Category: art

The Eight Views of Omi is a series of woodblock prints from the Edo Period, depicting scenes from places around Lake Biwa. The Biwako is the largest sweet water lake in Japan, its southernmost tip is only some 20 minutes east of Kyoto. Historically, the province in which Lake Biwa is located was called Omi, and many little towns around the lake still have Omi as part of their name.

The idea of the Eight Views goes back to China, in particular to the 11th century paintings Eight Views of Xiaoxiang. Eight Views were considered the most beautiful or significant scenes of an area, and since many artists made images like that, these can be seen as an early version of visual advertisements. The idea came to Japan in the 15th century and inspired prince Konoe Masaie and his son Naomichi to a series of poems about eight scenic places on nearby Biwako. In the early 18th century, woodblock printer Nishimura Shigenaga took Konoe’s poetry and turned it back into images, his Eight Views thus becoming one of the first series of landscapes made in Japanese woodblock printing art.

From there on, many different artists took up the theme and produced at least one series of Eight Views of Omi. However, the most prolific of all artists was Hiroshige, who made at least 20 different series over a number of years. The topic was popular until well into the 20th century, when the modern shin-hanga style of woodblock printing evolved from the old ukiyo-e. For example, Ito Shinsui produced a series of Eight Views of Omi as late as 1917. Note that there is also a series of images called The Eight Views of Lake Biwa, however, this refers to a modern version with some different locations created in 1949 by the government of Shiga Prefecture (the modern name of the area around Lake Biwa).

The Eight Views of Omi are usually called by the following titles:

• Returning Sails at Yabase Yabase is a former harbour on the east side of Biwako. Situated near the Tokaido (the main road between Kyoto and Edo), people could use boats to go down to Otsu, thus speeding their journey. Yabase harbour was abandoned when the first railway between Tokyo and Kyoto was opened. (Harunobu, ca. 1760)
• Evening Rain at Karasaki Karasaki is but a small cape reaching into the lake, with a single large pine tree. The enormous tree has been replaced a number of times, the current one was planted in the 20th century. (Ryuryukyo Shinsai, ca. 1820)
• Evening Bell at Miidera Founded in the 8th century, Miidera temple is home to one of the three great bells of Japan, with a height of more than 3 metres. (Hiroshige, 1852)
• Wild Geese Returning Home at Katata Rather than geese, the recurring image is that of Ukimido Temple, which stands on piles in the lake and is accessible by a bridge. (Nishimura Shigenaga, ca. 1730)
  
• Clear Breeze at Awazu Awazu is famous for its pine forest. On some old prints the castle of Zeze can still be seen, however, it was dismantled in the early Meiji period.
• Autumn Moon at Ishiyama Ishiyama Temple is located a bit south of Biwako and was built into a steep slope, somewhat reminiscent of Kyoto’s Kiyomizudera Temple (Ito Shinsui, 1917)
  
• Evening Glow at Seta These images usually show the great bridge crossing the Seta river, which was once part of the Tokaido. The modern bridge is made from concrete, but its original Chinese style has been kept. (Hiroshige,1835)
• Evening Snow at Hira Mount Hira on the west side of Biwako is the highest mountain of the chain and in winter is always tipped with snow. (Hokusai, 1802)
  

The Eight Views of Omi were very popular, and many artists have taken the concept and transplanted it to other regions of Japan in what the Japanese call mitate. For example, there are Eight Views of Kanazawa, Samani, near Edo… Many of those prints copied the underlying ideas of the original images, like “evening glow” or “clear breeze” and transported them to suitable other locations. Yet other artists have taken the theme a bit further and produced Eight Views that parody the original, for example the Eight Views of Beautiful Shields by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, showing samurai, or his Eight Views of Wise Women. Isoda Koryusai produced Eight Elegant Views of Fukugawa, depicting beautiful women. In 1927, a set of modern Eight Views were introduced, showcasing scenic landscapes from all over Japan.

Izumi Miyazaki, born 1994 in Yamanashi Prefecture, is a Japanese photographer. Her works are colorful self portraits amongst every day items – all with a surreal twist.

