Dramaturging the Vengeful Sword: Mitsugi & the Shimosaka in Kuniyoshi’s series of Famous Blades

Two years ago, I was honored to play a small role in a Hawaii Kabuki production, The Vengeful Sword, and to serve as dramaturg. This involved doing research on a variety of elements that come up in the play – including the historical events that inspired the play, the history of the locations, the meaning of certain terms – and sharing the results of my research with the cast & crew via a private (closed) blog. I’ve posted before, on numerous occasions, about the production, but now, I’m finally getting around to re-posting, publicly, some of that content. I hope you find it interesting.

This post was just a cheeky mini-update to share a print series I happened upon.

William Pearl, a local Honolulu-based art collector and overall really nice guy, has, in “The Kuniyoshi Project“, put together a beautiful and thorough website cataloging and sharing the works of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), an ukiyo-e artist especially known for his print series depicting famous warriors, and for the innovative effects deployed in them. You may know him from a particularly famous work depicting a skeleton spectre.

In any case, in 1847-48, Kuniyoshi apparently produced a series of 10 prints depicting famous swords and the warriors / stories to which they belong. The one above features our “hero”, Fukuoka Mitsugi, with (presumably) Okon (a courtesan in the teahouse, and Mitsugi’s chief love interest character) in the background. Unless that’s Manno (the scheming mama-san of the teahouse)… I find it interesting that in a series of famous swords, it is Mitsugi’s name, and not the words “Aoi Shimosaka” (the name of the sword) which appear in the cartouche (the title box).

I have not taken the time to read through the whole inscription (it’d be better/easier if I had a larger version of the image), but one can assume it tells the story of the play. We see the artist’s signature in the mid-to-lower left, with a seal that I guess belongs to the artist, though it could belong to the publisher, Ise-ya Ichibei (a coincidence, I am sure). Another publisher’s seal, reading “hanmoto [printer/publisher] Ise Ichi”, appears on the stone by Mitsugi’s foot.

I was also interested to notice that another print in the series also features a sword by Shimosaka Yasutsugu, though I have yet to find anything much at all about the play “Oriawase Tsuzure no Nishiki” in which this character, Shundô Jirôemon, appears.

I love the splotchy texture of the red used here, and the realization that Kuniyoshi would have had to carve a separate woodblock of just handprints and such for applying the red ink onto the print. I cannot say for sure in what order the colors were applied, but the idea of having each copy of this print be relatively “clean” and then be “bloodied” in the course of its production is pretty interesting and amusing to me.

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AAS Report 3 – The Ming Lives On

The elaborate, ornate costume associated with the Ming in kabuki, loaded with ruffles, can be seen in this “Battles of Coxinga” triptych by Kunichika.

Satoko Shimazaki was the third presenter on the panel “Early Modern News: The Fall of the Ming on a Global Stage,” which I wrote about in my previous post. I was particularly excited to meet her, as she is not only a kabuki specialist, but combines this with research on popular publishing, and on perceptions of the foreign – all things at the core of my research interests.

In her presentation, Shimazaki discussed the appearance of Ming China, or Ming individuals, in kabuki, with a particular focus on the 1715 play “The Battles of Coxinga” (Kokusen’ya kassen).

She first introduced the 1818 play Shitennô ubuyu no Tamagawa　(四天王産湯玉川), in which a Ming princess travels all the way to Japan to see the great actor Ichikawa Danjûrô, and showed us some images of that scene, from illustrated woodblock-printed books of the time. I tried to find a similar image, on Google Image Search, to share with you, but was sadly not successful. This seems a wonderful, amusing example of how playful and humorous kabuki can be – and, also, the cult of the actor, i.e. the power of celebrity, which plays such a major role in the character of the kabuki theatre.

She then turned to discussing The Battles of Coxinga, an epic-length jidaimono based on the legend of Coxinga, aka Zheng Chenggong, a half-Japanese Ming loyalist who led forces on Taiwan in raiding the Chinese coast and otherwise fighting off the Qing (Manchu) forces which had taken much of mainland China. In the play, Zheng is referred to as Watônai, typically written 和藤内, but a reference to 和唐内, meaning “between (内, nai) China (唐, tô) and Japan (和, wa).” Shimazaki argued, however, that these three characters can also be interpreted as meaning not only “both Chinese and Japanese,” but also “neither Chinese nor Japanese,” or “heard of in both China and Japan.”

Shimazaki tells us the term “Japan” appears numerous times in the script. What form this takes, whether it’s Nihon, or Wa, or some combination of those and other terms, is unclear (though I imagine one could figure out quite easily by just finding a copy of the play… and, at least in one scene, a Ming princess in Japan, asking for help, employs the term “Nihonjin”), but, regardless, this is pretty important. Many scholars argue that there was no sense of “national” identity in the Edo period, but, while I agree that there certainly is no integrated nation-state of Japan in the modern sense, and that modern(ist) discourses of “nationalism” might likewise not apply, it is nevertheless clear that there was a conception of “Japan” during the Edo period. It was not solely a local conception, in which identity was based in village, province, or domain. This conception of “Japanese” identity was, however, different from modern conceptions of ethnicity in important ways. David Howell writes about the Ainu being able to become Wajin (and vice versa) simply by changing their appearance, behavior, and customs. This sort of malleable notion of identity is seen too in the play, as Watônai converts some Tartars into Japanese by shaving their pates (i.e. giving them Japanese hairdos) and giving them samurai swords.

This brings us to the question of the word “Tartars.” “Tartar” is a broad, all-encompassing word employed in pre-modern Europe to refer indiscriminately to any and all steppe peoples, including Mongols, Manchus, and various sorts of Turks. This seems a pretty good translation for the Japanese word Tattan (韃靼), which similarly refers indiscriminately to a variety of steppe peoples. The similarity between these two terms – neither of which refers accurately to a specific people – is surprising and interesting; I wonder if Shimazaki addresses this in a fuller (published or to-be-published) paper. I’ve looked it up briefly in JapanKnowledge (an online resource which searches multiple encyclopedias and dictionaries), but didn’t find anything much on the origins of the term… Though, we are told that the Wakan sansai zue (one of the most prominent encyclopedias published in Edo period Japan) associates the term Tattan with the Mongols, Jurchens, Manchus, and even the Russians – anyone who could fit within the category of “Northern Barbarians” (北狄). Part of the identification of the Tattan as barbarians, Shimazaki explained, derives from their identity/location outside of the classic Three Realms: India as the home of Buddhism, China as the home of Confucianism, and Japan as the Land of the Gods (i.e. the home of Shintô), with Tattan thus being the home of none of the major Teachings (教) or Ways (道).

Through these examples, and others, Shimazaki showed that the Ming represented in Edo period popular culture was not the actual contemporary China, but rather an idea, an imagined space of a past era. In other words, the Ming survives on, as an idea in the Japanese collective imagination.

