Posted by Dan on January 11, 1999 at 09:42:37:
In Reply to: Re: Tenpo Reforms and "Actor Landscapes" posted by John Fiorillo on January 09, 1999 at 14:57:28:
Hi Theo,
John is no doubt right that the Tempo reforms forced kabuki artists into some new forms of innovation, but I'd hesitate to see pressure from censors as the source of these sets. For one thing, the actual effects of the reforms were short-lived, and Toyokuni III was producing nakedly obvious actor prints even before the second censor seal was added in 1847. Sometimes these had the interesting "shita-uri" ("Below-sell"=To be sold secretly/Not for display) seal added to them, but often not. These prints lacked the actors' names, but often had their roles written plainly, and no one was unaware of what was going on. It's just another act in the drama between the Bakufu and the Chonin, in which the attempt to control the people's tastes was short-lived.
Now, if these prints were first produced in the early 1840's, I'd have to agree with John. But by 1852, the pressure on kabuki artists was apparently little or none, if the amount of actor prints surviving is any measure. I'd go more for John's second explanation: fad. You can see the importance of fad even today in Japan, with the obsessive fascination with the new "hot" dessert, drinking spot, rock group, computer game. Every culture has fads and trends to be sure, but my sense (at least of the contemporary world) is that it's much stronger in Japan, perhaps for their eagerness to be part of a group. It's important to remember too that Ukiyo-e is a commercial art, made for sale as much or more than artistic expression. If publishers saw that these large figure actors against landscapes were selling well, they'd rush to put them out and catch the moment.
That, more than any pressure from the censors, seems to me to be the true explanation for 300 such prints in 1852.
Dan
P.S. A note to Hans Olof:
Theo has beaten me to the punch! The print he posted beside yours is the Sencho in my collection. Still, if you'd like a color scan I can oblige. I've already taken the photo.
: Theo,
: I believe the main impetus for the types of series you have identified ("Mitate sanjûrokkasen no uchi", "Chûshingura", "Edo meisho zue", "Tôkaidô gojûsan tsugi no uchi") were the lingering effects of the Tenpô Reforms (1842-47) instituted by Mizuno Tadakuni (1774-1851), the chief councilor to the shogun Tokugawa Ieyoshi. In the first month of 1842 edicts were issued in Edo (similar edicts were put into effect in the seventh month in Osaka) restricting public access to theaters, limiting the prices on and sizes of prints (nothing larger than a triptych), banning stories on "human feelings (called ninjôban), and – most important to this discussion – prints or books illustrating actors or prostitutes. The edicts were enforced quite repressively at first and had a chilling effect on the publishing industry. As a result publishers and artists turned to historical subjects and landscapes. Although Tadakuni fell from power in 1843, the effects of his reforms lasted for some years and publishers returned only gradually to issuing prints that explicitly identified actors (that is why so many prints from the early 1840s-early 1850s do not bear the names of the actors). For example, in "Mitate sanjûrokkasen no uchi" the historical or legendary role played by the actor is given in a small cartouche, ostensibly to indicate the true-life figure represented, though it was a transparent ruse and no Edokko would have been fooled into thinking it was not an actor (plus the physiognomy would identify the actor as well). Kunisada had earlier in the mid-1820s designed finely printed sets in the small koban format of beauties placed before landscapes, and again in the late 1830s when he drew beauties before scenes derived from Hiroshige’s "Tôkaidô gojûsan tsugi no uchi" but in the chûban format. So it was a logical step to try his hand at drawing actors (unnamed) before landscape backgrounds, as in the ôban series you’ve mentioned. The censors could also look the other way by judging these designs as landscapes with figures in the foreground and thus not penalize the publishers for issuing actor prints.
: You are right to wonder at the sudden appearance of some many sets of this type. It seems that the Tôkaidô set was enormously popular, widely advertised and celebrated in a song that claimed Kunisada’s pictures were the "flowers of Edo." This being the case, the other series quickly followed. Sebastian Izzard, in his monograph on the artist (Kunisada’s World, 1993), identifies nearly 300 half-length portraits of actors with landscape backgrounds published in the single year of 1852!!!
: I would add that with the enormous popularity of the landscape series of Hokusai and Hiroshige from the 1830s firmly established the landscape as a fully realized print genre (that is, beyond the intermittent landscapes appearing since the late 1700s), and it would seem likely that variations on the landscape theme should appeal to the print buying Edo public. Thus combining portraits of actors by the premier designer of actor prints of the mid-nineteenth century with his well-drawn landscape backgrounds would seem to be an almost guaranteed formula for success. That these prints were so amazingly popular is perhaps surprising, but such phenomena occur in all cultures when the timing is just right.
: John