Details
UTAGAWA TOYOHARU (1735-1814)*
Spring concert
Two-panel screen, ink and color on silk, 67 x 178cm., signed Ichiryusai Utagawa Toyoharu ga and sealed Ichiryusai and Shoju no in
This panorama of a nobleman's mansion on the outskirts of Edo is one of only a handful of large perspective painting in color on silk by Toyoharu. Toyoharu was the founder of the Utagawa studio of ukiyo-e masters in Edo, numbering among his students Toyokuni and Toyohiro. In the 1760s Chinese copies of European vues d'optique were being copied by Kyoto artists for Japanese-made viewing instruments. Under the influence of these Kyoto prints, Toyoharu began designing miniature perspective views (uki-e) for optical viewing devices around 1770. He redesigned many as full-size horizontal prints taking as his subjects both landscape vistas bustling with figures, and lavish houses in the pleasure quarters with many rooms opening into the far distance. Towards the end of his life he gave up print designing and concentrated on painting.
In this painting the artist experiments with realistic Western recession in his careful perspectival rendering on the interior of a grand mansion. In the front room two women are playing a koto and a samisen. Women with young children are enjoying themselves in the adjacent stroll garden on a spring day. A male servant poles a boat across the pond toward a rustic, thatched tea house cantilevered over the water. The roofs of a neighboring village are visible in the distance beyond the garden. Toyoharu's women are elegant, idealized types, contrasting with the animated, rambunctious children. The plethora of beautiful women and happy children in this domestic setting suggest an element of fantasy, a rich man's dream, perhaps.
The elaborate uki-e landscape setting is reminiscent of Toyoharu's panorama of the Asakusa area entitled Ryogoku Bridge - Edo, a hanging scroll in color on silk in the Freer Gallery of Art (Harold Stern, Freer Gallery of Art Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition: Ukiyo-e Painting [Smithsonian, 1973], pl. 74). The dimensions of the Freer painting (73.1 x 185.9cm.) are similar to the present example. It is possible that the present example was also originally a wide hanging scroll. The composition, however, is better integrated and more organically concieved than the Freer painting. One other point of reference is a large hanging scroll in color on silk from the 1790s in the Fenollosa-Weld Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, showing people walking along an embankment and enjoying the cherry blossoms near a restaurant at Mimeguri (illustrated in Zaigai Hiho [Japanese Paintings in Western Collections], Gakken 1969, vol.3, text volume p.75). The painting measures 66 x 121.9cm. The Freer and Boston paintings are both signed and sealed. Two other large paintings with uki-e scenes by Toyoharu are known only from old sale catalogues.
Judging by figure and hair styles, the painting can be dated to the late Temmei/early Kansei eras (late 1780s/early 1790s). It is somewhat later than the only other recorded screen attributed to this artist, namely a six-panel screen in color on paper depicting the interior of a display room (harimise) in the Tamaya house of pleasure (Lawrence Smith, Victor Harris and Timothy Clark, Japanese Art: Masterpieces in the British Museum [British Museum Publications, 1990], cat. no. 194).As noted in the British Museum catalogue, large ukiyo-e screens of this type are extremely rare, and no comparable works are known to have survived in Japan. The British Museum screen is unsigned has been dated to the early 1780's.
Spring concert
Two-panel screen, ink and color on silk, 67 x 178cm., signed Ichiryusai Utagawa Toyoharu ga and sealed Ichiryusai and Shoju no in
This panorama of a nobleman's mansion on the outskirts of Edo is one of only a handful of large perspective painting in color on silk by Toyoharu. Toyoharu was the founder of the Utagawa studio of ukiyo-e masters in Edo, numbering among his students Toyokuni and Toyohiro. In the 1760s Chinese copies of European vues d'optique were being copied by Kyoto artists for Japanese-made viewing instruments. Under the influence of these Kyoto prints, Toyoharu began designing miniature perspective views (uki-e) for optical viewing devices around 1770. He redesigned many as full-size horizontal prints taking as his subjects both landscape vistas bustling with figures, and lavish houses in the pleasure quarters with many rooms opening into the far distance. Towards the end of his life he gave up print designing and concentrated on painting.
In this painting the artist experiments with realistic Western recession in his careful perspectival rendering on the interior of a grand mansion. In the front room two women are playing a koto and a samisen. Women with young children are enjoying themselves in the adjacent stroll garden on a spring day. A male servant poles a boat across the pond toward a rustic, thatched tea house cantilevered over the water. The roofs of a neighboring village are visible in the distance beyond the garden. Toyoharu's women are elegant, idealized types, contrasting with the animated, rambunctious children. The plethora of beautiful women and happy children in this domestic setting suggest an element of fantasy, a rich man's dream, perhaps.
The elaborate uki-e landscape setting is reminiscent of Toyoharu's panorama of the Asakusa area entitled Ryogoku Bridge - Edo, a hanging scroll in color on silk in the Freer Gallery of Art (Harold Stern, Freer Gallery of Art Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition: Ukiyo-e Painting [Smithsonian, 1973], pl. 74). The dimensions of the Freer painting (73.1 x 185.9cm.) are similar to the present example. It is possible that the present example was also originally a wide hanging scroll. The composition, however, is better integrated and more organically concieved than the Freer painting. One other point of reference is a large hanging scroll in color on silk from the 1790s in the Fenollosa-Weld Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, showing people walking along an embankment and enjoying the cherry blossoms near a restaurant at Mimeguri (illustrated in Zaigai Hiho [Japanese Paintings in Western Collections], Gakken 1969, vol.3, text volume p.75). The painting measures 66 x 121.9cm. The Freer and Boston paintings are both signed and sealed. Two other large paintings with uki-e scenes by Toyoharu are known only from old sale catalogues.
Judging by figure and hair styles, the painting can be dated to the late Temmei/early Kansei eras (late 1780s/early 1790s). It is somewhat later than the only other recorded screen attributed to this artist, namely a six-panel screen in color on paper depicting the interior of a display room (harimise) in the Tamaya house of pleasure (Lawrence Smith, Victor Harris and Timothy Clark, Japanese Art: Masterpieces in the British Museum [British Museum Publications, 1990], cat. no. 194).As noted in the British Museum catalogue, large ukiyo-e screens of this type are extremely rare, and no comparable works are known to have survived in Japan. The British Museum screen is unsigned has been dated to the early 1780's.