:
Here in Sacred Ise, where the cherrv is always
in bloom, we find our hill of happy meeting.
Signed and sealed by Masanobu.
Size 16 x 114. (Plate VI).
KIYOHIRO (worked Ca. 1745-1758)
Segawa Kikunojé I and II were the most famous
and most exquisitely depicted of all actors of
women’s roles. Each was the popular idol of
his time, and the head—at least of Kikunojé I,
must have been turned by it, for here beside his
portrait he writes a poem, signed with his per-
sonal name—Roko, in which he says: “As a
woman he has as many admirers as the flowers”
—the admiration of flowers being, of course, a
universal characteristic of the Japanese. Doubt-
less the statement was true; but in our Western
world of newspapers and press agents, actors can
blush with surprise when they hear such things
said by others. Kikunoj6’s mon—a sheaf of
cotton—is the chief decoration of his costume;
there can be no mistake about who he is. The
composition is of extreme grace and one can im-
agine with what consummate art an actor who
wore his clothes so well and had such clothes to
18
XN
i Wegyneetttl
PLATE V TOYONOBU NO. 14
18
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
wear, would move about the stage, managing the
undulating line of the draperies.
Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of
September, 1917, No. 22.
Signed and sealed by Kiyohiro and published by
Yamamoto, about 1748.
Size 15x 7. (Plate VII).
KIYOMATSU (1735-1785)
The actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu holding a long
pipe and standing beside a bench on which is
his smoking box.
The actor is in the rdéle of one of the Soga brothers
whose tragic story is outlined in the note on
Number 13. The way to recognize the Soga
brothers in prints is described under Number 48.
This one is Soga no Gord. -
Signed Torii Kiyomitsu.
Size 128 x 53. (Plate VIII).
This and the two following prints by Kiyomitsu
may be dated roughly between 1760 and 1770.
Prints in two and three colors continued to be
made for some years after the invention of
polychrome printing.
KIYOMITSU
The actor Adzuma Tozo as a woman under a
maple, carrying bird cages.
Signed by Kiyomitsu and published by Nishi-
mura. |
Size 12% x 5%. (Plate IX).
19
19
20
THE GROLIER CLUB
KIYOMITSU
The actor Yamashita Kinsaku as a woman with
blossoms in her hair, carrying a blossoming
branch, from which is suspended a foot-ball.
Foot-ball in Japan was a much more stately
game than it is with us and was played in flowing
garments of brocade.
Signed by Kiyomitsu.
Size 124 x 54. (Plate X).
KIYOMITSU, KIYOTSUNE (worked Ca. 1756-
1775) and HARUNOBU (born about 1730, died
1770)
“The Beauties of Three Cities,’ done by three
different artists. (For the subject compare No.
12.) Behind the three girls are shown the three
flowers that are associated with the cities, and
each wears the mon of a favorite actor. Above
each is a love poem.
This triptych must have appeared about the
time of the perfecting of polychrome printing by
Harunobu, the great name of the period between
1764 and the date of his untimely death; but as
two of its three sheets are by artists of the pre-
ceding period, the last of the “Primitives,” it
serves very well to mark the transition between
the two- and three-color prints and the real.
“Brocade Pictures,” besides being in itself a
thing of peculiar loveliness.
Print reproduced as No. 83 of the F. W. Hunter
20
LER SE
Aue hi —
5
I
MASANOBU NO.
PLATE VI
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Catalogue, with the sheets arranged in the wrong
order.
Signed by the three artists.
Date about 1765.
Size 122 x 163.
The period of the “Primitives” is ended. We
pass now to the work of artists each of whom will
be considered by himself.
HARUNOBU (born about 1730, died 1770)
Harunobu, who disputes with three very dif-
ferent artists, Kiyonaga, Sharaku, and Utamaro,
the claim to first rank among the designers of
figure prints of the popular school, unfortunately
died young. His work before 1764 is little known
and of little distinction, but between that date
and his death in 1770 he produced an immense
number of designs that are most beautiful in
themselves and, because of a peculiar quality
that is in them, have endeared him to the heart
of the world. He is the artist of young girlhood,
the poet of youth. His figures, untouched by
sorrow, move through an earthly paradise, a
fairyland of loveliness, the world that might be
rather than the world that is. He has caught
and rendered for us the evanescent charm of
youth; he has sought to preserve, with the fresh-
ness of the morning on it, that fleeting moment
between the opening of the bud and the fall of
21
21
THE GROLIER CLUB
the first petal, in which alone beauty is perfect,
unalloyed. Harunobu did not have the stateli-
ness of Kiyonaga, the sardonic power of Sharaku,
nor the range of Utamaro; he turned away from
the theatre, was, in the main, unmindful of the
demt-monde; what he did have, he had supremely
—his vision of the spring-time of life and love.
All of the fifteen prints by Harunobu in this
Exhibition can be dated between 1764 and 1770;
most of them were done before 1767. They have
been selected with sorrow and misgiving from
about seventy available examples, and, fortu-
nately, it is not necessary to discuss in connection
with them the vexed, irrelevant questions of schol-
arship. In the earlier ones the color-scheme is
more simple, with a delicate yellow predomi-
nating.
