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Lot Essay
published:
"Azabu bijutsukan shozo nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Tenrankai annai" (Exhibition of ukiyo-e masterpieces in the Azabu Museum of Art: Exhibition news), Ukiyo-e geijutsu/Ukiyo-e Art 94 (October 1988), black and white illustr., nn.
Azabu Museum of Art, and Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, eds., Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Azabu bijutsukan shozo/Ukiyo-e Painting Masterpieces in the Collection of the Azabu Museum of Art, introduction by Kobayashi Tadashi, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Azabu Museum of Art; Osaka: Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 1988), pl. 1.
Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts, and Japan Institute of Arts and Crafts, eds., Edo no fashon, kaikan kinen ten, Part 1: Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e ni miru onnatachi no yosooi/"Fashion of Edo": Women's dress in Ukiyo-e Paintings, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts, 1989), pl. 1.
Kobayashi Tadashi, and Kano Hiroyuki, Kanoha to fuzokuga: Edo no kaiga 1 (Kano school and genre painting: Edo painting 1), vol. 17 of Nihon bijutsu zenshu (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992), fig. p. 180.
Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Azabu bijutsu kogeikan (Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts), vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), pl. 8.
This eclectic work incorporates a veritable cornucopia of traditional themes juxtaposed in a very witty fashion. Since late Muromachi times the golden bridge has served as an emblem of transition from this world to paradise. The combination of golden bridge, willow and circular stone-filled baskets (jakugo) employed to combat erosion, suggests the location of Uji, which then turns the viewer's thoughts towards the Tale of Genji, whose Uji chapters reverberate with thoughts of gloom and death. Medieval in origin also is a genre of screens in which applied fans were connected by a flowing water motif (oginagashi byobu), providing inspiration for the oddly-oversized floating fans seen here. The fans comprise a virtual compendium of all the painting styles popular from the 11th to 16th centuries. From the left: the sea battle of Yashima from the 13th century Tale of the Heike, in which the mighty archer Nasu no Yoichi rises to the challenge of piercing the fan tied to a pole by a noblewoman from the opposing side, who complicates the feat by standing in a bobbing boat; this is painted in the Yamato, or native narrative style. (A parody of this scene is included in a handscroll by Furuyama Morofusa, lot 21). Next is a formal Kano-style flower-and-bird painting from the Chinese lineage of painting. This just touches a fan showing Genji's meeting with the Lady of Akashi from the beloved classic the Tale of Genji, which itself overlaps a flung-ink monochrome fan depicting one of the Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang. The rightmost narrative, in hybrid Chinese-Japanese style, treats a theme from the recently popular Twenty-four Chinese Paragons of Filial Piety: Huang Hsiang trying to keep his aged father cool in the summer heat. The motif of fish (here carp and catfish) and waves was a staple of Song-dynasty academic painters, although its treatment here has an anthropomorphic panache and humor uniquely Japanese.
As if all this were not enough, the encyclopedic array of style and themes is brought up to the moment with the three fashionably-dressed beauties on the bridge. Their languid poses and coquettish gestures make clear that they belong to the demi-monde, offering themselves to the viewer with attended carelessness. The woman at left wears her long hair drawn back with short locks on each side of her face, reminiscent of a court lady. Her young assistant, pointing at the fans in the water, wears the traditional bangs and bobbed hair of a prostitute-in-training. The more soberly-dressed woman leaning over the railing affects the hairdo characteristic of male kabuki actors who impersonated women (wakashu), an interesting tonsorial example of the flow of influences back and forth across gender.
The clothing, particularly the narrow obi of the kimono, suggests a mid-17th century date. The hybrid style, and particularly the thin lattice of finger-shaped gold clouds, suggest that it is a product of a versatile urban workshop perhaps employing a number of painters with different specialities.
"Azabu bijutsukan shozo nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Tenrankai annai" (Exhibition of ukiyo-e masterpieces in the Azabu Museum of Art: Exhibition news), Ukiyo-e geijutsu/Ukiyo-e Art 94 (October 1988), black and white illustr., nn.
Azabu Museum of Art, and Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, eds., Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Azabu bijutsukan shozo/Ukiyo-e Painting Masterpieces in the Collection of the Azabu Museum of Art, introduction by Kobayashi Tadashi, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Azabu Museum of Art; Osaka: Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 1988), pl. 1.
Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts, and Japan Institute of Arts and Crafts, eds., Edo no fashon, kaikan kinen ten, Part 1: Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e ni miru onnatachi no yosooi/"Fashion of Edo": Women's dress in Ukiyo-e Paintings, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts, 1989), pl. 1.
Kobayashi Tadashi, and Kano Hiroyuki, Kanoha to fuzokuga: Edo no kaiga 1 (Kano school and genre painting: Edo painting 1), vol. 17 of Nihon bijutsu zenshu (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1992), fig. p. 180.
Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Azabu bijutsu kogeikan (Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts), vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), pl. 8.
This eclectic work incorporates a veritable cornucopia of traditional themes juxtaposed in a very witty fashion. Since late Muromachi times the golden bridge has served as an emblem of transition from this world to paradise. The combination of golden bridge, willow and circular stone-filled baskets (jakugo) employed to combat erosion, suggests the location of Uji, which then turns the viewer's thoughts towards the Tale of Genji, whose Uji chapters reverberate with thoughts of gloom and death. Medieval in origin also is a genre of screens in which applied fans were connected by a flowing water motif (oginagashi byobu), providing inspiration for the oddly-oversized floating fans seen here. The fans comprise a virtual compendium of all the painting styles popular from the 11th to 16th centuries. From the left: the sea battle of Yashima from the 13th century Tale of the Heike, in which the mighty archer Nasu no Yoichi rises to the challenge of piercing the fan tied to a pole by a noblewoman from the opposing side, who complicates the feat by standing in a bobbing boat; this is painted in the Yamato, or native narrative style. (A parody of this scene is included in a handscroll by Furuyama Morofusa, lot 21). Next is a formal Kano-style flower-and-bird painting from the Chinese lineage of painting. This just touches a fan showing Genji's meeting with the Lady of Akashi from the beloved classic the Tale of Genji, which itself overlaps a flung-ink monochrome fan depicting one of the Eight Views of the Hsiao and Hsiang. The rightmost narrative, in hybrid Chinese-Japanese style, treats a theme from the recently popular Twenty-four Chinese Paragons of Filial Piety: Huang Hsiang trying to keep his aged father cool in the summer heat. The motif of fish (here carp and catfish) and waves was a staple of Song-dynasty academic painters, although its treatment here has an anthropomorphic panache and humor uniquely Japanese.
As if all this were not enough, the encyclopedic array of style and themes is brought up to the moment with the three fashionably-dressed beauties on the bridge. Their languid poses and coquettish gestures make clear that they belong to the demi-monde, offering themselves to the viewer with attended carelessness. The woman at left wears her long hair drawn back with short locks on each side of her face, reminiscent of a court lady. Her young assistant, pointing at the fans in the water, wears the traditional bangs and bobbed hair of a prostitute-in-training. The more soberly-dressed woman leaning over the railing affects the hairdo characteristic of male kabuki actors who impersonated women (wakashu), an interesting tonsorial example of the flow of influences back and forth across gender.
The clothing, particularly the narrow obi of the kimono, suggests a mid-17th century date. The hybrid style, and particularly the thin lattice of finger-shaped gold clouds, suggest that it is a product of a versatile urban workshop perhaps employing a number of painters with different specialities.