英語で紹介する日本文化Ⅰ
Lesson 6
Next Lesson Japanese art―浮世絵
浮世絵とは何か
A genre of art, chiefly in the medium of the woodblock print[木版画], that arose
early in the Edo period (1600-1868) and built up a broad popular market among
the middle classes. Subject matter tended to focus on the brothel districts[遊廓: 代表的なのは吉原] and the Kabuki [歌舞伎] theaters, and
formats ranged from single-sheet prints[単版刷り] and greeting cards to albums and book
illustrations. Ukiyo-e flourished throughout
初期の浮世絵
The distinctive milieu from which ukiyo-e would emerge was flourishing as early as the Kan'ei era[寛永時代] (1624-1644). Genre paintings [風俗画] of the time depict pleasure seekers of every social class thronging the entertainment district beside the river Kamogawa[鴨川] in Kyoto. It was in such districts, in Kyoto, Osaka, and Edo, that there developed the freewheeling way of life of the floating world[浮世], and the genre of art, ukiyo-e, that glorified it.
江戸の浮世絵
By the late 17th century, the center of ukiyo-e had shifted from Kyoto-Osaka[上方] area to Edo, where the single-sheet print, probably initially intended for mounting on scrolls (掛物絵), seems to have become a specialty in the closing years of the Genroku era[元禄時代](1688-1704).
It was the development of the single-sheet
print, which marked a turning point in the history of ukiyo-e, the coming of
age of which was closely joined to that of kabuki. A major role in the
development of kabuki was played by Ichikawa Danjuro I[一世市川団十郎], who invented a bombastic style of acting known as aragoto[荒事] that became
immensely popular in Edo. Portrayals of actors[役者絵] in popular roles had
already become standard subject matter of ukiyo-e, but it was the Torii school[鳥居派] that achieved the
greatest success in rendering the pyrotechnics of an aragoto performance
in graphic terms. Torii Kiyonobu I[一世鳥居清信] and Torii Kiyomasu I[鳥居清松] perfected a
style that, with its vigorous use of line and robust forms, was particularly
appropriate for theatrical subjects. And their school
soon acquired a virtual monopoly over commissions in Edo for painted
theatrical posters[看板] and illustrated program notes[絵番付]. The finest of
the Torii school prints, recording a pose or entrance popularized by a
particular actor, are in the large kakemono-e format, and provided a visual
catalog of theatrical conventions that reinforced kabuki
tradition. A separate theatrical print style arose in
色刷りの発明
In about 1745, a technique was conceived for registering successive block, each printing different color on a single sheet. The resulting prints, called pictures printed in red[紅刷り絵] because the most striking color was a red derived from the petals of the safflower[紅花], were produced only in two or three colors. It was not until 1764 that the first full-color prints appeared. The development is closely associated with the sudden popularity of the work of Suzuki Harunobu[鈴木春信]. By 1766 almost every ukiyo-e artist[浮世絵師] was working in Harunobu's style. These new prints, called brocade pictures[錦絵] or Edo pictures[江戸絵], represented the final stage of technical advancement in color printing achieved in the Edo period.
浮世絵の全盛期
The late 18th century was largely a period of consolidation rather than innovation; however, development of the more generous large-size format[大版] and the introduction of diptychs and triptychs led to more complex composition. After 1790, ukiyo-e images acquired a new intensity and styles began to succeed one another with greater rapidity. Utamaro[喜多川歌麿] and Sharaku[東洲斎写楽] achieved a heightened closeness to their subjects by using the format of the bust portrait[大首絵]. Utamaro was one of the first to isolate his figures against a brilliant mica background[雲母刷り].
After 1800, there appears to have been a radical change in taste, accompanied by a faltering of inspiration in design and deterioration in the quality of printing. Short figures with bunched shoulders and a sharp-featured face replaced the tall, elegant figures of the 1770s and 1780s, kimono patterns became coarser and more strident, and pictures of actors tended toward the exaggerated and grotesque. One reason for this was change in the print-buying public, which had grown larger and presumably less discriminating, resulting in prints that were produced hastily many showing faulty registration of colors and in great numbers.
風景画の登場
The emergence of the landscape print[風景画] was a relatively late phenomenon in the history of ukiyo-e. Prior to Hokusai's[葛飾北斎] ‘Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji’[『富嶽三十六景』(1823年)], landscape as independent subject matter for ukiyo-e was largely unknown. Other artists soon followed Hokusai's lead, and landscape achieved a popularity that rivaled the established genres of portraiture. Active as an artist for some 60 years, Hokusai developed a style that was highly individual, combining Chinese and Western influences with elements drawn from the native Kano school[狩野派], the Tosa school[土佐派], and the Rimpa[琳派] tradition. He was also a prolific draftsman who employed a variety of techniques to create the astounding array of images in his famous 13-volume ‘Hokusai's Sketches’[『北斎漫画』(1814-49年)].
Hokusai's only true rival in landscape was Ando Hiroshige[安藤広重] whose great masterpiece, ‘The Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaido Road’[『東海道五十四次』(1833-34年)] brought him fame and a host of imitators. Hiroshige displays in this and other works a greater concern than Hokusai with atmosphere, light, and weather. Drawing on the style of certain of the landscape paintings of the Southern Song dynasty[南宋王朝(1127-1279年)], he was also influenced by the contemporaneous Maruyama-Shijo school [円山四条派] and Western realism.
As an integral element of the Edo-period culture that it mirrored, ukiyo-e was unable to survive that society's demise in the wake of the radical Westernization that transformed Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912).
『上方浮世絵館』(http://www.kamigata.jp/)
休館日 月曜日(月曜が休日の場合は翌日)
開館時間 午前11:00～ 午後6:00(入館は午後5:30まで)
Next Lesson Japanese art―俳句と和歌
資料一覧
●掛物絵・絵番付・大首絵
二代豊国『誂織時世好』(1840年頃) 絵番付(右が演題、下に役者名が書いてある) 歌麿『婦人相学十躰』(1792年)
●西洋画に影響を受けた浮世絵師
歌川国芳『忠臣蔵十一段目夜討之図』(1830年頃) ニューホフ著『東西海陸紀行』(1682年)
●西洋に影響を与えた浮世絵
ゴッホ『タンギー爺さん』(1887年) 歌川国貞『三浦屋高尾』(1861年)