HARUNOBU
Young lovers playing a flute. Behind them is
a screen decorated with pine branches. The
bamboo leaves in the decoration of the girl’s
gown are so arranged as to give the numerals of
the Japanese year equivalent to our 1765. This
year was the nine hundredth anniversary of the
entrance of Michizane—a statesman, scholar and
artist of old—to the court of the Emperor, and a
number of so-called calendar prints were de-
signed toward the close of 1764 and issued at the
beginning of the New Year as part of the popular
22
PLATE VII KIYOHIRO NO. 16
er
¥
22
23
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
celebration of the event. (See Grolier Club:
Catalogue of Japanese Landscape Prints, Num-
ber 8.) No other impression of this print ap-
pears to have survived.
The seal is that of a collector.
Size 10 x 72. (Frontispiece).
HARUNOBU
A young girl as Moso. This is another calendar
print of the same year, the numerals being found
among the bamboo leaves.
Moso, one of “The Twenty-four Paragons of
Filial Piety” of Chinese moralizing, went out
barefoot in winter to search for young bamboo
shoots, a table delicacy for which his aged mother
craved, and was rewarded by having them sprout
miraculously through the snow. The story, of
course, was thoroughly familiar to the Japanese,
but Moso is represented here by a young girl.
Subject reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 7,
and, from a much trimmed impression, Hayashi
Catalogue, p. 168.
Size 11% x 83.
HARUNOBU
A young girl seated in a boat under drooping
willow branches. She wears a long court hat
of the olden time and has beside her a small
drum—one of the classical instruments used
from of old. The reference is to the pleasure
boat wherein a Shogun of a by-gone age had
23
24
25
THE GROLIER CLUB
been wont to escape the cares of government in
the company of his mistress, the beautiful Asa-
zuma. A Shogun was a prime minister who had
usurped the secular power of the Emperor but
not the Imperial name.
Print reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II, No.
72. Some of the too heavy oxidization has been
removed.
Size 11 x 83.
HARUNOBU
Two young women walking through a storm of
snow and rain on their way to a bath house.
One carries a towel and a bath robe.
Bathing is one of the national passions of the
Japanese, and in the late afternoons the streets
are filled with people returning from the bathing
establishments.
Subject reproduced, Morrison Catalogue of Ex-
hibition held by Fine Art Society of London,
1910, No. 68; Crewdson Catalogue, No. 31, and,
in color, Vol. I, Plate 16, of the Catalogue of
Japanese Prints, owned by the Louvre.
Signed Suzuki Harunobu.
Size 103 x 83.
HARUNOBU
A young girl on a verandah stands alone, against
the black background of night, lighting with her
lantern the white blossoms of a plum tree in early
bloom. It has been pointed out already that the
24
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KIYOMITSU NO.
PLATE VIII
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26
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Japanese are devoted to flowers. When the dif-
ferent blooms are at their finest, parties go out
by day and night to view them, and the plum is
the earliest blossom of the year—the harbinger
of Spring.
Print reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue of
October, 1919, No. 41.
Subject reproduced with some variations, V. I.
Catalogue, Vol. II, No. 66.
Size 123 x 8}.
HARUNOBU
A girl and a woman shaping, over lacquer forms
with dome-shaped tops, floss silk that has been
pressed into sheets.
The perfection of technique in the cutting of the
blocks and in the printing is extraordinary.
This and the two following numbers are from a
set of “ Eight Indoor Views.” In their first state
these eight prints bear the signature of Kiosen,
who may have been an amateur engraver and
printer, and almost certainly was a patron for
whom prints were designed—the moving spirit
in an artist’s club or society that issued them.
The so-called “second state,” of which three
examples are shown, has no signature, and the
characteristic yellow or straw color of early
Harunobus has been supplanted by stronger
tones. In a third state, that frequently bears
the signature of Harunobu, the color scheme is
still more complicated.
25
27
28
THE GROLIER CLUB
The Catalogue of the Exhibition of the Japan
Society of New York reproduces in color all three
states of one sheet of the set. All eight, in the
first state, are reproduced in the Moslé Catalogue
and in the second state—like those shown here
—in the Harunobu Memorial Catalogue.
Size 113 x 8}.
HARUNOBU
A young woman reading by the light of a portable
lamp. From the same set as the last. It has
been said that prints in which a good deal of
black was used and prints in which the figures
were not displayed against a complicated back-
ground were apt to be finer than others. This
print, which is one of Harunobu’s most charming
designs, illustrates the first rule and is a notable
exception to the second. The stream, the shore
and the maple leaves give exactly what was
needed.
Subject reproduced as stated above.
Size 114 x 83.
HARUNOBU
A young girl with open fan, followed by her maid,
From the same set as Numbers 26 and 27, and of
the same state.
Subject reproduced as stated above, and also in
the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II. No. 80.
Size 114 x 8.
26
MEBRL MAIS,
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KIYOMITSU NO. 18
PLATE IX
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29
30
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
HARUNOBU
Stealing the Blossoms. A young girl has climbed
up on the back of her maid to reach a tempting
branch of plum-blossoms above a gray wall.
In the upper classes long sleeves were the pre-
rogative of youth, and from childhood to age
they grew steadily shorter. Servants wore short
sleeves, as in this print and Number 28; long ones
would have interfered with their work.
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. II, No.
115.
Size 102 x 7%.
