Kunisada
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Utagawa Kunisada (1786 - 1865) (Japanese: 歌川国貞, also known as Utagawa Toyokuni III 三代歌川豊国 ) was the most popular, prolific and financially successful ukiyo-e designer in 19th-century Japan, ahead of both Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige. Although modern critical opinion does not hold him in quite so high regard as he enjoyed during his own lifetime, he is still recognized as a master of the woodblock print.
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Biography
He was born in Edo in 1786, and his father (who died a year after Kunisada was born) was an amateur poet of some note. After showing a prediliction for art (copying prints of Kabuki actors), he was accepted as an apprentice in around 1800 by one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock print, Toyokuni, and became one of his chief pupils, being given the gō (art-name) of Kunisada at that point.
He started out doing actor prints, an initial specialty of the Utagawa school, but soon branched out into bijin-ga. He also produced some landscapes and warrior prints, but although his early work in these areas showed promise, he never made many. Apparently he did produce a fair amount of shunga prior to the Tenpo reforms of 1842.
In 1844 - 1845, Kunisada changed his art-name, taking the name of his master Toyokuni; he is now referred to Toyokuni III (Toyokuni II being Toyoshige, another Toyokuni pupil who had taken over as head of the Utagawa school after the death of Toyokuni in 1825). During this transitional year Kunisada signed many of his prints "Kunisada becoming Toyokuni II", an intentional snub of Toyoshige whom he believed had usurped his rightful position.
He occasionally collaborated with Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi on print series during the late 1840s and 1850s, a period of expansion when woodblock prints were in high demand in Japan. At this point he was at the height of his career and dominated the market for kabuki, actor, and Genji prints, while also producing a significant proportion of the bijin-ga and sumo-e. During his lifetime, he produced a vast number of prints estimated by some sources to be more than 20,000.
He outlasted both of his major contemporaries, Hiroshige and Kuniyoshi having died in 1858 and 1861 respectively. His last years were marked by something of a resurgence in quality, as he did series with more inspiration than some of his seemingly mass-produced work of his middle years. He died in Edo (having made only one documented trip out of it in his whole life!) in 1865. Notable students of Kunisada included Toyohara Kunichika and Utagawa Kunisada II.
Print series
During his lifetime, he produced a staggering number of prints, so that even a partial list of his print series numbers more than 800. Here are a few of his more important series, with dates:
- Beauties of the Pleasure Quarter (1809)
- Great Hits of the Stage (1815-1816)
- A Collection of Famous Restaurants of Modern Times (circa 1820)
- The Imitation Murasaki and the Rustic Genji (1830's)
- The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido (circa 1838)
- Actors at the Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido (1852)
- Views of Famous Places in Edo (1852)
- An Anthology of Important Places in Great Japan (1852)
- An Imaginary Thirty-Six Poets (1852)
- Restaurants of Edo (1852) (with Hiroshige)
- The Fifty-Three Stations [of the Tokaido] from Two Brushes (1855) (with Hiroshige)
- Famous Places in Edo and One Hundred Beautiful Women (1857)
- The Fifty-Four Chapters of Genji (1858-1859)
- Fashionable Mirror Reflections (1859)
- Famous Kabuki Actors Past and Present (1865 - issued posthumously)
Further reading
- Sebastian Izzard, Kunisada's World (Japan Society, New York, 1993) is the best overall work on him
- Shigeru Shindo, (translated Yoko Moizumi, E.M. Carmichael), Kunisada: The Kabuki Actor Portraits (Graphic-Sha, Tokyo, 1993)
- Ellis Tinios, Mirror of the Stage: The Actor Prints of Kunisada (University Gallery, Leeds, 1996)
External links
- Utagawa Kunisada Project has a list of his series, and images of many of his prints