Utagawa Kuniyoshi: The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido Hardcover – April 1, 2009
by Sarah E. Thompson
歌川国芳的《木曾街道六十九次之內》，与歌川广重的同名画作不同，后者重视风景与乡土人情，让今人共鸣；国芳则注重描绘此地的历史典故，发人幽思。在“今须”站，国芳画的是“曾我兄弟复仇事件”，日本历史上三大复仇事件之首！
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镰仓时期，源赖朝举兵前四年，伊豆的豪族工藤氏的嫡流和庶流后代之间发生了领土争端，工藤佑经杀死了侄儿河津佑泰。河津佑泰的妻子带着两名遗腹子改嫁曾我太郎，因此，两个孩子改姓曾我。杀父之仇不共戴天，长大成人的曽我十郎佑成与曽我五郎时致，终于在十八年后，成功杀死了工藤佑经。哥哥曽我十郎也在战斗中被杀，次日，弟弟曽我五郎从容被斩首。后人在此地种植梅林作为纪念，据记载共有梅树3万5千棵，被称为“曾我梅林”。
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室町时代写成了军记《曾我物语》，中世纪时已是能乐剧目之一；江户时代更是改编为歌舞伎剧《曾我物》，进一步塑造了曾我兄弟同情百姓疾苦，仗义除奸的形象。于是曾我兄弟广受日本民众喜爱，正月里也必定上演《曾我物》。
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不过歌舞伎剧中，最高潮部分是曾我兄弟与仇敌工藤对峙的场面；在国芳笔下，画的是曾我兄弟在仇人家四处寻找目标的过程，哥哥在里屋也没寻到仇人，推门出来正碰见弟弟。观者也不禁关心兄弟两是否找到，大仇能否得报，好的艺术作品，便是这样引人入胜。山水画靠空间感，人物画则更难！
Originally published in 1852 and 1853, The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō is a richly entertaining series of woodblock prints created by master artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797-1861). The seventy-two finely executed prints include one for each resting point along the well-traveled Kisokaidō (Kiso Road)--a historic route stretching from Edo (modern Tokyo) to Kyoto--plus views of the two endpoint cities and an additional series title page. Kuniyoshi never traveled the mountainous Kisokaidō, but he drew from historic events, kabuki plays, popular legends, and classical literature to illustrate his vision of the towns and stations along the road.
This stunning collection of colorful ukiyo-e prints exhibits Kuniyoshi's artistic mastery and clever sense of humor. Each work incorporates three elements: the main picture, an inset landscape depicting the particular station, and a title block. Using parody and pun (both for humor and to avoid government censorship), Kuniyoshi associated each point on the route with one of the most beloved stories of his day--from a reimagined Odyssey to the Japanese fairy tale of Urashima to popular kabuki scenes with courtesans and other "floating world" characters. He made that story the subject of the main picture and put clues to its identity in the title block. Kuniyoshi delighted in these hidden messages and used every inch of the paper to tell his story.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi: The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō celebrates the beauty, charm, and ingenuity of Kuniyoshi's work with more than seventy-five full-color illustrations, including reproductions of all the prints in the treasured series. Sarah E. Thompson provides an introductory essay on the history of ukiyo-e and a description of each print.
圖書
国貞.国芳.英泉
昭和49[1974]
浮世繪大系. 10.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utagawa_Kuniyoshi
Utagawa Kuniyoshi was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting. He was a member of the Utagawa school.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川 國芳, January 1, 1798[1] – April 14, 1861) was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and ..
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Cats in Ukiyo-e: Japanese Woodblock Print (Japanese, Japanese and Japanese Edition)(Japanese) Tankobon Softcover – July 1, 2013
BOOKS
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the undisputed master of warrior prints
BY MARTIN LAFLAMME
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
BEIJING - Utagawa Kuniyoshi was a true son of Edo. Born near Nihonbashi in 1797, his father a dyer, he grew up among the hoi polloi in the crowded streets of the low city, where popular stories of tattooed otokodate, the revered “street knights” of the kabuki stage, were capturing people’s imagination. Bluff in behavior, loyal to his friends and generous to his pupils, he also had a well-known passion for cats, whom he often depicted lovingly and humorously in his work.
Kuniyoshi: Visionary of the Floating World, Edited by Rossella Menegazzo.
215 pages
SKIRA, Art.
215 pages
SKIRA, Art.
He did not care much for money, was frequently in debt and always poorly dressed. But he had talent galore, and though his first decade as a woodblock print artist was difficult — some say that at one point he even had to hawk tatami mats to survive — he became famous in his early 30s and would go on to develop a reputation equal to that of Hiroshige (1797-1858) or Kunisada (1786-1865). His childhood name was Yoshisaburo, but today, he is widely known as Kuniyoshi. He is the undisputed master of warrior prints.
Kuniyoshi showed promise at an early age and in 1811, while still in his teens, he joined the large studio of Toyokuni I (1769-1825). The following years, which were somewhat frustrating, were mostly spent toiling sedulously in the shadow of other established artists. By the mid-1820s, Kuniyoshi was still a minor figure with little to no reputation.
By comparison, Kunisada, who belonged to the same studio, already had a large following and was well on his way to become the most prolific and commercially successful print designer of his age. He was a bon vivant who led a colorful and very public life in the orbit of kabuki actors and courtesans of the pleasure quarters. He was the envy of many, Kuniyoshi not the least.
Everything changed in 1827, when Kuniyoshi was commissioned to design a series of warrior prints inspired by a Chinese novel, “Outlaws of the Marsh,” known as “Suikoden” in Japanese, a 14th-century tale of chivalrous ruffians fighting boo-hiss government villains. Introduced in Japan in the early 18th century, the “Suikoden” became immensely popular after 1803 when an edition illustrated by Hokusai (1760-1849) was published.
This was a time when the common people were growing increasingly frustrated with the “lazy” samurai class that lorded over them and so, in the words of Rossella Menegazzo, the editor of “Kuniyoshi: Visionary of the Floating World,” a new monograph on the artist, “the story and imagery associated with these characters immediately caught on in Japanese popular culture.” Kuniyoshi’s series of prints, the full name of which is “One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Popular Suikoden All Told,” was never completed — today, only 74 designs are known — but demand was high and, by 1845, the original woodblocks had completely worn out. The series launched a “Suikoden” craze that lasted for decades. It also made Kuniyoshi’s name.
Like most ukiyo-e artists, Kuniyoshi did not keep a diary and he left no letters. Large tracts of his life thus remain poorly understood and Menegazzo’s book does not reveal anything new about the man or his entourage of pupils, many of whom later became famous. However, it offers a lavish and engaging introduction to Kuniyoshi along with the main themes and sources of inspiration of his rich oeuvre.
One of the most fascinating of these is how this quintessential Japanese artist absorbed Western artistic notions and breathed new life into a well-established tradition. As Menegazzo writes, “fidelity to observable reality … had never been a priority in Japanese painting,” but thanks to exposure to Western art, it became a “cornerstone of Kuniyoshi’s work.”
Western prints and books, imported through the Dejima Dutch emporium in the city of Nagasaki, had been available for decades and Kuniyoshi amassed a collection of his own to which he obviously frequently referred. The way in which he uses a vanishing point to suggest perspective, his precise depiction of human anatomy and his clever employment of foreshortening to depict figures from different angles and in varying poses all indicate a
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