The nine prints by Harunobu that have been
catalogued thus far can be dated with consider-
able confidence between New Year’s Day of 1765
and the close of 1767. Thesix that follow should
probably be ascribed to the final two and a half
years of the artist’s life.
HARUNOBU
Young lovers beside a green bamboo fence. The
youth is stooping over to remove a clog of snow
from the geta, or patten, of the girl. Above are
some verses:
Even today snow makes the road well-
nigh impassable; if it should storm again
tomorrow who could expect him to come?
27
31
THE GROLIER CLUB
Print reproduced in color, Transactions of the
Grolier Club, Part III.
Signed Suzuki Harunobu. Probable date 1768.
Size 114 x 83.
HARUNOBU
A young girl and her maid on a wind-swept beach.
The young lady’s companion, perhaps pleading
for a rejected lover, points to a rock against
which the waves are beating, while above is a
well-known classical poem by Minamoto no
Shigeyuki, which, with due regard to the implied
meaning understood by the Japanese, might be
interpreted:
My heart is like a wave
Broken against the rock of her denial.
There is an inference in this poem that, though
each wave is broken, in the end the rock itself is
worn away.
These verses are in the thirty-one-syllable form,
for when the Japanese wish to write a long poem
and say a great deal they add two lines, of seven
syllables each, to the short seventeen-syllable
form, referred to under Number 9g; the construc-
tion being like that of a sonnet with a distinct
break and change of thought in a specified place.
‘Subject reproduced, Harunobu Memorial Cata-
logue, No. 90; Frederick May Catalogue, No.
567, and Sotheby Catalogue of January, 1911—
An Importer of Japanese Products, No. 60.
28
PLATE X KIYOMITSU NO. I9
7
i
32
a3
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Signed Suzuki Harunobu. Probable date 1768.
Size 114 x 84.
HARUNOBU
A young lady who received so many love-letters
that she was obliged to have an ox carry them
forher. The background of evanescent blue that
was in many of Harunobu’s prints is here only
partially decomposed.
This print is described in the V. I. Catalogue
Vol. II, No. 217, and the subject is reproduced
in the Kinbei Murata Catalogue of July, 1913.
Probable date 1769.
Size 102 x 84. (Plate XI).
HARUNOBU
Young lovers walking under snow-laden willow
branches. This is one of Harunobu’s finest
designs, an exquisite print in every line from the
drooping branches above to the bottom sweep of
the moving draperies. The Japanese call it the
“Crow and Heron,” probably because the youth
is dressed in black, while the girl’s outer kimono
is white with patterning in gauffrage. A later—
less effective—state shows a black bounding line
about the soft snow on top of the umbrella, with
changes in the patterns of the textiles.
The print exhibited was reproduced in color as
the frontispiece of the Catalogue of the Exhi-
bition given by the Japan Society of New York
in 1911; the state with the black bounding line
29
34
THE GROLIER CLUB
and changed patterns may best be compared in
the reproduction in the Hayashi Catalogue, p.
110; and there is still a third, badly engraved and
with other differences.
Signed Suzuki Harunobu. Probable date 1769.
Size 114 x 83.
and 35 HARUNOBU
Pillar prints, representing that pair of star-cros-
sed lovers, Shirai Gompachi and Komurasaki, each
in komuso attire, and carrying the basket hat and
flute.
Prints of this shape were made to be hung as
decorations on the square wooden pillars of
Japanese houses, and having been more fre-
quently exposed to the light, are difficult to find
in the condition of these. The story of the un-
fortunate lovers is too long to be retold here,
but those who desire to read a digest of it may be
referred to Joly’s “Legend in Japanese Art,” p.
98.
—
THE GROLIER CLUB
With these three authorities it should be easy to
date any print by Shunsh6; but what is to be -
done when the authorities disagree? |
SHUNSHO
The same actor as the last. A brilliant print in
a perfect state of preservation.
Print reproduced, Blanchard Catalogue, No. 11
B.
Signed Shunsh6d. Date about 1774.
Size 122 x 6.
SHUNSHO
The actor Yamashita Kinsaku asa woman. Ac-
tors changed their names and, by consequence,
their crests, with an even more bewildering fre-
quency than did the painters who depicted them;
but fortunately a rich provincial who came to
Yedo at this time, so enjoyed the theatre there
that he commissioned Shunshéd and Bunch6 to
make portraits of the principal actors he had
seen, and these he had published in a three-vol-
ume book, with the personal as well as the stage
name of the actor printed outside the fan-shaped
bounding lines of each picture. One can imagine
what a supper he must have given the night be-
fore he started back to the country, and how he
felt the next morning when the bearers were
ready at dawn.
Signed Shunshd. Date about 1780.
Size 122 x 58.
42
PLATE XVI SHUNKO NO. 54
52
53
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
SHUNSHO
The same actor, Yamashita Kinsaku, holding a
lute and standing on a river bank against the
black background of night.
Print reproduced, Frederick May Catalogue, No.
333-
Signed Shunshd. Date 1778.
Size 12% x 53.
It is rather odd that although Shunsh@ is thought
to be at his best in his earlier maturity, almost
all the eleven prints selected, after careful com-
parison, for this exhibition should date from a
later period.
