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 Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 - 1861) was one of the last great masters of the
Japanese woodblock print.
Biography
He was born in 1798, the son of a silk-dyer, originally named Yoshizo. He
apparently assisted his father by designing for the business, and quite
naturally found his way to the art world.
He originally studied with the artist Kuninao, and some of his work came
to the attention of one of the great masters of the Japanese woodblock
print, Toyokuni. He was officially admitted to Toyokuni's studio in 1811,
and became one of his chief pupils. He remained an apprentice until 1814,
when he was given the name Kuniyoshi and set out as an independent artist.
Like many others of the Utagawa school, he started out with theatre
prints, but his initial lack of success led to several hard years, at one
point making a meager living repairing and selling used tatami (floormats).
A chance encounter with his prosperous fellow pupil Kunisada, to whom he
felt (with some justice) that he was superior in artistic talent, led him to
redouble his efforts (but did not create any lingering ill-feeling between
the two, who later collaborated on a number of series).
He then produced a number of heroic triptychs which were well thought of,
and in 1827 he started the series which was to secure his place, the
Suikoden, or "Hundred and Eight Chinese Heroes". He went on to become quite
successful in a number of fields, including some excellent landscapes in the
early 1830s. In the 1840s he continued to produce many prints, among them
many triptychs of bijin and heroes.
He was also known for his drawings of cats, his favourite animal
(according to a drawing by his pupil Kyosai, his studio was full of cats),
of which he did wonderfully sympathetic drawings, which he included in
corners of his prints on the slightest excuse.
Although arrested in the morals-based crackdown of 1842 on the print and
theatre world, he escaped with a fine. In the 1850s the quality of his work
started to decline, and after the great earthquake of 1855, in which he was
given up for dead by his family and studio when he was late coming home, he
suffered extensively from illness and depression, and produced little more.
He died in Edo, in 1861.
Pupils
Although he had quite a few pupils, his chief pupil was Yoshitoshi, the
last of the great Japanese woodblock masters.
Print Series
Here is a partial list of his print series, with dates:
- Illustrated Abridged Biography of the Founder (c. 1831)
- Famous Views of the Eastern Capital (c. 1834)
- Heroes of Our Country's Suikoden (c. 1836)
- Stories of Wise and Virtuous Women (c. 1841-1842)
- Fifty-Three Parallels for the Tokaido (1843-1845) (with Hiroshige and
Toyokuni III)
- Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety (1843-1846)
- Mirror of the Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety (1844-1846)
- Six Crystal Rivers (1847-1848)
- Twenty-Four Chinese Paragons of Filial Piety (c. 1848)
- Sixty-Nine Stations along the Kisokaido (1852)
- Portraits of Samurai of True Loyalty (1852)
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