This can be seen, too, in some of the works which I’ve been looking at in my own research, and which Shimazaki brought forward too; books such as Bankoku jinbutsu zue (“Pictures of the Peoples of the World”) by Nishikawa Joken show the Ming and the Qing separately. Of course, there is some validity to this, as in our modern conception of race and ethnicity, we would think to organize such a book separating the (Han) Chinese from the Manchus, which is essentially what they’re doing. But, in works such as Joken’s “Peoples of 42 Countries” (四十二国人物図) and “Expanded Thoughts on Trade & Commerce with Civilization & Barbarians” (増補華夷通商考, Zôho ka’i tsûshôkô, 1708), he labels the Ming explicitly as equaling Chinese civilization or culture (中華), and the Qing as being the Chinese civilization or culture of “today” (今の中華). In other words, there is a sense that the Qing is not the real China, that the Ming is the real China, controlled, occupied, or suppressed, that the Qing may be temporary, and that the Ming could come back. Of course, as of 1708 or so, not even the Qing Court could have predicted that their rule would last the better part of 300 years, all the way until 1911. Even today, when “The Battles of Coxinga” is performed, the Qing is represented as lasting only 180 years, as Chikamatsu had it (actually, it’s kind of surprising that Chikamatsu, in 1715, would put it at 180 years, and not some shorter period, if indeed people had a sense of the Qing being only a temporary blip, and the Ming rising again). Of course, it’s not as if the play is particularly historically accurate in other respects, anyway. It does end, after all, with the revival of the Ming, something that (sadly, arguably) did not occur in reality – the entirety of the Chinese Imperial system, and so much of its traditional culture, fell with the Qing, in 1911, or with the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

As the Qing Dynasty went on, Shimazaki argues, the concept of the Ming became detached somewhat from the geography – people recognized that Qing Dynasty China was the China of their time. Ming thus became a marker for historical China, for Chinese culture and civilization in a somewhat free-floating way, existing no longer in the physical space of China, but now in a more free-floating cultural, intellectual, conceptual space.

And, while certain aspects of the understanding or conceptualization of the Ming may have been based in accurate historical/cultural understandings, as Keiko Suzuki and others have also detailed, the conceptualization of what comprised Ming culture or identity quickly came to be confused and conflated with a variety of other elements, forming a broader, more general concept of the “foreign.” Shimazaki cites pennants carried in the production of The Battles of Coxinga which read 「清道」 (lit. “Pure Way” or “Way of the Qing”?), and which closely resemble those carried by Korean – not Chinese – embassies to Japan. Another prominent element which she shows us appears frequently in theatre and in prints is the association of the Ming with lavish, ornate clothing, with lots of ruffles. I am no expert on Chinese theatre, but I can kind of see how elements of this aesthetic could be taken from jingju costume; that said, however, when would kabuki performers or ukiyo-e print designers have gotten a chance to see jingju costumes or performances? Shimazaki also pointed out that the goddess Benten is often depicted in these Ming-style robes, looking very much like a Ming princess from the kabuki theatre; why, however, remains unclear, as Benten is, so far as I know, not generally associated with being Chinese any more so than the other six of the Seven Lucky Gods.

In the course of the Q&A after Shimazaki-sensei’s presentation, a number of other questions and issues came up. One was the question of how depictions of China in bunraku & kabuki, as discussed in her talk, compare to representations of China in the Noh. This is certainly an interesting question, given that the Noh comes from a different period, and a rather different cultural context. I would imagine, just off the top of my head, I feel as though Noh is more connected to classic stories of classic figures, and would represent China more as a classical source of Confucianism, Taoism, wisdom, magic, certain legendary figures or certain gods, rather than as a contemporary foreign country or culture in the way Coxinga does, when it engages with recent historical events.

Shimazaki had also mentioned at one point that it was difficult for theatres to put on productions of Coxinga, explaining that kabuki theatres operated on a schedule organized around certain themes. The majority of kabuki plays retell stories from the Japanese past (or from legend), and most plays fit into a particular sekai (“world”), whether that be stories of Yoshitsune & Benkei, or stories of the Soga Brothers; Coxinga, Shimazaki argued, did not fit well into this schema, and so, thematically, it was difficult to find a thematically appropriate time/space to fit it into the schedule of a theatrical season. Indeed, many 19th century guides to the various sekai of kabuki plays either omit Coxinga entirely, or list it under “miscellany.” I have never read or seen Coxinga myself, or studied much about it, but I was interested to learn that, in fact, it was originally composed as a gamble, as something very new and different, to draw audiences to the theatre and keep the theatre going after it lost its chief chanter (Takemoto Gidayû – more or less the founder/inventor of the chief bunraku chanting style). This brings us back to Sarah Kile’s presentation about Chinese playwright Li Yu, who was constantly preoccupied with remaining cutting-edge, new, and fresh, and which I wrote about in the previous post.

I think that Prof. Shimazaki’s research on conceptualizations of the foreign in the Edo period will be of great use for me as I move forward with my research on Ryukyuan-Japanese interactions in that period, and I love that she does kabuki as well. I suppose I won’t be working with her directly any time soon, since we are not at the same institution, but I do eagerly look forward to reading more of her scholarship, and perhaps getting a chance to speak with her more in future.

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The Shibui Kiyoshi Collection of Ming Erotic Prints

Returning to the July symposium I wrote about some time ago, Dr. Soren Edgren of Princeton University, and of the Chinese Rare Books Project, also spoke about a rather remarkable collection which has recently come to light.

I know next to nothing about Ming Dynasty publishing, and less about Chinese erotica, but apparently a very long-lived Japanese collector by the name of Shibui Kiyoshi (1899-1992) had a collection of early 17th century (very late Ming dynasty) Chinese erotic books that has proven quite valuable for scholars, revealing brand-new insights into technical and stylistic aspects of Chinese publishing at that time.

When Shibui passed away in 1992, whether out of embarrassment at the erotic nature of the collection, or for some other reason, his family apparently simply shut the door to his study and left it closed, locked, sealed away as if it had never existed. They told scholars the collection was lost or destroyed. And so, for roughly 10 or 15 years, so far as the scholarly/museum world knew, the collection was indeed lost forever. Yet, finally, recently, the family began granting access to the collection again for the first time.

Shibui had worked closely with Dutch diplomat Robert van Gulik, a collector himself, and author of the Judge Dee Mysteries. Van Gulik was stationed in Tokyo from 1935-1942, being evacuated after the outbreak of war between Japan and the Netherlands, but he returned after the war, and began writing books such as “Erotic Colour Prints of the Ming Period” in 1951, and “Sexual Life in Ancient China: A Preliminary Survey of Chinese Sex and Society from ca. 1500 B.C. Till 1644 A.D.” in 1961. Oh, and by the way, he also raised gibbons in Malaysia. Because, you know, why not?

In any case, Shibui published some works himself, in the 1940s, on the role of Chinese prints in the origins of ukiyo-e, works which were noticed and cited by the likes of van Gulik and Richard Lane. Shibui graduated from Keiô University in Tokyo, and taught there for a short time …. I’m afraid Dr. Edgren did not into too much more detail about Shibui’s biography.