SHUNKO (1743-1812)
Except for Hokusai, who early in his career
broke away from the manner and traditions of
his master, the most important of Shunshd’s
many pupils were Shunko and Shunyei. About
1790 Shunk6 was incapacitated by paralysis and
the remaining twenty-two years of his life are
a blank of which one does not like to think.
SHUNKO
The 5th Danjuro, other portraits of whom are
shown as Numbers 46 and 47. Shunshdo’s print
of this actor in the same performance is repro-
duced in the H. E. Field Catalogue, No. 278. In
some cases the former pupil surpassed the master,
43
THE GROLIER CLUB
but Shunko is apt to have less dramatic power,
more suavity.
Signed Katsukawa Shunk6. Date about 1780.
Size 12} X 54.
54 SHUNKO
55
The actor Nakamura Tomijir6d as an old man.
This is very different in line and feeling from any
print by Shunk6’s master, Shunshd, with which
the compiler happens to be familiar, and shows
how original the finest work of Shunk6 was.
Signed Shunk6d. Date about 1780.
Size 11¢ x 5g. (Plate XVI).
SHUNKO
Another portrait of the 4th Iwai Hanshir6d (com-
pare Numbers 49 and 50). Here he is dressed in
black with purple obi and stands beneath a snow-
laden willow. A rare subject that has not been
reproduced hitherto, although it is one of the
finest of Shunko’s designs.
Signed Shunko.
Size 12 x 53. (Plate XVII).
SHUNYEI (1768-1819)
Shunyei, an artist of marked originality, is
ranked by many as almost the equal of Shunshé,
with whom he certainly compares favorably in
power of characterization and individuality of
treatment, though he seldom, if ever, shows the
44
PLATE XVII
56
ae
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
tragic intensity of his master. It would be dif-
ficult to make a mistake in the attribution of an
unsigned Shunyei; the work of the other men
when it lacks a signature, is harder to place with
assurance. Shunyei is closer to Sharaku. No
attempt has been made to date separately the
four prints by Shunyei that have been chosen
for exhibition; it is likely, however, that all were
issued between 1780 and the close of the century.
SHUNYEI
A portrait of the 5th Danjuro (compare Num-
bers, 46, 47, 53) on one of the rare occasions when
he appeared as a woman—and an angry one at
that; the actors who specialized in men’s or
women’s réles very seldom attempting the other.
The branch drooping into the top of the print is a
device frequently employed by this artist.
Subject reproduced, Joly and Tomita Catalogue,
Plate XXVII, No. 60.
Signed Shunyei and published by Tsuruya Kiei-
mon.
Size 124 X 5%.
SHUNYEI
Portrait of the actor Sawamura Sojuro in a pleas-
ure boat.
Print reproduced, Haviland Catalogue, Part I,
No. 174.
Signed Shunyei.
Size 122 x 53.
45
58
59
THE GROLIER CLUB
SHUNYEI
The same actor as the last. This time he is in
simple white set off by an obi of purple and
stands, without accessories, against a gray sky
with white blossoms above.
Signed Shunyei and published by Tsuruya.
Size 122 x 5%. (Plate XVIII).
SHUNYEI
This portrait of the 5th Danjuro may be com-
pared with those by Shunshé and Shunko which
are exhibited as Numbers 46, 47, 53, 56, and that
by Sharaku, Number 71. All are notable works,
and this, with the next print by Shunyei to be
exhibited, is counted among the finest things he
did.
Danjuro stands, with drawn sword and swirling
garments decorated with sea-weed, in water that
swirls and breaks against the closed gate of a
dam. His long hair, marvelously engraved and
printed, has the rhythm of the draperies. His
legs and arms are cased in mottled frog skin,
for he is in the part of Tenjiku Tokubei—a tra-
veler of the 17th Century whose exploits had be-
come legendary, and who was supposed to have
lived among frogs and to have been able to trans-
form himself into a gigantic one by some special
form of magic. ‘Tokubei, who is reported to have
started on his first journey to India and Siam
in 1633, is said to have been a mighty highway-
46
PLATE AVIII
SHUNYEI NO. 58
60
61
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
man in his youth, but finally to have reformed
and entered the priesthood, where it is likely that
his parishioners—if he had any—took good care
not to thwart him. In the print he is shown
before his reformation.
Signed Shunyei.
Size 13 x6. (Plate XIX).
SHUNYE]I
The actor Ichikawa Komazo as a hunter in a
straw rain-coat carrying a gun. He isin the rdle
of the unfortunate Kanpei in Chushingura. (For
the play see Number 39). Kanpei’s hunting was
not very successful, for his only kill that night
was an unrecognized man, and when he got home
in the morning to find that the body of his father-
in-law had just been brought in, the deductions
from circumstantial evidence gave him at least a
mauvais quart d’heure. |
Subject reproduced, No. 176, Shojiro Nomura
Catalogue (Sale Anderson Galleries) March 16,
1915; and No. 82, Collection K. T., Hotel Drouot,
February, 1910.
Size 13 x 5%. (Plate XX).
SHUNYEI
Mica ground. Bust portrait of an unidentified
round faced actor with no visible mon, or crest.
He is leaning forward with outstretched right
hand and is “made up” in red around his eyes
and nose. The horizontal stripes of his kimono
47
THE GROLIER CLUB
are red and white on his right side and green and
white on his left. He faces toward the left.
