Nishikawa Sukenobu, 1671-1750

Given names: Bunkado; Bunkadô; Fujiwara; Jitokusai; Jitokusō; Magoemon; “Uji” Nishikawa; Nishikawa Nishikawa Sukebê /Sukebê; Nishikawa Sukenobu; Saiō; Sukenobu; Uemon; Ukyô; Ukyō; Yûsuke

Sukenobu was “The most accomplished and influential Ukiyo-e painter in Kyoto during the first half of the eighteenth century” [1]. He was born and died in Kyoto, the centre of the Imperial Court, home of the classical arts and aristocratic custom. It is this tradition that permeates Sukenobu’s prolific work. Contemporaries studied his books and prized his paintings of single figures and groups of females. He “influenced Masanobu directly, Harunobu profoundly and almost all subsequent ukiyo-e artists indirectly” [2].

In the years in which the ukiyo-e style was emerging from the publishing district of Edo, Sukenobu was training from a young age in the painting styles of Kano school artist Kano Eino and Tosa school artist Tosa Mitsusuke, (from whom he may have derived the Suke- in his name). Whilst ukiyo-e prospered and grew in Edo, it also developed in the Kamigata area (Osaka and Kyoto) which produced its own style and masters. Of the Kamigata artists Sukenobu led the genre – he produced thousands of illustrations and would remain amongst the most prolific ukiyo-e artists of the entire Edo period.

His images were almost exclusively in monochrome. Sukenobu produced no single-sheet prints.
The beginning of ukiyo-e style and Sukenobu’s prodigious output took place in the Genroku era, 1688-1704, a period of great wealth amongst the merchant classes of Osaka, Kyoto and Edo. These cities expanded and saw the emergence and flowering of an urban popular culture: “the later part of the Genroku era around 1700… the townspeople as a class had reached a high degree of affluence and culture, and the artistic impulse in Japan in general was more vital and widely diffused, less shaped by traditional influences, since it was no longer in the service solely of the aristocracy. At this time, too the artists of the Ukiyo-e school… prefixed to their signatures “Japanese painter” to indicate their allegiance to the new point of view” [3].

Sukenobu produced book illustrations and other works of popular art around 1698. He then began working with the Hachimonjiya publishers/booksellers, producing illustrations for ukiyo-e zōshi (“ukiyozōshi” first appeared in about 1710 in reference to erotic works, but the term later came to refer to literature that encompassed a variety of subjects and aspects of life during the Edo period) and yashusha hyôbanki (hyôbanki were compilations of rankings and critiques of kabuki actors and courtesans and were important elements in the urban popular culture of the period), and other works. His name first appeared on the colophon for a book in 1708, and the first illustrated book (ehon) he fully designed himself was published in 1723.

From these beginnings – he quickly became pre-eminent as an ukiyo-e book illustrator in Kyoto. He was a prolific designer of picture-books designing well over 100. (Indeed, Lane gives the number at around 200, but he may have been counting multiples as 3, 10, etc.) What is remarkable is the high standard and inventiveness maintained across this output.

Of particular interest is his rendering of different classes of women of this period. In his first major work of 1723, Hyakunin joro shinasadame, “One Hundred Women Classified According to their Rank” – this illustrated book, as others of his works, show female figures from various classes including courtesans, always elegantly drawn no matter what their occupation. This publication was banned by the government for lese-majeste (crimes against the monarch).

Ukiyo-e expert Richard Lane writes that Sukenobu’s style was profoundly influential, and his images of beauties are characterised by a “subdued conception of lovely, unobtrusive grace (perhaps closer to actual Japanese womanhood than that of any other artist)” [4]

Sukenobu is also known for his shunga, producing some of the finest in the genre. Between the years 1710 and 1733, at least thirty volumes of erotica designed by him were published; roughly one-third of these were published between 1719 and 1722.

Serious interest in the decorative arts was characteristic of 18th century Japan. Sukenobu was known for his creativity and taste in inventing kimono designs. He was commissioned on several occasions by kimono-makers to create textile designs for them and he illustrated kimono pattern books.
The painting Beauties near Water (Suihen bijin zu 水辺美人図) offered on this update shows a typical Sukenobu figure: A plump face and a graceful and sensuous stance so often seen on the pages of his books.

For some examples of other paintings held in museum collections please follow links below:
Woman and Attendant, Three Girls having Tea, Metropolitan Museum of Art : Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Clock and the Beauty, Tokyo National Museum : Clock and the Beauty, Tokyo National Museum .
British Museum : British Museum.