… When his study was finally opened a few years ago, scholars discovered a small collection of roughly nine Ming books from around 1600 to the 1640s, containing polychrome prints unlike anything seen before in Chinese art. Very few Ming erotic woodcuts survive today, apparently, and *none* outside of Shibui’s collection are in color. Scholars determined that these color prints were made primarily in Anhui and Nanjing, and, in contrast to the multi-block method pioneered by Suzuki Harunobu (d. 1770) and used extensively in Japan from then on, these Ming prints were made by applying color ink to different sections of the same woodblock.

These Chinese books, however, date to roughly 150 years before Harunobu, and seem, from what I’m gathering, to feature some technical aspects that, by Japanese standards, were really rather ahead of their time. Beginning in the 1620s, the Chinese began to produce multi-colored texts, using multiple blocks, with a main text in black, and then, for example, blue for punctuation and red for commentary. These books employed a registration system similar to the kentô system Harunobu would employ in 1765-70, in order to make sure the multiple different blocks lined up correctly on the page. Though something of a breakthrough in the 1760s in Japan, these Chinese books made use of what’s really a rather simple system. The black ink “main” block would print a small corner marking on the edge of the area imprinted; the corner of the red ink block could then be lined up with that marking. Very simple.

Printing in two colors in China actually goes back as far as the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), but the first book to make use of more than two colors was the Chengshi Moyuan, printed in 1604. This volume contained reproductions of European artworks, as well as an essay by Matteo Ricci, the earliest extant example ever of printed, published romanization for Chinese.

A technique used extensively in these books, however, which was not used very much, if at all, in Japanese printing, however, was something called douban (餖版) or “assembled block” printing, in which not a single block, but multiple smaller blocks would be arranged into the printing table, and then printed all at once onto the page. One end of the paper would be secured to the end of the table, so that it could be flipped over on top of the blocks (the printing surface), but would not slide or shift. The blocks were then affixed to the table with some kind of gum, and the paper flipped over on top of them, to be printed using a technique not unlike the Japanese way – using a piece of wood or something else to press or rub the paper into the inked blocks, by hand.

An example of this technique can be seen in book copies of the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Painting, where the douban technique is employed in an attempt to reproduce the effect of the boneless technique of painting (i.e. areas of color without line). Since all these different blocks are being printed at once, the need for registration marks or registration techniques is essentially eliminated, but since you’re using a number of small blocks, and not a single full-page-size block, the ability to have registration marks is also largely eliminated; If and when you finish a given print run and move the blocks off the table, you’ve lost your registration and cannot easily produce the same image again. Or so I understand.

Dr. Edgren showed images from Shibui’s collection, and I noted based on my own experience the surprising similarities of style to early ukiyo-e. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be able to find any images to share with you here. One example he shared is a very short book of only a few pages, lacking a title but called Sheng Peng Mai (I think). Each page has poetry on one side and an image on the other, a very standard Chinese format. The images use multiblock registration techniques to add some yellows and blues, limited colors. Thin black lines and generalized (i.e. not individualized) faces resemble early ukiyo-e very closely in the simplicity and soft, curvy gracefulness of the forms, and in the specific appearance of the faces. Much more dense, complex treatment is given to clothing, and to objects in the background, such as furniture.

Another book from Shibui’s collection is one for which I did not catch a name or title. It comes in several volumes, and Shibui owned several copies, one of which was previously owned by Kimura Kenkadô (!!)(1736-1802). Handwritten notes in the margins may be by Kenkadô himself. The images in this book less closely resemble ukiyo-e, but are close enough to make the date, 1606, quite impressive considering the similarity to Japanese materials of nearly 100 years later.

Perhaps one of the most impressive and interesting books in Shibui’s collection is one called the Huei Ying Jing Zhen (sp?), which Craig Clunas – one of the most respected Chinese art historians active today – has described as no longer being extant. He didn’t know about Shibui’s copy; no one did. Shibui owned two copies of the polychrome edition of this book, remounted as handscrolls. They consist of 24 images, followed by poetry. What makes these books so important, or interesting, is their full-color four-color covers, unlike anything seen even in the (later) Qing period, when the Japanese were producing things with five to ten colors using tens of blocks in some cases. The Huei Ying Jing Zhen also makes use of colors in the text.

Incidentally, another interesting and important difference between Chinese erotica and the shunga materials we are more familiar with from Japan is that while shunga generally depicts a “pleasure quarters” context, i.e. a brothel, the Chinese images generally take place in a domestic setting, i.e. at home.

As with Japanese shunga, the significance of these books is not limited to their identity as erotica. I have as little interest in erotica as the next guy, preferring cleaner subjects. But, to push these aside and ignore them would be to lose out on extremely important examples of early Chinese multi-color printing. Dr. Edgren concluded his talk by discussing briefly that books like these were used by ukiyo-e artists as well, and may have had some influence on their style, though I of course would be extremely hesitant to place too much importance upon the Chinese role in defining the ukiyo-e style. I think these artists were definitively Japanese, drawing upon earlier Japanese modes and styles, and also innovating dramatically; I think that figures such as Hishikawa Moronobu, Okumura Masanobu, and Nishikawa Sukenobu were innovators and creative pioneers, not simply copying from Chinese materials, but really developing the start of something new. Still, it is quite interesting and fun to think of the interchange and trade in published materials going on at the time, and to think of these artists having copies of Ming erotica.

It is wonderful to hear about this collection being re-discovered and made accessible. I hope that more good scholarship can come from this, and from other collections that are only first coming to light today.

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Matthi Forrer and Hokusai’s Books

Matthi Forrer, curator at the National Museum of Ethnology (Museum Volkenkunde) in Leiden, and quite likely *the* leading scholar in the West on Hokusai, spoke with us yesterday about Edo period books, and things to notice and pay attention to when examining books. It was really enlightening.

I had known, on some level, of course, that there were different editions or versions of books, and that surely there must be ways to tell what’s a first edition, and what’s a later reprinting… I had known, that “artists” such as Hokusai were, when it came to books, really more like illustrators, holding very little power as to how their images were to be colored, altered, published and republished. But, it’s hard to shake that idea of the book as artwork, and the artist as the chief creative agent, with the publisher being just sort of an afterthought.

Dr. Forrer’s knowledge of Hokusai books is astonishing. He’d pull out a series of books from the shelf, and immediately knew what to look for to see if it was a first edition or a later edition, which volumes had prefaces or colophons or advertisements and which didn’t… I never really gave it too much thought myself, but while he did point out things to notice within the book’s core content (printing quality, etc.), he impressed upon us the understanding that the most important things to look at are the inside front and back covers, and the first and last few pages. This is where title pages, advertisements, and colophons would be found. Comparing these elements across different copies of the same book can reveal surprising insights into the different editions of a book.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND COPY RIGHTS, and READING COLOPHONS

Now, let’s see. Where to start. I guess let’s start with copy rights – who had the right or power to create new editions and how they used that power.