In some of Shunyei’s large actor-portraits, his
style and that of Sharaku have a certain resem-
blance. This fact has led a well-known crafty
dealer in Tokyo to increase his profits by turn-
ing fine Shunyei prints into fraudulent Sharakus,
by the simple device of erasing or trimming off the
Shunyei signature, adding a mica ground, and
printing in the name of the other and rarer mas-
ter. It isa pity; for Shunyei is strong enough
to stand on his own feet.
The present print has been thus altered. An
unaltered example of it, with Shunyei’s signa-
ture, 1s in the Vever Collection, Paris.
Size 154 X 10. (Plate XX]1).
SHARAKU
Date of birth uncertain, died 1804. He ap-
pears to have designed prints only in the years
1794 and 1795.
Much has been written about Sharaku, most
notably—in spite of his poetic exaggeration—by
Mr. Ficke in his “Chats on Japanese Prints,” pp.
300-319; much could be written, and the tempta-
tion is great. For the present, however, it must
suffice to make clear, if possible, the human
background and let the art speak for itself. The
popular theatre was scorned—as prints were
scorned—by all save the middle and lower classes;
48
SHUNYEI NO. 59
PLATE XIX
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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
the aristocrats, in the seclusion of their palaces,
had the N6 dramas of exceedingly abstruse mean-
ing and lofty moral tone that were danced and
chanted before hushed audiences of scholars.
Sharaku was a professional No dancer in the
service of one of the great nobles, and he appears
in his maturity to have come suddenly and for
the first time into contact with the theatre of the
people. It is as though some cloistered Fellow of
Oxford, who had given his life to playing AEschy-
lus and Sophocles there, should have witnessed
a series of amateur nights in vaudeville. He
saw the commonness of common men, their bes-
tiality, their small conceit, their stupidity; he saw
the animal characteristics in them so clearly that
he would have been an excellent illustrator of
Esop or of Gulliver’s Travels—the comparison
with Swift is rather apt; and, in spite of rays of
somewhat ironic humor that gleam occasionally
from his portraits, he drew them in the main with
savage scorn, with that blind bitterness which is
the child of disillusion. He reveals the plebeian
actors as Goya revealed the Spanish Bourbons—
but there is this vast difference: Sharaku was
able to let himself go, Goya was not. Portraits of
popular idols drawn in this vein are not likely to
prove popular; and after two years of the uninter-
rupted production of masterpieces Sharaku ceased
to make prints. The rest is silence. There are
rumors and conjectures as to his later years but
nothing very definite is known; nor is it known
49
62
63
THE GROLIER CLUB
just how many prints he designed during those
two years of bitter activity. Herr Kurth, who
wrote a book on Sharaku, was able to record about
seventy subjects and reproduce fifty-nine of them:
after which the French collectors hung 105, all
of which are reproduced as part of one of those
exhibitions at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs, of
which the V. I. Catalogues are the monumental
record. Of the eleven selected for exhibition
here, all are signed Toshusai Sharaku and were
published by Tsutaya. The references to Kurth
are to the edition of 1910, which most collectors
have. The 1922 edition has the same illustra-
tions re-numbered.
SHARAKU
Yellow ground. The actor Segawa Tomisabur6d
as a woman defending a child.
The subject is recorded by Kurth, No. 19 (QO).
The V. I. Catalogue does not containit. It is re-
produced, however, as No. 14, in the advertisement
of Rex & Company at the end of Kurth’s volume.
Size 13 Xx 6.
SHARA KU
Yellow ground. Yamashina Tomijir6 as a
samurat holding a painted fan.
Subject reproduced, Kurth, Plate 31. Not in
V. I. Catalogue.
Size 122 x 6.
50
SHUNYEI NO. 60
PLATE XX
64
65
66
67
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
SHARAKU
Yellow ground. Ichikawa Yaoz6o as a samurai
in a black robe decorated with the so-called
“thunder pattern.”
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III,
No. 315.
Size 122 x 54.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. The same actor as the last in the
role of Kanpei in “Chushingura.” The play is
referred to in the note on No. 39 and the réle
under No. 60.
Print reproduced, H. E. Field Catalogue, No. 577.
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No.
277, and Kurth, Plate 42.
Size 15% X 10.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. Matsumoto Koshiré, with a pipe
in his hand, in the réle of a “chivalrous defen-
der of the down-trodden.” (Otokodate). Is this
satire or burlesque?
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No.
270, and Kurth, Plate 44.
Size 15 X 10%.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. Arashi Ryiizo. The rdle is said,
without definite authority, to be that of Yoichi-
bel, a peasant, in ‘‘Chushingura.”’
51
68
69
THE GROLIER CLUB
Print reproduced, Rouart Catalogue, No. 308.
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. ITI,
No. 271, and Kurth, Plate 35.
Size 14% X Oz.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. Iwai Hanshir6d as Oishi, wife of
Yuranosuke, hero of “Chushingura.”’ For other
portraits of this actor see Numbers 40, 50, 55.
The play is referred to under Numbers 39, 60,
and elsewhere. Yuranosuke is really the hero of
the piece, for the action concerns itself chiefly
with the efforts of forty-seven loyal retainers,
seconded by their wives, to avenge the death of
their lord on the villain, Moronao; and Yurano-
suke, besides being the chief retainer, is the brain
of the devoted band. The graves of these forty-
seven men are visited annually by thousands,
for they really lived, and in their deaths as in
their lives left to posterity an example of that un-
swerving, utterly self-sacrificing loyalty which of
all virtues is that most honored by the Japanese.
