1. Life and career

2. Style

3. Legacy

4. See also

5. Notes

6. References
    Works cited 

7. Further reading

Utagawa Toyoharu (歌川 豊春, {{circa|1735}} – 1814) was a Japanese artist in the ukiyo-e genre, known as the founder of the Utagawa school and for his uki-e pictures that incorporated Western-style geometrical perspective to create a sense of depth.

Born in Toyooka in Tajima Province, Toyoharu first studied art in Kyoto, then in Edo (modern Tokyo), where from 1768 he began to produce designs for ukiyo-e woodblock prints. He soon became known for his {{transl|ja|uki-e}} "floating pictures" of landscapes and famous sites, as well as copies of Western and Chinese perspective prints. Though his were not the first perspective prints in ukiyo-e, they were the first to appear as full-colour nishiki-e, and they demonstrate a much greater mastery of perspective techniques than the works of his predecessors. Toyoharu was the first to make the landscape a subject of ukiyo-e art, rather than just a background to figures and events. By the 1780s he had turned primarily to painting. The Utagawa school of art grew to dominate ukiyo-e in the 19th century with artists such as Utamaro, Hiroshige, and Kuniyoshi.

Life and career

Utagawa Toyoharu was born {{circa|1735}}{{efn|Toyoharu's birthdate is calculated from an inscription in the book {{transl|ja|Saitan Kyōka Edo Murasaki}} ({{lang|ja|歳旦狂歌江戸紫}}) printed in Kansei 7 ({{circa|1795}}), in which he states he is in his sixty-first year.{{sfn|International Ukiyo-e Society|2008|p=64}} }} in Toyooka in Tajima Province. He studied in Kyoto under {{Interlanguage link multi|Tsuruzawa Tangei|ja|3=鶴澤探鯨}} of the Kanō school of painting. It may have been around 1763 that he moved to Edo (modern Tokyo), where he studied under Toriyama Sekien. The Toyo ({{lang|ja|春}}) in the art name Toyoharu ({{No break|{{lang|ja|豊春}}}}) is said to have come from Sekien's personal name Toyofusa ({{No break|{{lang|ja|豊房}}}}).{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} Some sources hold he also studied under Ishikawa Toyonobu and Nishimura Shigenaga.{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}} Other art names Toyoharu went under include Ichiryūsai ({{No break|{{lang|ja|一竜斎}} }}), Senryūsai ({{lang|ja|潜竜斎}}), and Shōjirō ({{No break|{{lang|ja|松爾楼}}}}). Tradition holds that the name Utagawa derives from Udagawa-chō, where Toyoharu lived in the Shiba district in Edo.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} His common name was Tajimaya Shōjirō ({{No break|{{lang|ja|但馬屋}}}} {{No break|{{lang|ja|庄次郎}}}}), and he also used the personal names Masaki ({{No break|{{lang|ja|昌樹}}}}) and Shin'emon ({{No break|{{lang|ja|新右衛門}}}}).{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}}

Toyoharu's work began to appear about 1768.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} His earliest work includes woodblock prints in a refined, delicate style of beauties and actors.{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}} Soon he began to produce {{transl|ja|uki-e}} "floating picture" perspective prints, a genre in which Toyoharu applied Western-style one-point perspective to create a realistic sense of depth. Most were of famous sites, including theatres, temples, and teahouses.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} Toyoharu's were not the first uki-e—Okumura Masanobu had made such works since the early 1740s, and claimed the genre's origin for himself.{{sfn|Screech|2002|pp=103–104}} Toyoharu's were the first uki-e in the full-colour {{transl|ja|nishiki-e}} genre that had developed in the 1760s.{{sfn|North|2010|p=175}} Several of his prints were based on imported prints from the West or China.{{sfn|Screech|2002|p=103}}