She started with photography in a highschool photo club, and later went to Musashino Art University in Tokyo, graduating with a major in Imaging Arts in 2016. Already during her student days, she took surreal pictures and posted them online on Tumblr, where she was almost an instant hit. Her first solo show Cute & Cruel, was in Luxembourg 2016, her first solo show in Japan followed (stand-in, in Tokyo, 2016). She was also invited to participate in the group show Give Me Yesterday (Milan, 2016–17), and her work is one of 40 photographers featured in the book Girl on Girl: Art and Photography in the Age of the Female Gaze by Charlotte Jansen.

As Izumi Miyazaki says in an interview with CNN Style, she never liked to be catalogued or categorized, and doesn’t mind to be on her own. Her work is carefully crafted and designed, but even though she is the only model in her photos, she feels as if that person were somebody else. Again, when asked for her style, she says that she doesn’t really have one, only tries to work inthe moment. However, she hopes that the viewers approach her photos with an open mind.

Links:
Many more of Izumi Miyazaki’s surreal photos can be found on her Tumblr page.
The full CNN interview mentioned above.
Get the book Girl on Girl from amazon.

Although most Japanese nowadays write with ballpoint pens or, worse, type their thoughts into their smartphones with a single finger, traditional brush calligraphy is still held in high esteem. All kids in Japan learn calligraphy in elementary school where it is seen not only as a way to study proper hiragana/katakana and kanji themselves, on top of producing nice handwriting, but also as a means to teach patience and diligence and to build character. Many people in Japan believe that a fine piece of calligraphy always reveals the character of the writer.

Like many other traditions in Japan, calligraphy or shodo – the way of writing – came to the country from China, where the first pictograms were invented around 2800 BCE. The Chinese script was introduced to Japan around 600 CE together with Buddhism, and the first application of calligraphy was the copying of Buddhist sutras in temples. Some 200 years later, in the Heian period, writing had been introduced to the court and its bureaucrats, and a distinctive Japanese style of calligraphy began to develop, culminating in the hiragana script.

The hiragana script was invented as a kind of shorthand for the kanji, but over time, many of the hiragana were dropped and the script turned into a syllabary. For a long time, hiragana were considered the women’s script – in fact, women were even expressly forbidden to study kanji – but eventually, hiragana became widely accepted, and their combination with kanji created the typical Japanese writing system known today.

Shodo is a relatively cheap hobby to start. As a beginner, you need a brush, paper, paperweight, and ink. Many beginners start out with bottles of liquid ink, but the more serious students will not get around buying ink stick and stone to grind their own ink. Practice paper can be cheap newsprint, but more elaborate works that are meant for keeping do call for Japanese washi paper, and at that stage, a personal seal to sign – or rather: stamp – the piece will be necessary. Many calligraphers carve their own seals in special seal script characters, by the way.

When learning to write kanji with a brush, the kanji for “eternity” is probably the best starting point, since its eight tenkaku strokes are all the different strokes that there are to master. Technically, that is. Students first start out with what is called kaisho or regular script, which has clear aesthetic rules – for example, each character should be as square-shaped as possible. Some of these rules go back to Wang Xizhi, a 4th century Chinese scholar whose calligraphy was seen as an aesthetic benchmark in both China and Japan for a long time. Kaisho most resembles the kanji printed in newspapers and books.

The next step for the learner is gyosho or semi-cursive script, which resembles handwriting and works with a number of simplifications and abbreviations, so to speak. The last step is sosho or cursive, where the easy flow of the brush is paramount. It is very individual, and closer to art than to legible writing. Many people cannot read texts written in sosho they are not familiar with.

Not only the way each stroke is written is important, also the order in which this is done. Some people insist that only kanji that were written in the correct stroke order possess aesthetic merit and are pleasing to the eye.

Since shodo is a rather cheap hobby, many people in Japan practise it. It is a form of applied art deeply connected with Japanese spirit and culture. As already elementary school children learn the basics, they can take part in the popular kakizome ceremony, where people of all ages write down their wishes for the New Year. This often takes place in temples or shrines, for example in Kyoto, Kitano Tenmangu is very popular for kakizome. The best pieces of calligraphy are exhibited afterwards and may even win a prize. Also connected to the New Year are the nengajo postcards. Although nowadays, many of them are simply printed out, especially older people still write and address them by hand, thus showing off their penmanship.