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III,
No. 269, and Kurth, Plate 51.
Size 142 x of.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. Kosagawa Tsueny6as the wife of
one of the Ronin in “ Chushingura”’ (see notes on
Numbers 30, 68, etc., for this play). A ronin is
a masterless samurai or fighting man. The re-
52
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PLATE XXI SHUNYEI NO. 61
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tainers in this play became ronin through the
death of their lord and the confiscation of his
property.
Subject reproduced, V. 1. Catalogue, Vol. III,
No. 282, and Kurth, Plate 52.
Size 15 X 103.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. Ichikawa Komazo.
Print reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 35,
where the inscription on the print is read and
the question of the réle discussed.
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III,
No. 274, and Kurth, Plate 39.
Size 142 X Of.
SHARAKU
Mica ground. In this subject, which is con-
sidered by many the finest work by Sharaku and
the most powerful of Japanese prints, the 5th Dan-
juro is again depicted (compare Numbers 46,47,
53, 56, and 59), this time, probably, as Moronao,
the crafty, cowardly and lecherous villain of the
play described in the note on Number 39, and
elsewhere.
An inscription on the face of the print gives the
date of the performance, October, 1794. The ques-
tion of the réle, with particular reference to the
written inscription on this impression of the print,
was considered at length under Number 30 of the
Jacquin Catalogue, with the conclusion that the
53
THE GROLIER CLUB
actor was, as has always been supposed, playing
Moronao. Mr. Gookin seems sufficiently to have |
overwhelmed with his arguments a Japanese
cataloguer of 1918, who considered the réle
that of Kudo Suketsune; but the Japanese, as
a race, are hard to down and another critic of
that country has replied to the Retort Courteous
with a Quip Modest: Moronao never wears kama-
shimo; therefore the character cannot be Mo-
ronao but might be the Daimyo Matsumoto
Hosokawa. The present writer is sure of but
one thing: whether the character be that of the
villain Moronao or some other, there can be no
possible doubt of his villainy. It takes but
little scholarship to see that.
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue. Vol. III,
No. 264 and Kurth, Plate 38.
Size 14% X 10.
KORIUSAI (worked Ca. 1768-1786)
Koriusai’s finest work, except for a few very
distinguished “pillar” prints, is in his birds and
flowers. Occasionally, as in the print now exhi-
bited, he did a really fine thing in the ordinary
15 x 10 inch form, but most of the work of his
maturity is rather coarse and garish. His early
prints are strongly under the influence of Haru-
nobu, and most of them are of the small size made
popular by that master, but much less used in
the period upon which we are now about to enter.
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72
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
He is important enough to deserve a place in any
exhibition, but in the limited space available
it seemed best to show only one carefully chosen
example of his figure prints.
KORIUSAI
The Courtesan Nishikigi followed by her atten-
dants. From a series of fashion plates for the
demi-monde.
Signed by Koriusai and published by Eijudo.
Seal Koshodd. This seal is that of another pub-
lisher, Tsutaya Jusaburd. In this set it only ap-
pears on the earliest impressions of certain prints.
Its presence and meaning are discussed under
Number 20 of the privately printed catalogue
of prints in the collection of Major O’Brien Sex-
ton. Date about 1776.
Size 157 x 10%. (Plate XXII).
SHIGEMASA (1739-1820)
Kitao Shigemasa, a pupil of the “Primitive”
Shigenaga, was an accomplished artist of thirty-
one when Harunobu died; but he survived until
within five years of the death of Toyokuni, the
final great artist of the figure prints; and when he
himself looked for the last time on the world he
had depicted, Hokusai had been drawing that
world for more than twenty years and Hiroshige
was finishing his student work. Shigemasa’s
early prints were done in the three-color period;
55
73
74
THE GROLIER CLUB
later he was influenced strongly by Harunobu
and other masters of polychrome, and worked in
many styles, bringing, however, to each his own
peculiar distinction of treatment. Early prints
by Shigemasa are signed, but toward the middle
of his career he is said to have remarked that, as
no one else could draw as well as he, there was no
necessity of affixing his signature. The work of
his maturity is as rare as it is fine, either because
he did little of it, or because his prints were pub-
lished in unusually small editions.
SHIGEMASA
A geisha going to a party followed by her maid
who carries a samisen (Japanese banjo) in a box.
This style of Shigemasa’s is peculiarly character-
istic. It has a plastic quality of modeling, par-
ticularly in some of the folds of the drapery that
suggests sculpture in wood or clay.
Subject reproduced, British Museum Catalogue
(Binyon) p. 78; and in color, Binyon and Sexton,
Plate VII, from an impression with one less color
block than the one exhibited.
Probable date about 1780.
Size 154 X 103.
SHIGEMASA
Two young women in thin summer kimono; one.
is seated beside a lantern on a bamboo bench,
the other stands holding a fan.
50
SHIGEMASA NO. 74
PLATE XXIII
f~
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
A lovely print by Shigemasa in a style that is
difficult to distinguish from that of the finest
work of his pupil, Kitao Masanobu, who, however
was accustomed to sign his prints.
Date about 1790.
