KESHO NO ONNA (WOMAN APPLYING MAKE-UP) C. 1918. By Hashiguchi Goya

Hashiguchi Goyō (橋口 五葉 Hashiguchi Goyō, December 21, 1880 - February 24, 1921) created only 14 published prints during his life-time — the first at age thirty-five and the last shortly before his death at forty-one. These prints are among the finest and most expensive modern Japanese prints a collector can buy and made Goyo immortal. If Hashiguchi had not been of such frail health, he could have become the leading Japanese artist of the twentieth century. 

Hashiguchi was born as the son of a samurai in Kagoshima as Hashiguchi Kiyoshi. He was taught in traditional Kano painting by his father, an amateur painter, from the early age of ten. Later he went to Tokyo, called himself Goyo and studied Western oil painting at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1905 as the best student of his class. 

His first commission was an illustration for a book titled I am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki in 1905. In 1907 Hashiguchi won the first prize in a contest for an ukiyo-e poster. This brought him some public recognition and one would have expected the artist to jump into creating more Hashiguchi prints but he was disappointed by an unenthusiastic public in future shows. In 1911 he again won recognition for an ukiyo-e poster designed for the Mitsukoshi department store. From that point on he became a serious student of ukiyo-e and began to study ukiyo-e from books, originals, and reproductions. He was especially interested in the great classical ukiyo-e artists. He was especially interested in the great classical ukiyo-e artists. From 1914, while frail and suffering from beriberi, he contributed articles on various ukiyo-e studies to Art News (Bijutsu-shinpō) and Ukiyo-e magazine, and wrote several articles about Utamaro, Hiroshige and Harunobu on a scholar-like level.

In 1915, urged by the shin-hanga publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, he designed a print for artisans to produce under Watanabe’s direction. Goyō designed "Bathing" (Yuami), Watanabe wanted to continue the collaboration but Goyō had other plans. Instead, he worked in 1916-1917 as supervisor of reproductions for 12 volumes called "Japanese Color Prints" (Yamato nishiki-e) and in the process became thoroughly familiar with the functions of artisan carvers and printers. At the same time he was drawing from live models. From 1918 until his death he produced thirteen more prints - four landscapes, one nature print depicting ducks and eight prints of women. His total production, including "Bathing," numbers fourteen prints. (After his death a few more of his designs were developed into prints by his heirs.)

The first Goyo Hashiguchi print titled Woman in bath or Yuami was a terrific masterwork. Watanabe was enthusiastic and wanted to continue the cooperation with Hashiguchi. But the artist had other plans. Probably he was feeling too much restricted in his artistic freedom by the successful but rigid and business-like Watanabe. 

In late 1920, Hashiguchi's latent health problems escalated into meningitis. He supervised his last print Hot Spring Hotel from his death bed in hospital, but could not finish it personally. He died in February 1921. 

Goyo had left several sketches from which his heirs — his elder brother and his nephew — had later produced seven more prints. The carving and printing had been commissioned to Maeda Kentaro and Hirai Koichi. 

Goyo Hashiguchi prints are of extremely high quality standards. They were sold at very high prices at the time of their first publication and sold well nevertheless. The tragedy of Hashiguchi was the short time span of only two years to produce these superb masterworks - apart from his first print published with Watanabe.

ONE HUNDRED FACES - GOSSIP, STUTTERER: By Kobayashi Kiyochika

One Hundred Faces - Gossip, Stutterer

Kobayashi Kiyochika made the compilation of humorous gestures and faces titled “Shinban Sanju-ni So” (New Thirty-two Faces). Because of the popularity of the series, he made additional designs and combined them into one series, “Tsuika Hyaku Men So” (Addition; One Hundred Faces).

From left top to right bottom: “Mimi Komori” (whisper, gossip). “Domori” (Stutterer). “Tohmi” (Looking far away, Oh so beautiful...). “Karashi ga kiita” (Very effective mustard. Wow, so spicy!).

Kobayashi Kiyochika (小林 清親 September 10, 1847- November 28, 1915) was a Japanese ukiyo-e painter and printmaker of the Meiji period,born at a time when the old order of the Shogunate was already on shaky grounds and an adolescent when Western civilization rolled over Japan. For him, life became like a small boat in a rough sea

He was born into a family of lower-ranked samurai that served the Tokugawa family — something which a hundred years earlier or even fifty years earlier would have been a very pleasant thing; but in Japan, times were changing.

In 1853 a U.S. Naval fleet of black iron ships — unknown before in Japan — anchored off the Japanese coast near Uraga. One year later in 1854, Japan was forced to open its borders for commercial relations with the United States in the Treaty of Kanagawa. This was the end of the old order. From then on, things changed too rapidly for a country that had sealed off its borders for 250 years.