In Edo period Japan, as in most pre-modern or early modern societies, there was nothing resembling the concept “intellectual property” as we understand it today. Characters, stories, even artistic compositions (i.e. the arrangement of elements within a picture) were pretty much up for grabs. Painters copied one another’s works, and especially works of their masters and of the great masters of the past as a matter of course, as an essential part of their training, and often copied compositional or stylistic elements in order to pay homage or make reference to particular masters or works of the past. As for characters and stories, a popular character and story such as Sukeroku, for example, started out as bunraku (puppet) plays in Kyoto or Osaka, inspired perhaps by a real-life merchant and his affair with a courtesan. The story was soon adapted into a variety of different versions on the Kyoto Kabuki stages, and then adapted again by Ichikawa Danjûrô of the Edo kabuki actors, and adapted again roughly 100 years later into another version, from which today’s version most closely derives. Meanwhile, families other than the Ichikawa developed their own versions, and more to the point, print artists, book illustrators, painters, and the like produced countless different versions of pictorial and literary depictions of the character Sukeroku and his story.

No one owned a character, or a story. In fact, kabuki actors gave no permission and gained no profits from their own depictions in ukiyo-e prints – in a way, it could be said that actors didn’t even own their own likeness, or crests.

But publishers did own woodblocks. And they bought and sold them, inherited them, traded them or gave them away. The ability to produce or reproduce copies of a given book, such as Hokusai gafu (a picture album of works by Hokusai), relied upon possession of the blocks. We can determine who owned the blocks at the time of the publishing of a given edition by looking at the colophon (奥付, okutsuke), which, fortunate for us, was required (or merely standard practice?) to be included throughout much of the Edo period.

I certainly could have made out parts of this before yesterday, but Dr. Forrer showed us how to break down just about everything here. One key insight was that while a book might list a number of publishers, the leftmost one is the one who owns the blocks. So, in this example, just left of the dividing line, we see Kadomaruya Jinsuke (角丸屋甚助) of Edo, followed by Eirakuya Tôshirô (永楽屋東四郎) of Nagoya (尾州 standing for 尾張国, Owari province), each with their address given. And then, all the way to the left, we see Minoya Iroku (美濃屋伊六), with the 同 above his name meaning “same as” the Owari province, Nagoya designation of Eirakuya to the right.

Now, I would never have known any of this before yesterday, but Eirakuya Tôshirô was actually the publisher who worked directly with Hokusai on this and a number of other books in Nagoya – in books where his name is given on the far left, those are (I believe, in most cases if not straight across the board) earlier editions. Tôshirô worked with Kadomaruya Jinsuke to publish and distribute the prints in Edo, and so, if I understand correctly (and I very well might not), books with Jinsuke’s name on the far right were produced in Edo, not in Nagoya, and were slightly later editions. Jinsuke or Tôshirô later sold blocks for certain books to the famous Tsutaya Jûzaburô (or his successor, I guess? since the famous Jûzaburô who worked with Sharaku and Utamaro died in 1797 and most of these Hokusai books are around 1815-1830s), and so there are other editions that have his name to the far left, which are again later editions. I’ve never heard of this Minoya Iroku, so I don’t know what the story is there, but I can only assume this is an even later edition. Sadly, it’s not dated.

But, even if there were a date, it’s important to remember that this date would almost never be the date of printing, but the date of the original carving of the blocks. This is very useful, when looking at a book, even if we don’t know if it’s a later or earlier edition, to be able to very easily see what date that book was first published. Every copy of the first volume of Hokusai Manga, for example, should say Bunka 11 (文化十一年) in the back, which corresponds to 1814. Excellent information for knowing that that is when Hokusai Manga was first published. But it does not tell us whether the volume we hold in our hands is an 1814 copy, or a later edition.

To the right of the dividing line, we see Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) listed under 東都 (“Eastern Capital”, meaning Edo) and 画工, meaning “artist.” To the left of that we see the ‘O’ (尾) for Owari province, and Nagoya (名古屋) [I don't know what the 陽 means here.], with Hokusai’s assistants or disciples (校合門人) in Nagoya, who contributed to the volume, listed.

…

PUBLISHERS & VARIANT EDITIONS

Returning to the point about publishers having the power, and artists having little say, Dr. Forrer shared with us a number of anecdotes or examples of Hokusai’s works being changed up, mixed around, and republished under different titles, or even of other artists’ work being published under Hokusai’s name.

I had never expected to see such a thing, but he showed us how, even if two books have the same title, and look identical upon a quick glance, different editions of what claims to be the same book may easily have a few different images between them. One book might have pages ABCDE, and the other ABGHDE, if you follow my meaning. Some might have extra pages, or fewer pages.

He showed us a book, I think it may have been Ryôhitsu gafu (両筆画譜), which was created when the publisher took a series of blocks designed by Osaka artist Rikkôsai (立好斎), featuring poems along the top register, and altered them. He cut out the kabuki scenes, leaving borders of trees and rocks roughly an inch thick on all sides from Rikkôsai’s work, and then had Hokusai redesign the compositions, inserting his own scenes of peasants gathering firewood, or a number of other subjects. Rikkôsai is given credit in the book’s colophon, which says something like 「山水草木　浪花立好斎　・　人物鳥獣　江戸葛飾北斎」, meaning “landscapes and trees and plants by Rikkôsai of Naniwa [Osaka], and people, birds, and beasts by Katsushika Hokusai of Edo.” But, even so, this is a pretty dramatic alteration of the original composition, done presumably without any kind of permission or agreement from Rikkôsai, and simply at the whim of the publisher. Dr. Forrer pointed out to us how clearly you can see, on some pages, where the block-insert for Hokusai’s work didn’t align properly with the “frame” of the original, mutilated, Rikkôsai blocks.

One of Hokusai’s publishers, I think it was either Eirakuya Tôshirô or Kadomaruya Jinsuke, republished many of Hokusai’s books under new titles, combining pages from multiple books, say, three-quarters of “Hokusai Gafu” and one-half of “Hokusai Soga” (I’m making up the numbers, and probably getting the titles wrong – it’s just for an example) as a new volume, “Hokusai Gashiki.” For example. But then he’d go even further, using new pictures by artists such as Hokkei and Hokuun to create new volumes which he’d pass off as the same old ones – perhaps indicating Hokkei or Hokuun as the artist in the colophon in the back, but still labeling the book with the title “Hokusai Gafu” or whatever on the front.

Another of Hokusai’s books was republished in a smaller format, the blocks quite simply chopped off at the edge. Dr. Forrer showed us how a given page from an earlier edition might have a man holding an umbrella, with the umbrella about a half-inch from the edge of the page; in the smaller edition, the full circle of the umbrella’s shape is now cropped off by about half an inch. The same could be seen on every single page, where a figure or an object previously shown in whole was now cropped off. The cropped compositions looked just fine – even better, arguably, compositionally. But there was one which absolutely didn’t. I guess the publisher wasn’t really paying attention to what he was doing, when his cropping cut off the head of a pheasant, leaving the rest of the pheasant still on the page. Dr. Forrer was surprised to see in our edition a non-decapitated pheasant, surmising that this must be a later edition, and that the publisher must have at some point finally realized what he’d done.