Size 143 x 92. (Plate XXIII).
KIYONAGA (1752-1814)
Kiyonaga is considered by many the greatest
of the artists who designed the Japanese figure
prints. In power of composition, power of line,
he is superb, and his people are stately, large-
limbed, nobly-proportioned, gracious. Compare
any print by him with a print by Harunobu and
notice the gain and loss. It is a grown-up world
that is depicted here, more real, perhaps, than
the other, less charming and moreimpressive. Of
the impressiveness of Kiyonaga at his best there
can be no question; he was a master of his art;
but the present writer is heretical enough to be-
lieve that sometimes his figures are too statuesque
—too much like manikins, too little like creatures
of flesh and blood. One may admire Kiyonaga
more than Harunobu but is certain to love him less.
All of the prints by this artist that have been se-
lected for exhibition are signed by him, and all
that have publishers’ marks were published by
Eijudo. They were issued—in all probability—
between 1780 and 1790; but there is no way of
dating them as accurately as actor prints, when
57
ce
76
THE GROLIER CLUB
the records of particular performances have sur-
vived. Kiyonaga also did an important series
of scenes from the theatre—large sheets, fre-
quently with six figures each.
KTYONAGA
The actor Ichikawa Yaozdin his bedroom. He is
listening to the words of a companion who has
not been identified with certainty, but may have
been his wife. Is it the duty of this cataloguer to
find out? Mr. Gookin, who has a penchant for —
actors, once thought that the second figure was
a player of women’s réles, come to see Yaozo
without taking off his stage clothes. M. Vignier
assumes the worst.
The print is from a series, as fine as it is rare, of
actors off the stage.
Subject reproduced on page 94 in the Catalogue of
the Memorial Exhibition of Japanese Prints from
the Collection of Clarence Buckingham (Chi-
cago 1915), and Haviland Catalogue of June,
1923, No. 191.
Size 112 x 5%.
KIYONAGA
The Iris Garden. This is the right-hand sheet
of a diptych afterwards re-engraved. The left-
hand sheet is in the New York Public Library
and elsewhere; but the composition would sug-
gest a possible triptych of which the sheet on
the extreme right has not been seen.
58
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PLATE XXIV
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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Print reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No. 62.
An impression of the second state, with the de-
sign re-drawn, is reproduced in color as Plate 12
of Fenollosa’s “An Outline of the History of
Ukiyo-ye.”’
Size 144 X g3.
KIYONAGA
The left-hand sheet of a diptych. A tall woman
in black and rose standing beside a_ barred
window, through which a snow landscape is seen.
In the foreground are a man about to write anda
child fanning a brazier. Another child behind.
Both sheets of this diptych are in the New York
Public Library.
Size 15g x 10. (Plate XXIV).
KIYONAGA
The Serenade. This is the left-hand, and by far
the finest, sheet of a triptych representing a scene
from one of the medizval romances that are to
the Japanese what the “Morte d’Arthur”’ is, or
might be, to us. In Japan everyone recognizes
an episode from these stories as quickly as the
ancient Greeks would have recognized an epi-
sode out of Homer; they are the common prop-
erty of all. A comparison between the Japanese
romances and let us say, the “ Morte d’Arthur” or
“Amadis of Gaul”’ is interesting. There is just
as much fighting in the one as in the other, the
heroes perform deeds of equally amazing prowess;
99
THE GROLIER CLUB
but in the Japanese stories the women are more
heroic, more capable; they are not, as the adora-
tion of the Virgin Mary made them with us,
white and aloof, to be protected and died for.
In Japan, as in Greece, the bonds of chivalry
were between men; and the women take, when
necessity arises, a very active part in affairs, are
helpmates in the fullest meaning of the word.
In those eras of Japanese history when the in-
fluence of China was not dominant, the position
of women, especially in the court circles, was
exalted, and their education was quite equal
to that of the men. The first and greatest of
Japanese novelists, for example, was a woman,
and one of the most moving episodes in all ro-
mance is the dance of Shizuka before Yoritomo
—the beautiful young girl, captive and broken-
hearted, before the cruel brother of the man she
loved.
In the print exhibited, Yoritomo’s young brother,
Prince Yoshitsune, the most popular among the
noble heroes of Japan, is seen in an earlier part
of his career, playing a serenade outside a palace,
the mistress of which has sent her maid to iden-
tify the musician. It was an evening of “peril-
ous moonlight,’’ and the end of the story that
is scarcely more than an episode in the life of
Yoshitsune, was, for the beautiful young inmate
of the palace, death.
This print, the garden background of which is in
green as it should be, not yellow, is reproduced as
60
19
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
No. 291 in the Catalogue of the Shotaro Sato
Sale, New York, 1916. Impressions of the whole
triptych in the first state are reproduced in the
Hayashi Catalogue, p. 216, and elsewhere. A
reissue of the print was made from recut blocks
with the moon left out, and other changes, and
this second state of the sheet exhibited may best
be compared with the first in the reproduction of
the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 109.
Size 152 X 10%.
KIYONAGA
Two ladies out for a walk accompanied by a maid
servant and a young samurai. It is pleasant to
find that some of Kiyonaga’s statuesque beauties
are of what might be called good society. Ladies
dressed, of course, in a much less ostentatious
manner than the courtesans; the obz are not tied
in front and the showy hair pins are not worn.