Zen calligraphy is a special form of calligraphy practised by Buddhist monks in particular. Since black ink on white paper is rather unforgiving and shows every mistake and even hesitation, the idea is that there is but one chance to get it right on a  particular piece of paper. In order to produce good Zen calligraphy, the writer must completely clear his mind and let his body and subconscious do the work. This spiritual state of mind is called mushi, and hitsuzendo means “zen way of the brush”.

Finally, calligraphy also stands at the beginning of each tea ceremony: The guests are invited to look at a piece of calligraphy before the ceremony begins (also as a way to clear their minds) and often, there is also a calligraphy placed in the tokonoma alcove of the tea room.

Modern Japanese calligraphy was developed in the 1930s, when many new schools of calligraphy emerged that advocated creating a new, distinct style of Japanese calligraphy, rather than adhering to old, pre-Edo aesthetics. There are stunning modern pieces that are more reminiscent of paintings than of writing, and are definitely worth checking out.

If you want to know more, especially about calligraphy history, see this page on Japanese calligraphy.

When it comes to Japanese performing arts, one first thinks of Noh and Kabuki, two very old forms of theater. Elaborate costumes are used, the masks are stunning, the movements highly stylised, and the stories told are often moral and serious.

And then there is rakugo, and it’s none of these. To be fair, rakugo is not so much a theatrical performance, but a storytelling. A single performer – rakugoka – sits on a stage, with nothing but a cushion and a folding screen (and sometimes a little table) as stage design. He – yes, mostly they are men – has nothing by way of props but a folding fan and a tenugui, a small Japanese towel. But this is all he needs to tell his story: gestures and body movements, a change of pitch in his voice, or a slightly changed posture will do – the rest lies in the viewer’s imagination.

Rakugo goes back to Buddhist monks of the 10th century, who interjected little, often humorous stories to their sermons to make them better understandable for the lay people. The stories evolved to a kind of monologue that people told among themselves, and especially the daimyo of the Edo period were the patrons of this kind of storytelling. With the rise of the rich merchant class, however, rakugo as an art form finally spread to the common people, and by the end of the 18th century, professional rakugoka had emerged, who rented rooms – yose – for their performances. Finally, theaters especially for rakugo were set up as well.

Many of the stories performed date back to the beginnings of rakugo as it is known today, some 400 years ago. The traditional canon comprises several hundred pieces of various lengths, but there are some modern rakugoka who write and perform their own stories. A large part of the attractiveness of the stories is the fact that they are dialogues between different stereotypical people, and that these dialogues sound very natural. Some of the stereotypes employed are: The sexy young girl, the authority figure, the dumb vs. the smart person, the cunning and lying figure, etc. They are pitched against each other in the performance, and at the end, there is an ochi (literally meaning fall) which brings the main story to an unexpected, funny end.

Before the main story starts, however, the rakugoka starts with an anecdote called makura (literally: pillow) to lead the viewer into the main story. Watch this English performance of the famous story “The Cat’s Bowl”; the first half of the video is the makura (which may or may not be true recollections of the performer), and the main story starts at about 5:20.

Today, there are about 700 professional rakugoka in Japan, about 30 of them women, divided between the two traditions of Edo/Tokyo and Osaka. Even today, the way to become a rakugoka is by receiving direct instruction from a master performer. Just like in the old days, the student – deshi – will move into the master’s house and essentially run his household. During the 2 – 4 years of training, the master in turn is fully responsible for the student, including in financial matters.

The training in the art itself is done verbally only, and while audio and video are now allowed, books or other notes are still frowned upon. After all, this is an oral tradition! The master tells the story, and the student imitates. Only when the student has fully memorised the story, will he get permission to perform it – this particular story only! The three ranks of rakugoka are zenza, futatsume and shinuchi; the final rank allows a rakugoka to train students of his own.