I wish I had pictures of any of this to share with you… But, in a couple of years, when the Freer finally puts up its online catalog of all the book images we’re photographing this summer, we’ll all be able to access those pictures, every page, cover to cover.

COLLECTORS’ SEALS and other ephemera

Dr. Forrer spoke with us for about three hours – a serious privilege, an incredible opportunity. He talked about dealers and collectors, about the importance of recognizing marks and stamps and stickers. He pointed out in one book a stamp that read something like 高井蔵書院, meaning “Takai Zôshoin”, and said that from the quality and vividness (or, rather, lack thereof) of the red, he guessed it was an older seal, roughly contemporaneous with when the book was first published in the 1830s or so. Hokusai had direct interactions with a certain Mr. Takai, and so Dr. Forrer wondered if this might belong to him. He also noted that a certain French collector by the name of Gillet (sp?) is known for rebinding his Japanese books with silk-brocade-covered hardcovers and shiny gold title slips. We’ve seen a lot of these – they’re quite recognizable. Many of the books also come with extra slips of paper on which a collector, dealer, or the like has written their own notes, usually including the artist, date, title, and some other comments. Dr. Forrer immediately recognized the handwriting on several of them, including comments by Heinz Kaempfer and Jack Hillier.

…

EDITION SIZES AND DISTRIBUTION

I’ll leave this by touching upon one more topic. For any single edition or print-run of a single title of an Edo period book, how many copies do you think were printed?

I think it’s difficult to imagine or to estimate the size and scale of pre-modern or early modern societies. We know that the world was much less densely populated, and we assume that because of a relative lack of technologies and communications/transportation networks as compared to today, the numbers must have been much smaller.

He asked us this question, and we sort of looked around at each other. I, personally, have always been bad at estimating scale. Show me a crowded subway car, and I couldn’t tell you if that’s 50 people, or 100, without counting or otherwise calculating/estimating it out. So, I don’t know what numbers others were thinking… but considering that there were no automated factories of any kind, no large bookstore chains, no trucks or trains to carry copies all over the country, picturing individual printers having to sit down and physically rub out each printed page, one by one, and then give the copies to a small number of peddlers, streetside vendors, and the like, I figured how high could the numbers possibly be? I figured there couldn’t be more than 60-100 at most in a single print run. After all, how many people did Eirakuya Tôshirô have under his employ, to rub out pages? And how many street peddlers were there in Edo who had direct, in-person interactions with Kadomaruya Jinsuke in such-and-such street, such-and-such neighborhood, over in that particular corner of Edo, to pick up as many books as they could carry (and how many would that be?), to carry on their back as they walked around town advertising their wares?

No one else said anything. So, I said, “I think I remember reading somewhere recently that they did not in fact do large print runs, but only produced in accordance with demand, a few tens of volumes in this month, a few more tens of volumes in that month, so as to meet a perceived, or explicitly stated, demand.” Dr. Forrer replied something to the effect of “that’s what they want you to believe. The dealers, with their small print runs and their high prices for the rare objects would want you to believe that.”

He went on to explain that Edo in the 1810s-1830s or so had roughly 1.3 million people, and that a best-seller is defined as (defined by whom?) a book that reaches 1% of the population. So, a book like Hokusai Manga or “100 Views of Mt. Fuji” must have sold over 13,000 copies.

This is made possible, in large part, because of the materials being used. Sumi ink causes very little wear on blocks because the pure carbon is a very small particle. This compared to Prussian blue, or indeed any color, which is made up of larger particles, and causes much more wear. This is part of why the fad for printing in all blue, rather than all black, as seen in variant series of the 36 Views of Mt Fuji, did not last.

Unlike the incredible pressure applied to the plates in Western technologies of copperplate engraving, which results in great wear on the plates and low print runs, Japanese methods create very little wear on the blocks. Western printing using copper plates used some sort of mechanical device to press the plates into the paper, applying a great deal of pressure. By contrast, Japanese printing was done by hand, laying the paper over the inked block and rubbing the back of the paper onto the inked block by hand, in a process not entirely unlike taking a rubbing from a tombstone. The only weight or pressure involved is that of a seated man (read: not using his full body weight), using only the pressure exerted by his hands and arms upon the block. Thus, print runs in the thousands, or even above 10,000, were possible, the fine sumi and relatively light pressure creating relatively little wear on the blocks. (Blocks did get chipped, dinged, and repaired or altered, though, and we were shown some examples of how to notice that too.)

So, this is the scale of publication we’re talking about. I guess. I don’t understand the logistics of it, but, there is a lot out there on the Japanese book that I have yet to read, including Mary Beth Berry’s “Japan in Print” and Roger Keyes’ book on Ehon.

So, there you have it. More to come on Japanese books as my internship continues (and, soon, comes to an end), and as I gradually get around to typing up posts about other things I’ve read and seen and attended and heard. Cheers, all. Have a good weekend!

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Pulverer Collection Highlights: Arashi Rikan

As I mentioned a few days ago, I am working (interning) this summer with a collection of Japanese illustrated books, collected by Dr. Gerhard Pulverer, and now owned by the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian.

The collection includes roughly 2,000 books, most but not all woodblock-printed, dating from the 17th century to as late as the 1950s, if not later. I think the latest book I’ve come across so far was dated 1955; the earliest, c. early 17th century, such as some hand-painted by Hon’ami Kôetsu (1558-1637).

Today, I thought I’d share some highlights of the collection. These are just things I have come across that grabbed my eye; I don’t know the whole collection inside and out that I can definitively say what are the highlights of the whole collection – this is just out of what I have seen so far. Ideally, I might have liked to Tweet or blog about these as I saw them, one highlight a day, or so, but it’s too late for that. Also, ideally, I really wish that I could share pictures with you all, since text descriptions are wholly inadequate, and if anything serve only as a tantalizing temptation, spurring a desire to see the actual images. Well, it may be a few years before those images are available, but I hope to come back at that time and share more about these books, more in-depth, or at least with images. For now…

*A thin memorial booklet in memory of kabuki actor Arashi Rikan, published on the occasion of his death by his fan club. I am told this is the only known extant copy of the book, which is a really gorgeous work. Though only about ten pages in length, every page features lavish decorative elements such as gold, silver, or mica, embossing, and/or really good, bold colors, all on a much thicker paper than you’d see in most more commercial books.

Right: A memorial print of kabuki actor Nakamura Kanjaku (1834-1861) by Utagawa Yoshitaki. Not an object in the Freer/Sackler Pulverer Collection, but of a type with the Arashi Rikan memorial book this post focuses on.