[1] – Timothy Clark, Ukiyo-e Paintings in the British Museum, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992, p83
[2] – James Albert Michener, The Floating World, University of Hawaii Press, 1983 p. 376
[3] – Mailey, Jean. “Four Hundred Winters … Four Hundred Springs ….” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New ser., v. 18, no. 4 (December, 1959)

[4] – Lane, Richard. Images from the Floating World. New York: Konecky & Konecky, 1978. pp58.

Winter landscapes

Approximately 70% of Japan’s landscape is mountainous. In the past when travel into the mountains was difficult there was a large demand and great curiosity by the public to see those remote snow covered landscapes. Publishers and leading artists like Hiroshige and Hokusai responded to that demand by ensuring that every landscape set had at least one snow scene and, often, as in the 100 Views of Edo set, there were as many as seven.

Winter landscapes, because of their minimalist nature appeal to a modern aesthetic and are probably the most popular and expensive landscape prints to collect now. They most often show travellers in a snowy pass but we can also enjoy scenes of Edo (Tokyo) under deep snow. Tokyo’s location on the coast of the Pacific Ocean affords the city mild winters with cool spells. Snowfall does occur annually but it is sporadic and it seldom stays. Perhaps there were heavier falls one or two hundred years ago but more likely artists used snow imagery as a way to both emphasise the season and to transform both landscape and cityscape.

In ukiyo-e a number of techniques were used to suggest snow: areas of image were left blank or block cutters and printers created texture on the paper using gauffrage (blind-printing) in which the block is printed without pigment. This convincingly conveyed snow and is primarily found on prints of the Harunobu period and surimono both of which were printed using thick hosho which is ideal for blind-printing.

White pigment was also used: gofun which was prepared from powdered clam shells [calcium carbonate] or shiro prepared from white lead carbonate. Snowflakes could be cut into the blocks and printed; or gofun or shiro could be splashed from a brush onto the paper, or applied by using a right-angle pipette. It could also be applied by taking it into the mouth and spraying through the lips. Splashed pigment is also commonly used to suggest sprayed water.

The shiro usually oxidises over time so that in some prints it appears to be snowing black snow. This is the result of the print’s exposure to air borne acid pollution. Not all oxidation is unpleasant: it can give a print an attractive patina. Print collectors will have noticed another effect of oxidisation- the shiro was also mixed with red for flesh tones which is why one comes across blackened faces on some prints. Oxidation can be easily reversed by a restorer, and once professionally reversed will be stable.

A Twist of Figured Cloth – Shunga wood blocks

This is the first of an occasional blog that I hope clients will find interesting.

In the current update is an important and rare set of six original wood blocks for a shunga (erotic) book Aya no odamaki “A Twist of Figured Cloth” by Terasawa Masatsugu (active c1760-1790) published in 1776 in black and white, so these are the key-blocks (or sumi-blocks) which constitute reversed or mirror-images of the book.

It is pure serendipity that a few original blocks have survived. Many were planed down to recut as wood became more expensive during the 19th century and a lot more were probably used for kindling or destroyed by fire. There is also an apocryphal story that the Victoria and Albert Museum, here in London, burnt a large number of blocks after the Second World War to free up storage space. Early blocks, such as these, are particularly rare. Blocks that survive with big names attached – Harunobu or Hiroshige, for example, are invariably for copies. Shunga blocks are of added rarity. Indeed, this is the only set I have seen . The blocks have a great beauty in their own right and are from the wood of the single-petaled white mountain cherry (shiro-yamasakura or Prunus mutabilis).

During the Edo period outlines were cut following the direction of the brush strokes of the original drawing, the knife being drawn towards the block-cutter. The block- cutter followed the drawing (hanshita-e) which was pasted face downward onto the block and partially peeled or rubbed with hempseed oil to render it more visible. Cutting was deeper in the 18th century and became shallower during the 19th, probably due to the cost of wood and the gradual sophistication of the cutters. In Japan wood was cut with the grain; this method is fundamentally similar to western chiaroscuro woodcuts, hence the operation is one of relief printing as opposed to intaglio. The impression from the grain of the wood-block was transferred to the paper during printing and is visible on early impressions – an infallible way of recognising genuine impressions rather than copies.

Colour prints used proofs from the key-block to make the colour blocks and were keyed by the simple expedient of marks (notches) cut in the block on the upper and lower left corners. Cutting of a set of blocks could take two or three days while complicated sets were finished within twenty days.

The blocks are priced separately to give as many collectors as possible the opportunity to acquire one, and would sit well with any serious collection of prints, books or shunga.