From a series, perhaps of fashion plates, called:
“Brocades of the Eastern Capital.” The East-
ern Capital was Yedo, now Tokyo, as distin-
suished from Kyoto. The Shoguns who had
usurped the power—like the Mayors of the Palace
of early France—kept their state in Yedo; the
Emperors had their quieter court at Kyoto.
Print reproduced in color: Arthur Morrison,
Catalogue of Exhibition of The Fine Art Society,
London, 1910, No. 104, and Huish, “Japan and
its Art,” (Third edition), Plate II.
Size 15% X 108.
61
THE GROLIER CLUB
80 KIYONAGA
81
82
The courtesan Wakakusa of Chojiya followed by
her attendants.
A marvel of printing, perfectly preserved. This
is a sheet from a set illustrating spring fashions
of the demi-monde, in which Kiyonaga and Kori-
usai appear to have collaborated. See No. 72.
Subject reproduced, No. 205, Sotheby Catalogue
of May 31, 1921: The First Portion of the Col-
lection of T. Thacher Clarke.
Size 15 X 105.
KIYONAGA
A young man with two geisha; the one at the left
stands holding a round fan, the one at the right
is seated with a samisen, or Japanese banjo,
across her lap.
Notice the perfect placing of the black pouch in
the foreground, without which the print would
lose half its beauty. It is from a Series showing
the “Real Beauties of the Gay Quarters.”
Subject reproduced, Van Caneghem Catalogue,
No. 63, and Sotheby Catalogue of November 27,
1913: The Collection of an American Artist Re-
siding in Europe, No. 78.
Size 14% x 104.
KIYONAGA
The actor Matsumoto Koshiro having tea with
two geisha.
62
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PLATE XXV KIYONAGA NO. 82
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83
84
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Print reproduced, No. 452 B, Matsuki Sale,
American Art Galleries, February, 1908.
Size 15¢ X 10g. (Plate XXV).
KIYONAGA
The Salt Gatherers. Two peasant girls at the
edge of the sea, carrying the buckets in which
they gather salt-water. Again in this print there
is a reference to an old romance, for the two girls
represent Matsukaze and Murasame, who passed
into legend and became the subjct of a No drama
because of their relations with a noble who had
been banished from court to exile on the sea coast
of Suma. Once more, asin the subject of Number
78, the episode was but an episode for the lover,
but, for the girl, the beginning and end of hap-
piness, the warrant of immortality. Kiyonaga
has done the same scene again in a pillar print.
This print is from the same Series as Number 79.
The subject has been reproduced in many places,
among which it is best to choose the reproduction
in color of the V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III, No. 63, in
spite of the fact that this was made from an im-
pression that had been trimmed, and had faded
to a lovely harmony of quiet tones, whereas the
one exhibited is in the original condition.
Size 15% X 10g.
KIYONAGA
A court lady of the long ago beside a stream.
Kiyonaga did a number of prints of this type
63
85
86
THE GROLIER CLUB
representing the old court costumes with their
beautifully flowing lines. Most of these have
two figures each; the one exhibited with its
stately single figure is the finest that the compiler
has seen.
Print reproduced as frontispiece to Catalogue of
“A Small Private Collection,’ Walpole Galleries,
New York, June 14, 1920.
Subject reproduced, Ficke Catalogue, No.
2009.
Size 15 X 10.
KIYONAGA
Diptych. A group of people visiting a Shinto
shrine in winter.
The figure of the man in black is particularly fine,
the dark robes being set off against the snow.
The left-hand sheet is reproduced in color in the
Catalogue of the Exhibition held by the Japan
Society of New York, 1911, No. 131; the right-
hand sheet is reproduced in the Van Caneghem
Catalogue, No. 45.
Size 15¢ X 20.
KIYONAGA
Triptych. Women landing from a pleasure boat.
The limited amount of space available permitted
the exhibition of but two triptychs. This one,
however, could not be omitted. It is a famous
impression of a famous print.
64
JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
Subject reproduced, V. I. Catalogue, Vol. III,
No. 1109.
Size 15 X 30.
SHUNCHO (worked Ca. 1780-1795)
Shunch6d’s work was contemporary with the best
of Kiyonaga’s. It is somewhat less masculine,
less statuesque than that of his great rival; the
figures are apt to have a softer, more gently
feminine grace. Kiyonaga was the greater of the
two, but Shuncho has a quality all his own, that
gives him high place among the artists who work-
ed in the closing decades of the 18th century.
87 SHUNCHO
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PLATE XXVIII
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JAPANESE FIGURE PRINTS
123 TOYOKUNI
124
125
Matsumoto Koshir6 as a man of rank.
Subject reproduced, Jacquin Catalogue, No.
653.
Size 152 x 10%.
TOYOKUNI
Mica ground. Bando Mitsugoré drawing his
sword.
Subject reproduced, Kinbei Murata Catalogue
of October, 1919, No. 82; and “ Journal of the
Ukiyo-ye Society of Japan,’ November, 1922.
No. 7.
Size 142 x 10. (Plate XXVII).
TOYOKUNI
The 3rd Segawa Kikunoj6 as a dancer with an
open fan in her right hand. (See note on Num-
ber 16).
Size 144 x 10. (Plate XXVIII).
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