The book reflects a number of distinguishing features of the Kamigata (Kansai, i.e. Kyoto-Osaka area) popular culture of the time, in contrast to Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Firstly, kabuki fan clubs, especially fan clubs that organized their own publications, put on their own plays, composed poetry together, and often even enjoyed the company of the actors themselves at the club’s meetings, were much more common in Kamigata, and more prominent. By contrast, while I am sure there must have been fan clubs in Edo, the publishing of actor prints, and a wide variety of other activities associated with the theatre, were much more dominated by “professional” artists, publishing houses, and the theatres themselves. In short, it was a more commercial endeavor, in some ways, in Edo. Whereas this memorial booklet was put together by a fan club, in honor of the actor they adored so much, in Edo, I can only imagine memorial booklets, or prints, being put together by a big-name print designer, in concert with a big-name publisher, both of whom have had long and close relationships with the theatre that actor belonged to.

A second feature is the surimono quality of the book, in the high quality of the paper and printing techniques. Surimono (刷物) literally just means “printed thing,” but the term is used to refer specifically to a type of higher quality, limited print run print, often made on commission and/or for a specific patron. They were much more expensive, and were not made for general sale. Though full-color ukiyo-e printing, known as nishiki-e (“brocade pictures”) got its start with a commission from a small exclusive circle, who hired Suzuki Harunobu (d. 1770) to produce calendar prints for them, it was in Kamigata where surimono really took off. They were produced by publishers sometimes purely as gifts, other times on commission, but often in connection with an exclusive poetry circle or kabuki fan club, groups of actors, artists, merchants, samurai (sometimes), and other cultured, urban, high-class types who sought surimono either as gifts for one another, gifts for a guest, or, in this case, as something produced for the members of a fan club (and only for members of that fan club).

While I think the term surimono is generally used to refer to single-sheet prints, this book is, in essence, ten or so surimono stuck together as a book. Each page is on thick, stiff, expensive paper, with various patterns embossed into it (such as, perhaps, the pattern on the actor’s kimono in a given image), gold and silver foil, and expensive full-color pigments that are laid on thick.

This is the first and only such actor memorial book I’ve seen, and it’s really an incredible thing. Especially considering how, the vagaries of time and chance being what they are, we could easily have ended up instead with a book about a much lesser-name actor, and yet instead we have Arashi Rikan, easily one of the most prominent actors of his day.

Learn more about memorial portraits, or shini-e here.

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Quick Links: Hokusai Set of Five Cut-Outs for Paper Bathhouse

Because of their ephemeral nature, Edo period woodblock prints intended to be cut out are relatively uncommon today. I’ve seen some of actors and costumes – essentially no different from the paper dolls you might have played with as a child – as well as ones involving faces (kumadori makeup).

LiveJournal user leopold_paula_b has graciously shared with us today on the LiveJournal Asian Art community a series of prints by Hokusai which could be cut out and assembled to form a bathhouse diorama.

Much thanks for sharing this. Click through for the whole post.

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For The Love of Prints

At some point, I don’t remember when, I sort of lost interest in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Though I pride myself on being able to recognize and distinguish a Kiyonaga, Harunobu, Torii, Utamaro, Sharaku or Utagawa at a glance, all in all, they are more similar – all reflecting the ukiyo-e style – than they are different, and I guess I was just struck by a realization that there’s not that much to talk about stylistically, and that if I were to specialize in prints, I could potentially become quite tired of them quite quickly.

Now, none of the above is necessarily true. It’s just sort of a thought I had. There are of course stylistic differences that one can appreciate and study and talk about.

Visiting the MFA a few weeks ago, I was reminded what it is I love about prints. I was at the time in the midst of reading James Cahill’s book The Lyric Journey. He discusses Chinese ink landscape paintings, and Japanese ones of a very particular time and style, discussing at length their lyrical quality or lack thereof, and how some painters, in some schools, in some periods, were far more successful than others in achieving this quality (the others, for the most part, weren’t trying, and in fact heavily criticized the former group for valuing such a depiction). Looking past the actual scene depicted to the way it is depicted, the composition and balance, the use of brushstrokes… I just couldn’t get it.

And so, there I was in the prints gallery, looking at the labels and the way these images are approached, discussed, described, and I was instantly reminded of what it was that made me fall in love with these prints to begin with, during my internship at the MFA. Maybe it’s just the particular approach of Sarah Thompson, MFA Asst Curator of Japanese Prints, not something inherent in the prints themselves, nor perhaps the approach common or popular in the art world at large, but ukiyo-e prints, moreso than paintings or other formats, lend themselves to an approach that focuses not so much on style, but much more on what is being depicted. It is through ukiyo-e prints that we can gain, and deploy, an encyclopedic knowledge of sumo wrestlers, kabuki plays, actors, and characters, geisha and courtesans, fashions, famous places, and, of course, artists and publishers.

With a painting, arguably, it’s all about interpretation of the style, much more so than what is depicted. Sure, the subject does enter into it, as does the biography of the painter. But for the most part, it’s really about the stylistic decisions made by the artist, the abstract forms, compositional balance, and all of that, the brushstrokes, and the overall feeling or impression or impact the work makes. And one can easily grow too specialized in painting, itself.

Right: The actor Nakamura Shikan IV as the wrestler Tomigorô from the series “A Modern Suikoden” by Utagawa Kunisada, 1861. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 11.29906

Prints, by contrast, cater to the diversity of my interests and to my inability to remain interested in any given topic for too long, flitting as I do constantly from one thing to another to another. It is through the study of prints that we are able to satisfy our desires, our interests, our tastes, for everything from kabuki to courtesan fashions to the architecture and layout of Edo. In looking a painting, we might become frustrated or bored with our inability to really see, and appreciate, the stylistic decisions and compositional balance and all of that. But in looking at a print such as this one, we are learning not only about prints and their style and their production in the early 1860s, not only about Toyokuni III (aka Kunisada) and the Utagawa school, not only about how heroes and stories were represented in popular visual media, but also about the Suikoden, the character Tomigorô, and the actor Nakamura Shikan IV themselves.

Above: “Oniwakamaru and the Giant Carp,” by Totoya Hokkei, c. 1830-1835. Surimono print. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 11.20613

Here is a print by Totoya Hokkei, depicting Oniwakamaru. Rather than only appreciating it for its style, for Hokkei’s compositional decisions, and for the glorious way mica or silver or something is used to give the water a sparkly shiny quality, we can look at it and say “Ah, Oniwakamaru! I know him. That’s Benkei as a boy. The same Benkei who later fights Yoshitsune on Gojô Bridge in such-and-such a print and such-and-such a play; the same Benkei who we see in the kabuki play Kanjinchô. I’ve seen him played by Nakamura Hashinosuke III and also by Kataoka Nizaemon XV…” And you can draw connections. You can use the prints as a jumping-off point to learn about history, legends, and stories, such as those surrounding Benkei, and from there, you might investigate and learn more about Yoshitsune, the great legendary general to whom Benkei was a loyal retainer, and about the historical and less-than-historical stories about him, the plays that feature him, the actors who have played him and in which ways, all while remaining in and never straying too far from the world of prints.

