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Example research essay topic: Suzuki Harunobu Eighteenth Century Prints - 1,108 words

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... till women) were especially prominent. The early eighteenth century was a period of development in print-making. The quality of the paper improved; shapes and sizes of prints became varied; and polyptych were introduced. Techniques of printing became more sophisticated. The urusei-e (lacquer-print) was developed, in which certain areas of black are made to shine by mixing glue with the printing-ink.

The greatest innovation in technique, however, was in the use of color. From the earliest times, deluxe editions of prints had been richly colored by hand, and by the middle of the eighteenth century Okumura Masanobu (a publisher as well as an artist) was experimenting with the use of more than one block to produce beni-e, or "red pictures" which employed up to three colors. These colors were not contained by the contours of the design, however. The first truly polychromatic print (called nashik-e, "brocade picture" in Japanese) appeared around 1769. An Edo artist, Suzuki Harunobu published a series of prints in which the colors were either enclosed by an outline, or formed hard edges in their own.

These prints were an instant success and Harunobu, until his death six years later at the age of 46, was the most popular artist in Edo, producing prints of ethereal, identical-looking young men and women, posing with exquisite grace. After Harunobu's death, the unido-e art form shifted from the dream-like, quiet or gentle atmosphere that he typified, back to the Kabuki actors and the girls of the Yoshiwara District. This trend was completely dominated by Torii Kiyonaga (1752 - 1815). Kiyonaga is considered by some to be one of the greatest of the 18 th century woodblock artists.

His girls were more realistic and mature than those of Harunobu's. Kiyonaga portrayed tall, mature women, often in statuesque poses involved in gentle activities. He used strong lines and beautiful colors, emphasizing browns and grays to produce realistic scenes. Although Kiyonaga was not a member of the Torii family, he became the head of the Torii School in 1875 when his master died suddenly. Kiyonaga assumed the Torii family name. His early works were influenced by such popular artists as Suzuki Harunobu, Ipod Koryusai, and Kit Shigemasa.

Kiyonaga was a prolific artist: He published several sets of his unido-e women, the finest of which are the well-known "Those Your Bin Aware", "Huuzoku Azuma no Nishiki", and "Minami Koo." After Kiyonaga retired, Kitagawa Utamaro (substantially influenced by Kiyonaga) became the leading unido-e master. Utamaro introduced the oui-e style of unido-e, a portraiture style, where the artist concentrates on the formal elements of the face and hair, and only the head and shoulders are shown in the picture; Utamaro usually removed the setting entirely. He depicted mainly brothel and tea house women, but unlike his predecessors who depicted these women as glamorous, he depicted them as they really were, with all their vanity, their frivolity, their intoxication, or their hard work. Most of his women showed a sensuous posture of the head with a bare curved neck and elongated torso. Their kimonos are often a little revealing. [note: Utamaro's work is known to have had an influence on later artists such as Picasso and Modigliani, each known for their elongation and distortion of their women. ] Katsushika Hokusai (1760 - 1849) is considered one of the outstanding figures of the Ukiyo-e school of printmaking. Between 1796 and 1802 he produced a vast number of book illustrations and color prints, perhaps as many as 30, 000, that drew their inspiration from the traditions, legends, and lives of the Japanese people.

Hokusai's most typical wood-block prints, silkscreens, and landscape paintings were done between 1830 and 1840. The free curved lines characteristic of his style gradually developed into a series of spirals that gave freedom and grace to his work, as seen in Raiden, the Spirit of Thunder. In his late works Hokusai used large, broken strokes and a method of coloring that imparted a more somber mood to his work, as in his massive Group of Workmen Building a Boat. Among his best-known works are the 13 -volume sketchbook Hokusai manga (begun 1814) and the series of block prints known as the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji (circa 1826 - 33).

The latter was an attempt to show Mt. Fuji from many different angles and in a variety of circumstances. It was, in other words, an experiment in observing and recording the essence of single object seen in diverse aspects. These pictures' majestic composition and, in many cases, resourceful and even witty content, together with Hokusai's powerful brushstrokes, have earned them many devotees in Japan and throughout the world. Hiroshige (1797 - 1858), was the last great figure of the Ukiyo-e. He transmuted everyday landscapes into intimate, lyrical scenes that made him even more successful than Hokusai.

Ando Hiroshige was born in Edo (now Tokyo) and at first, like his father, was a fire warden. The prints of Hokusai are said to have first kindled in him the desire to become an artist, and he entered the studio of Utagawa Toyohiro, a renowned painter, as an apprentice. In 1812 Hiroshige took his teacher's name (a sign of graduation), signing his work Utagawa Hiroshige. His career falls roughly into three periods. From 1811 to about 1830 he created prints of traditional subjects such as young women and actors.

During the next 15 years he won fame as a landscape artist, reaching a peak of success and achievement in 1833 when his masterpiece, the print series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (scenes on the highway connecting Edo and Kyoto), was published. He maintained this high level of craftsmanship in other travel series, including Celebrated Places in Japan and Sixty-nine Stations on the Kids Highway. The work he did during the third period, the last years of his life, is sometimes of lesser quality, as he appears to have hurriedly met the demands of popularity. He died of cholera on October 12, 1858, in Edo.

With Hokusai, Hiroshige dominated the popular art of Japan in the first half of the 19 th century. His work was not as bold or innovative as that of the older master, but he captured, in a poetic, gentle way that all could understand, the ordinary person's experience of the Japanese landscape as well as the varied moods of memorable places at different times. His total output was immense, some 5400 prints in all. Paradoxically, the Japanese have managed to stay both innovative and traditionalist through the peaceful Tokugawa Era. As we have seen in the above studies, their art vividly reflects this conflict in its intriguing merging of superficiality and symbolism.

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