Soon skirmishes broke out between the Loyalists — supporters of the old (Edo Period) order, mainly the samurai class who saw their century-old privileges going down the drain — and the promoters of the new order. The enemies of the Shogun rallied around the Emperor, who had resided in Kyoto since 1192 as a purely ceremonial figurehead — a toothless tiger.

But now, the tiger began to wake up and to show his teeth after nearly 700 years of subjugation by the Shogunate, which had exercised the real power in the country. Several fierce battles were fought between the two camps. The most bloody and the decisive one was the Battle of Ueno in which 2000 men of the Shogunate troops were badly defeated. The last Shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu resigned in 1868.

Kobayashi Kiyochika had been fighting on the side of the Shogunate. He survived that time, the Bakumatsu, unharmed; but with the establishment of the new Meiji era under the rule of the Emperor Meiji, he found himself, in effect, a ronin — a lordless samurai. In the beginning he tried to survive by doing odd jobs. Later, in 1875, he tried his luck as a self-taught painter.

During that time, he happened to meet  Charles Wirgman, an English painter, cartoonist and correspondant for a British newspaper in Yokohama. Kobayashi studied art with him for a short period. Also at that time, he met Shimooka Renjo, a photographer, from whom he learned the principles of photography.

The following year, 1876, Kobayashi Kiyochika created his first woodblock prints — scenes from Tokyo. Although his prints were basically kept in traditional Japanese style, Kiyochika used Western elements like perspective, the effect of light and the graduations of shadows, having read about the French impressionists and seen photographs of their works in newspapers.

In the early 1880s, Kiyochika's style became a bit more traditional. He also turned to satirical cartoons and illustrations for newspapers and magazines. During the Sino-Japanese war he made about 80 war prints. War prints were like a last commercial resurgence of the old ukiyo-e business. Kobayashi's war prints are regarded as among the best in this genre, with a masterly play on the effects of light.

In 1894, Kiyochika established his own art school. One of his students was Tsuchiya Koitsu who stayed in his master's home for 19 years. Today Kobayashi is considered as the last master of the “old” ukiyo-e. But he was more than that. He was able to combine traditional ukiyo-e with modern Western style and thus showed a new direction for a subsequent generation of young artists like Hasui Kawase or Hiroshi Yoshida.

Despite his efforts, he could not stop the commercial decline of ukiyo-e, but he did pave the way for a new renaissance of the Japanese print - the Shin Hanga movement.

WELCOME TO "A TASTE FOR UKIYO-E"

Welcome to "A Taste for Ukiyo-e"

Ukiyo-e (浮世絵, literally “pictures of the floating world). is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints (or woodcuts) and paintings produced from the 17th through the present century, featuring motifs of landscapes, legends, tales from history, Noh and Kabuki theater, beautiful women, animals, and the pleasure quarters. Ukiyo-e is the main artistic genre of woodblock printing in Japan; indeed, it has come to be used commonly to denote any type of Japanese block print.

Usually the word ukiyo is literally translated as “floating world” in English, referring to a concept of an transitory world, impermanent, fleeting beauty and a realm of entertainments (Kabuki, courtesans, geisha) removed from the responsibilities of the mundane, everyday world; “pictures of the floating world”; thus, ukiyo-e are considered as a genre unto themselves.

The novelist contemporary to the time period, Asai Ryōi, in his Ukiyo monogatari (浮世物語, Tales of the Floating World, circa. 1661, provides some insight into the concept of the floating world:

... Living only for the moment, turning our full attention to the pleasures of the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms and the maple leaves; singing songs, drinking wine, diverting ourselves in just floating, floating; ... refusing to be disheartened, like a gourd floating along with the river current: this is what we call the floating world...

The art form rose to great popularity in the metropolitan culture of Edo (Tokyō) during the second half of the 17th century, originating with the single-color works of Hishikawa Moronobu in the 1670s. At first, only India ink was used, then some prints were manually colored with a brush, but in the 18th century Suzuki Harunobu developed the technique of polychrome printing to produce nishiki-e.

Ukiyo-e were affordable because they could be mass-produced. They were mainly meant for townsmen, who were generally not wealthy enough to afford an original painting. The original subject of ukiyo-e was city life, in particular activities and scenes from the entertainment district. Beautiful courtesans, bulky sumo wrestlers, and popular actors would be portrayed while engaged in appealing activities. Later on, landscapes also became popular. Political subjects, and individuals above the lowest strata of society (courtesans, wrestlers and actors) were not sanctioned in these prints but frequently appeared in them. Sex also was not a sanctioned subject, but continually appeared in ukiyo-e shunga prints.