I have myself already learned to recognize a number of actors’ crests, and crests of major kabuki theatres, as well as recognizing certain characters and plays by the costuming. I look forward to the day I can recognize different ranks of courtesans by their clothes and hairdos, and be able to identify the different hairdos (e.g. the Shimada), and to date depictions based on that (e.g. the Shimada was only popular from X year to Y year).

Unlike ink paintings (which, do not get me wrong, are beautiful and fascinating in their own way) which only provide a limited glimpse into the world of Edo period painters, prints provide glimpses into a far wider, broader, range of aspects and elements of Edo period history, popular culture, and city life. And it is for that reason, combined with my preference towards encyclopedic knowledge, that I love a prints exhibit that can really highlight the actor Kikugorô V, the legendary warrior Shi Jin, the popular novel Suikoden, the courtesan Hanaôgi of the Ôgiya, and the Noh play Hagoromo, along with Edo period methods of law enforcement (punishment), the popular practice of tattooing a lover’s name on your arm, and the existence of carnival-like presentations of life-size dolls or mannequins dressed and positioned as legendary heroes as an attraction in the streets of Edo, all in the course of an exhibition nominally about tattoos in ukiyo-e. Were this an exhibit of ink paintings, we might learn a lot about ink paintings, and might see some truly stunning works, but we might not learn much at all about anything outside of the world of ink paintings.

All images copyright Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I was going to use my own photos taken in the galleries myself, in accordance with museum policy which allows photography for personal and non-commercial purposes, such as this blog is, but thought that the museum might appreciate its collections being depicted in the most positive light – i.e. better quality photography than my own. If the museum would prefer that I use my own, poorly lit, somewhat blurry photos, or no photos at all, to illustrate and discuss its beautiful collection, please let me know and I would be happy to oblige.

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What is a Taikomochi?

So, I’ve been cast as a taikomochi for the spring’s kabuki performance. But what is a taikomochi? No, it has nothing to do with Bubbie’s icecream-filled balls of pounded rice (mochi, 餅).

I figured it must be written as 太鼓持、taiko (太鼓) being a drum, and mochi (持ち) meaning “to carry.”

Right: A tsutsumi, or taiko, drum like that which a taikomochi would have played, though he would have also played shamisen and presumably other instruments as well.

c. 1925, by lacquer artists Kamisaka Sekka and Kamisaka Yûkichi; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2005.194.

Right: The wrong kind of mochi. We’re not talking pounded rice, here.

So, a drum-carrier. But what does that mean? Am I part of the hayashi, the orchestra? Judging from the context within the play, I could be a member of the retinue of the merchants and/or samurai who have rented out the back room of the teahouse for their party. But what would a samurai or merchant need of a drum-carrier? This isn’t the Union Army, that we should be talking about drummer boys.

Wikipedia identifies taikomochi as male geisha, before going into deeper detail. Okay, that makes more sense. A geisha (芸者) is a person (者) of the performing arts (芸); a “drum carrier,” too, would be a musician, an entertainer. That makes sense; I like that. So, I guess my character works for the teahouse, as a geisha would, providing entertainment, but not (necessarily) sleeping with the clients.

Let’s see what Cecelia Segawa Seigle, reigning expert on the Yoshiwara has to say on the subject.

One explanation for the origin of the term is said to derive from the time of Oda Nobunaga. The drummer Yozaemon, in service to Nobunaga, it is said, was “jealous of talented pupils, so he favored the untalented sycophant Idayû who was good [merely/primarily] at holding the drum;” Idayû thus came to be called taikomochi.¹

I like the other story she provides better. In Buddhist processions, the drum would traditionally follow the bell. Since kanemochi (鐘持), or “bell-carrier,” is a homonym for kanemochi (金持) meaning “someone with a lot of money,” it’s a sort of ironic or sarcastic jab at the entertainer (the taikomochi) who follows around the wealthy client.¹

Things, of course, do not remain constant over the course of the entire Edo period (1603-1868); after all, this is the period that saw the introduction of the shamisen, the rise of the geisha, the shift from male geisha to female geisha, and sooo many other shifts and developments over the course of the period. So, we cannot really generalize that the Yoshiwara (and the taikomochi) within would have operated the same in 1650 as in 1750, as in 1850. But, as our information is limited…

Segawa Seigle writes that in the Genroku period (1688-1704), this is more or less how it would have worked: A client would hire a taikomochi or two to entertain him and his party until the courtesans (who apparently took some time…) were ready.² Have I mentioned that I have yet to read her book through? I do apologize that my understanding of other matters surrounding this is a bit weak – I’m really just skimming through the book for references to taikomochi and working from that, for now. I do very much hope to read the book eventually – maybe over summer break? – but for now, I apologize if I make any poor assumptions about aspects of how this all worked.

Apparently, though we rarely think of them being there, taikomochi were present throughout the history of the Yoshiwara, and in fact increased in number over the years, even as they lost their position as the chief entertainers to female geishas (and courtesans). They accompanied and entertained clients’ parties with song, dance, shamisen, and comic stories – pretty much the same things female geisha would specialize in. Apparently, at some point, the taikomochi split between musicians and those more skilled at comedy, and the term came to be applied more heavily to the jesters, to those who played the buffoon.³ Not that it necessarily makes a huge difference given my extremely small part, but I think I intend to play a proficient and upright musician rather than a buffoon, if given any choice.

Above: “Party Scene in the Yoshiwara” by Gessai Gabimaru, 1800. Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 11.7592.
Could one of these men be a taikomochi? I wonder.

A novel from 1711 provides some tips for success as a taikomochi: To start with, a taikomochi must never upstage the clients, nor the women, but must always be humble; he is one of the lowest in station in the room, and must act like it. He must be sly and witty, but never show himself to be smarter or more knowledgeable than the patron, and must do whatever possible to protect the patron’s dignity and reputation. The taikomochi similarly must also watch out for himself, taking care not to drink more than the patron – or, if the situation allows, not at all. He must be witty in his foolishness, in just such a way as to make the whole situation playful and to make the patron say “what a fool you are!”³

The novel goes on to explain how patrons might sometimes buy a courtesan for the taikomochi, not as a genuine gift to the taikomochi (who, in the story, might prefer to have the money himself rather than having it spent on buying a woman for him), but rather, as an additional entertainer who would therefore be present at the patron’s parties.³

Here’s where it gets interesting. Who are the taikomochi? Where did they come from, and how did they get to become taikomochi? Well, the story for the women geisha and courtesans is a whole story unto itself, but Segawa Seigle writes that many taikomochi were themselves patrons, clients of the Yoshiwara who could not afford to maintain such an expensive lifestyle, and so turned to becoming entertainers. This was a way for men ruined financially by their expensive adventures in the pleasure districts, and now penniless, to still enjoy being a part of the world of the pleasure quarters – and possibly, I suppose, though Segawa Seigle doesn’t say it explicitly, to pay back debts owed. Known as nodaiko (野太鼓), these relatively talentless amateur entertainers would follow a daijin (wealthy patron/client) around, being the butt of his jokes, joking around with shinzô and kamuro (the child servant-apprentices to courtesans), eating, drinking, maybe even getting to bed a shinzô if the patron was willing to pay for it, and otherwise participating in pleasure quarters life as an actual member of that community, albeit a rather low-ranking one with little or no funds to his name. Nodaiko, like geisha or courtesans, also sometimes received garments or other gifts from patrons… Segawa Seigle describes them explicitly as “professional spongers.” Talentless though many of them might have been, they were valued by patrons who desired a larger entourage, and someone to make fun of, slap upside the head, and the like, all in good fun, of course.³