From the 1780s Toyoharu appears to have dedicated himself to painting, and also produced kabuki programs and billboards. He headed the painters involved in the restoration of Nikkō Tōshō-gū in 1796.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} He died in 1814 and was buried in Honkyōji Temple in Ikebukuro under the Buddhist posthumous name Utagawa-in Toyoharu Nichiyō Shinji ({{lang|ja|歌川院豊春日要居士}}).{{efn|The temple is located at 2-41-4 Minami Ikebukuro, Toyoshima Ward, Tokyo, {{Coord|35.725321|139.718633|display=inline}}{{sfn|Gotō|1976|p=75}} }}{{sfnm|1a1=Marks|1y=2012|1p=68|2a1=Yoshida|2y=1974|2p=279}}

Style

Toyoharu's works have a gentle, calm, and unpretentious touch,{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}} and display the influence of ukiyo-e masters such as Ishikawa Toyonobu and Suzuki Harunobu.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} Harunobu pioneered the full-colour {{transl|ja|nishiki-e}} print{{sfn|Little|1996|p=84}} and was particularly popular and influential in the 1760s, when Toyoharu first began his career.{{sfn|Neuer|Libertson|Yoshida|1990|p=259}}

Toyoharu produced a number of willowy, graceful {{transl|ja|bijin-ga}} portraits of beauties in {{transl|ja|hashira-e}} pillar prints.{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}} Only about fifteen examples of his {{transl|ja|bijin-ga}} are known, almost all from his earliest period.{{sfn|Japan Ukiyo-e Association|1980|p=38}} One of the better-known examples of Toyoharu's work in this style is a four-sheet set depicting the Chinese ideal of the Four Arts.{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}} Toyoharu produced a small number of {{transl|ja|yakusha-e}} actor prints that, in contrast to the works of the leading Katsukawa school, are executed in the learned style of an Ippitsusai Bunchō.{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}}

While Toyoharu trained in Kyoto he may have been exposed to the works of Maruyama Ōkyo, whose popular megane-e were pictures in one-point perspective meant to be viewed in a special box in the manner of the French vue d'optique.{{sfn|Little|1996|pp=83–84}} Toyoharu may also have seen the Chinese vue d'optique prints made in the 1750s that inspired Ōkyo's work.{{sfn|Little|1996|pp=96}}

Early in his career, Toyoharu began producing the {{transl|ja|uki-e}} for which he is best remembered. Books on geometrical perspective translated from Dutch and Chinese sources appeared in the 1730s, and soon after, ukiyo-e prints displaying these techniques appeared first in the works of {{Interlanguage link multi|Torii Kiyotada|ja|3=鳥居清忠}} and then of Okumura Masanobu. These early examples were inconsistent in their application of perspective techniques, and the results can be unconvincing; Toyoharu's were much more dextrous,{{sfn|King|2010|p=47}} though not strict—he manipulated it to allow the representation of figures and objects that otherwise would have been obscured.{{sfn|North|2010|p=177}} Toyoharu's works helped pioneer the landscape as an ukiyo-e subject, rather than merely a background for human figures{{sfnm|1a1=Stewart|1y=1922|1p=224|2a1=Neuer|2a2=Libertson|2a3=Yoshida|2y=1990|2p=259}} or events, as in Masanobu's works.{{sfn|King|2010|pp=47–48}} Toyoharu's earliest {{transl|ja|uki-e}} cannot be reliably dated, but are assumed to have appeared before 1772: early in that year{{efn|On the 29th day of the second month of Meiwa 9, or 1 April 1772{{sfn|Gotō|1976|p=75}} }} the {{illm|Great Meiwa Fire|ja|明和の大火}} in Edo destroyed the Niō-mon gate in Ueno, the subject of Toyoharu's Famous Views of Edo: Niō-mon in Ueno.{{efn|Scholars estimate Famous Views of Edo: Niō-mon in Ueno to have appeared {{circa|1770–71}} based on evidence from the figures in the image.{{sfn|Gotō|1976|p=75}} }}{{sfn|Gotō|1976|p=75}}