Rakugo is still quite popular, both on TV and live. The setup of the performance can almost be called intimate, and the Japanese take advantage of the opportunity to let their hair hang down in public.

 

Hashiguchi Goyo (1880 – 1921) is a renowned Japanese artist and considered the founder of the shin-hanga style of woodblock printing.

Hashiguchi was born as the son of a samurai and painter in 1880 and was then named Kiyoshi. He started to study Japanese painting in the traditional Kano style with a private tutor when he was 10, and in 1899 he moved to Kyoto to continue his studies in the Kano style. However, the famous painter Kuroda Seiki convinced him to instead study Western painting, and so Hashiguchi enrolled in the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Is was there that he changed his first name to Goyo – inspired by the five needle pine in his father’s garden – and he graduated in 1905 at the top of his class.

At this time his older brother introduced him to Soseki Natsume, and Goyo’s first commission was to design layout and illustrations for the novel I am a Cat. More book covers followed, all in all he designed about 70 covers in art nouveau style for various writers, among them notable ones like Junichiro Tanizaki, Nagai Kafu, or Mori Ogai.

In 1907, Hashiguchi exhibited a painting in the Tokyo Bunten show, which received 2nd prize, but overall, the reception of his oil paintings was below his expectations. In 1911, however, Goyo won the first prize – 1000 yen – for an ukiyo-e poster he designed for the Mitsukoshi department store, depicting a modern Japanese woman in a colorful kimono. Hashiguchi’s interest in ukiyo-e was piqued, and he began to study art and technique in detail. He even wrote several scholarly articles about old ukiyo-e artists Utamaro, Harunobu, and Hiroshige.

Around this time, Watanabe Shozaburo contacted Hashiguchi, having seen the Mitsukoshi poster. Watanabe, a publisher of ukiyo-e woodblock prints was looking for artists who would push the old methods and style forward into the new era. Hashiguchi thus, in 1915, produced the artwork for the print Bathing, which was carved and printed by one of Watanabe’s assistants. This was the birth of the shin-hanga – new prints – movement.

Since this sensitive print was an immediate success, Watanabe wanted to continue the collaboration, but Hashiguchi declined, preferring to work independently. In the years 1916 and 1917, he supervised the production of 12 volumes of “Japanese Color Prints”, containing hundreds of scaled-down reproductions of renowned ukiyo-e artists’ works. During this time, he deepened his knowledge about the printing process, and from 1918, he produced his own prints again. Often, Hashiguchi started with drawings from live models, which he then adapted and refined to make his beautiful woodblock prints.

Unfortunately, Hashiguchi’s health was quite frail. He suffered from beriberi around 1914, and by late 1920, his latent health problems escalated to meningitis, from which he ultimately did not recover. Nevertheless, he supervised his last print Hot Spring Hotel from his sickbed, but could not see it to completion. He died in February 1921, only 41 years of age. His grave is in his hometown in Kagoshima.

Because of his untimely death, Hashiguchi’s body of shin-hanga prints comprises only 14 works in total. Besides the single sheet for Watanabe, he produced 1 nature print, 4 landscapes, and 8 more prints of women. Seven more prints that were in various stages of completion at the time of his death were later finished and published by his heirs – his elder brother and nephew – and 10 more prints based on Hashiguchi’s remaining designs were published years later, together with reprints of his original work. These reprints have an additional mark in the margins, which the originals do not have.

Hashiguchi’s work is characterised by a mastery of technique, owing to his perfectionism. His standards were so high, that many of his editions had print runs of not more than 80 sheets. This led to his prints being technically the best since the late 18th century. Not only the high quality, but also the beautiful, sensitive, and modern designs, reminiscent of art nouveau, made Hashiguchi’s shin hanga extremely popular; from the very beginning, they demanded high prices.

In the 1923 Kanto Earthquake that all but destroyed Tokyo, most of the original printing blocks and prints themselves were destroyed. This makes any original Hashiguchi Goyo prints and sketches extremely valuable and sought after – they can sell for as much as 10.000 $, which makes them among the most highly prized of all shin-hanga.