Taiko also sometimes acted as intermediaries, telling a patron when a courtesan was going to be late or couldn’t meet with him at all, and, leaving the patron there in the greeting room (or even in the genkan, I suppose, or even out on the street, perhaps), going deeper into the house to speak with the courtesan to arrange a new appointment on behalf of the patron. In her description of the patron striving to become tsû (that is, to become a real regular in the sense of really knowing his way around the pleasure quarters, being known, knowing all the ins and outs of the social protocol, knowing the girls and the teahouses), Segawa Seigle describes how a man might seek to manufacture an image of even being “too cool.” After finally earning the cred to be granted an appointment with a high-ranking courtesan, he sends two taiko to tell the tayû (the courtesan) that he needs to reschedule; furthermore, they were to then schedule him, intentionally, for a time when the tayû had another patron, thus essentially enforcing his image or position as being more important than that other patron…⁴ So, anyway, we can see that the taiko often played these kinds of roles as intermediaries. I still remain a little unclear as to whether the taiko belonged to a teahouse as geisha and courtesans did, or if they were more closely associated with a given patron, following him from one teahouse to another.

And, that is just about all that Segawa Seigle has to say about the taikomochi. Seems an intriguing sort of character. Not that I’d necessarily want to be one in real life, of course, penniless, constantly serving as someone else’s lapdog, always on a lower rung than nearly everyone else around – the women, the clients, even the children (read: apprentice geisha/courtesans) – but, as a character, and as a thread in the colorful tapestry of our imagined, romanticized Yoshiwara, I find the taikomochi quite interesting. … Maybe I could play one in an RPG sometime ^_^

A quick cursory Google search would seem to indicate that the tradition of the taikomochi as an entertainer – possibly moreso in the vein of the jester, the comic storyteller – continued until quite recently, or still continues today, judging from the posters and photos that pop up on a Google Image Search.

EDIT: An Update

——
I don’t imagine I’ll have time to read it any time soon, but I have finally obtained myself a copy of Cecilia Segawa Seigle’s book “Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan,” which contains wonderful anecdotes, bringing the pleasure districts to life, and providing greater details on the district than any other source I’ve come across. All footnotes/quotes in this post are from this book.
(1) Segawa Seigle. p256n30.
(2) p66.
(3) pp117-118.
(4) pp132-133.

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Quick Links: Lost Utamaro Paintings found in a Tochigi home

I heard recently about a pair of paintings by Utamaro which recently resurfaced, but didn’t see any news or blog posts about it until a few days ago, when Gina Collia-Suzuki wrote a nice, concise post about it, with beautiful pictures of the two works.

Utamaro is most well-known for his prints depicting beautiful women, and especially for his distinctive style of depicting women. However, these two works are decidedly different. One depicts Shôki (Zhong Kui) the Demon Queller, while the other shows three of the Seven Lucky Gods engaging in sumô.

Collia-Suzuki provides good descriptions of the works, and relates that, after last being seen in an exhibition in 1975, they did not resurface until just now, in a home in Tochigi prefecture. They have since been turned over to Tochigi City, which presumably has better resources and capabilities for conserving the works, and which will display them later in the year.

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Upcoming Japanese Art Events at Columbia U

I really wish I was in NY and could attend these events. Any NY-based readers out there?

*“Thinking on the way to the Yoshiwara: Poetry and Pictures about the trip to Edo’s Courtesan District”
Professor Timon Screech, SOAS, University of London

The Yoshiwara was Edo’s premier courtesan (or ‘pleasure’) district. It existed for some 200 years, so that thousands of men would have gone. Pictures of the Yoshiwara were very commonly made, and form one of the major themes in art of the Floating World. Yet it is never asked how people actually got to the district, nor have representations of the journey to the Yoshiwara ever been properly investigated. This talk will engage with such material, and will offer the theory the pictures and poetry worked to create a sense of difference and transformation in the traveller incrementally, as the journey unfolded.

The lecture will take place at 6:15-7:15 p.m., April 8, 2010 and will be held in Room 934 Schermerhorn Hall. Given the spatial constraints, attendees are encouraged to arrive by 6 p.m.

I was fortunate to take a course with, and otherwise get to know, Prof. Screech during my time in London. This topic, the poetic or metaphorical symbolism or allegory of elements of the trip to the Yoshiwara, played a prominent role in the course, and while I must admit I do love to hear Tim speak about just about anything, I really do have a particular interest in this topic.

*And the following week:

Soshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Lecture on Japanese Culture

The Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University will host a rare public lecture by the Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura. Mr. Morimura will deliver the annual Soshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Lecture on Japanese Culture at 6:00 p.m., on Wednesday, April 14, 2010, at Columbia’s Miller Theatre. The title of Mr. Morimura’s lecture is “Why I Posed as Yukio Mishima.”

The title of Morimura’s lecture, “Why I Posed as Yukio Mishima,” alludes to a controversial 2006 video work in which the artist took on the persona of Yukio Mishima (1925–1970), the internationally celebrated Japanese novelist. Four decades ago this year, Mishima staged a highly public suicide at the headquarters of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, an unforgettable scene that Morimura imaginatively recreated in his 2006 video.

Morimura is the twenty-second eminent figure to deliver the Soshitsu Sen XV Distinguished Lecture on Japanese Culture. The annual lecture series at Columbia University was established with an endowment from the Urasenke Foundation of Kyoto, Japan. Named in honor of Soshitsu Sen XV, former Grand Master (Iemoto) of the Urasenke School of Tea, the Sen Lectures aim to expand American awareness and understanding of Japanese culture. The series began in 1988 with a lecture by Soshitu Sen XV entitled “The Heart of Tea.” Subsequent lecturers have included the novelists Natsuo Kirino, Taeko Kono, and Ryotaro Shiba, the poets Gary Snyder and Makoto Ooka, the composer Toru Takemitsu, the stage director Tadashi Suzuki, the photographer Fosco Maraini, and the graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo.

Donald Keene Center Prize

Directly prior to Morimura’s lecture on April 14, the Keene Center will award the Fourth Donald Keene Prize for the Promotion of Japanese Culture to Impressions, the journal of the Japanese Art Society of America (www.japaneseartsoc.org). Julia Meech, editor of Impressions, and. Joan D. Baekeland, president of the Japanese Art Society of America, will accept the award at a brief ceremony in Miller Theatre.

For further information, please contact Ms. Kia Cheleen, Assistant Director, Donald Keene Center: kcc2126@columbia.edu

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