Several of Toyoharu's prints were imitations of imported prints of famed European locations, some of which were Western and others Chinese imitations of Western prints. The titles were often fictional: The Bell which Resounds for Ten Thousand Leagues in the Dutch Port of Frankai is an imitation of a print of the Grand Canal of Venice from 1742 by Antonio Visentini, itself based on a painting by Canaletto.{{sfn|Screech|2002|p=103}} Toyoharu titled another A Perspective View of French Churches in Holland, though he based it on a print of the Roman Forum.{{sfn|Conte-Helm|2013|p=9}} Toyoharu took licence with other details of foreign lands, such as having the Dutch swim in their canals.{{sfn|Little|1996|p=84}} Japanese and Chinese mythology were also frequent subjects in Toyoharu's {{transl|ja|uki-e}} prints, the foreign perspective technique giving such prints an exotic feel.{{sfn|Little|1996|pp=84, 87}}

In his {{transl|ja|nikuhitsu-ga}} paintings the influence of Toyonobu can seem strong, but in his seals on these paintings Toyoharu proclaims himself a pupil of Sekien.{{sfn|Yoshida|1974|p=279}}{{efn|One such seal reads {{Nihongo|"Student of Toriyama Sekien Toyofusa"|鳥山石燕豊房門人|Toriyama Sekien Toyofusa Monjin}}.}} His efforts contributed to the development of the Rinpa school.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} His paintings have joined the collections of foreign museums such as the British Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Freer Gallery of Art. His paintings include {{transl|ja|byōbu}} folding screens—a genre in which ukiyo-e is said to have its origins, but was rare in ukiyo-e after the development of nishiki-e prints. A six-panel example of a spring scene in Yoshiwara{{efn|{{lang|ja|新吉原春景図屏風}} {{transl|ja|Shin Yoshiwara Harukage-zu Byōbu}}, "New scenes in the springtime Yoshiwara pleasure district"}} resides in France{{sfn|Higuchi|2009|p=68}} in a private collection.{{sfn|Higuchi|2009|p=6}}

Legacy

The popularity of Toyoharu's work peaked in the 1770s.{{sfn|Screech|2002|p=103}} By the 19th century, Western-style perspective techniques had ceased to be a novelty and had been absorbed into Japanese artistic culture, deployed by such artists as Hokusai and Hiroshige,{{sfn|Thompson|1986|p=44}} two artists best remembered for their landscapes, a genre Toyoharu pioneered.{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=15}}

The Utagawa school that Toyoharu founded was to become one of the most influential,{{sfn|Salter|2006|p=204}} and produced works in a far greater variety of genres than any other school.{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=105}} His students included Toyokuni and Toyohiro;{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}} Toyohiro worked in the style of his master, while Toyokuni,{{sfn|Stewart|1922|p=224}} who headed the school from 1814,{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=15}} became a prominent and prolific producer of yakusha-e prints of kabuki actors.{{sfn|Stewart|1922|p=224}} Other well-known members of the school were Utamaro, Hiroshige, Kuniyoshi, and Kunisada.{{sfn|Salter|2006|p=204}} Though Japanese art schools, such as the Katsukawa in ukiyo-e and the Kanō in painting, emphasized a uniformity of style, a general style in the Utagawa school is not easy to recognize aside from a concern with realism and facial expresseiveness.{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=105}} The school dominated ukiyo-e production by the mid-19th century, and most of the artists—such as Kobayashi Kiyochika—who documented the modernization of Japan during the Meiji period during ukiyo-e's declining years belonged to the Utagawa school.{{sfn|Merritt|2000|p=18}}

The Torii school lasted longer, but the Utagawa school had more adherents. It fostered closer master–student relations and more systematized training than in other schools. Excepting a few prominent examples, such as Hiroshige or Kuniyoshi, the later generations of artists tended to lack stylistic diversity, and their work has become emblematic of ukiyo-e's decline in the 19th century.{{sfn|Neuer|Libertson|Yoshida|1990|p=259}}

Toyoharu also taught painting. His most prominent student was Sakai Hōitsu.{{sfn|Marks|2012|p=68}}

As of 2014, studies into Toyoharu's work have not been carried out in depth. Cataloguing and analyzing his work and his and his publishers' seals was still in its infancy.{{sfn|Mochimaru|2014|p=5}}

See also

• {{Commons category-inline|Utagawa Toyoharu}}
• List of Utagawa school members

Notes

References

Works cited

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