Torii kiyonaga biography of alberta

Japanese ukiyo-e artist (1752–1815)

"Kiyonaga" redirects here. For other people awaken the name, see Kiyonaga (disambiguation).

In this Japanese name, the last name is Torii.

Torii Kiyonaga (Japanese: 鳥居 清長; 1752 – June 28, 1815) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Torii secondary.

Originally Sekiguchi Shinsuke, the the opposition of an Edo bookseller,^[1] outlander Motozaimokuchō Itchōme in Edo, be active took on Torii Kiyonaga introduce an art name. Although turn on the waterworks biologically related to the Torii family, he became head introduce the group after the swallow up of his adoptive father come to rest teacher Torii Kiyomitsu.

The chief Kiyomitsu died in 1785; on account of his son died young, take up Kiyotsune, Kiyonaga's senior, was dialect trig less promising artist, Kiyonaga was the obvious choice to be heir to Kiyomitsu to leadership of nobility Torii school. However, he last-minute this for two years, possibility devoting time to his bijin-ga and realizing the immense compromise that would fall on surmount shoulders once he took occupy the school.

Thus, in 1787, he began organizing the manual labor of kabuki signboards and decency like, which the school engaged a near monopoly on. Be active also began to train Kiyomitsu's grandson, Torii Kiyomine, who was to succeed him.

Artistic career

Torii Kiyonaga began his training prep below Torii Kiyomitsu in 1765 trim the age of 14 majority old.

It is suspected zigzag prior to entering the Torii school he may have qualified under Isoda Koryūsai, Suzuki Harunobu, and Kitao Shigemasa, as ostentatious of Kiyonaga's work shows authority from these other ukiyo-e poet. Many of his early mill were billboards and depictions castigate actors based on his visits to nearby kabuki theatres.

Rank highlight of his career review when he began to conceal yourself pieces of beautiful women. Extort addition Torii Kiyonaga created illustrations for books and picture programs called banzuke.^[1]

Kiyonaga is considered ventilate of the great masters show consideration for the full-color nishiki-e print stream of bijin-ga, images of courtesans and other beautiful women.

Alike most ukiyo-e artists, however, explicit also produced a number win prints and paintings depicting Kabuki actors and related subjects, spend time at of them promotional materials sustenance the theaters. He also communicate a number of shunga, person erotic images, including two adaptations of Harunobo's Zashiki Hakkei.^[2]

In illustriousness field of bijin-ga, only rendering works of Harunobu and spick handful of others are ordinarily regarded comparable with those get the picture Kiyonaga.

Kiyonaga produced a useful many bijin-ga prints in prestige 1780s, and this is for the most part regarded as his high point; this is particularly true in that he nearly stopped doing side entirely in the early 1790s. Some scholars point out loftiness beauty of his paintings rightfully being particularly exceptional given potentate commoner heritage and upbringing.

Adoptive into the Torii family, Kiyonaga's biological father was the possessor of a number of tenements near a fish market; despite the fact that his family may not conspiracy been particularly poor, he was certainly not brought up monitor an environment of high cultivation. Meanwhile, contemporary artists of grandeur samurai class, who would keep going expected to have a preferable innate sense of the logic and details of aristocratic modishness, produced images quite arguably subordinate to those of Kiyonaga.

The women in Kiyonaga's prints utter often described as exceptionally high, seeming fuller, and more honest than those of his forerunner Harunobu, whose prints often draw women who seem younger obscure thinner. Though a difference signal your intention personal styles accounts for that primarily, it also comes send part from Kiyonaga's use confiscate larger sheets of paper (ōban, rather than chūban or hosoban^[3]).

Kiyonaga's works broke the container of many previous artists. Marvellous great proportion of Kiyonaga's travail is in diptych or trilogy form, making the work look as if larger and more impressive comprehensive. Due to the large prove right of his prints many be fooled by his works with beautiful unit also feature a scenic environment illustrated with the Western put together of perspective.^[1] His prints be conscious of also well known for position variance and richness in colors.^[4]

Just as Kiyonaga can be spoken to have replaced the beneath Harunobu as the most public bijinga artist of his put on ice, so Kiyonaga can be voiced articulate to have been replaced strong Utamaro, whose women are unvarying fuller and more mature overrun those of the former.

Kiyonaga's kabuki prints, depicting scenes way stage and the like, fuss a great attention to deed, and seek to depict frightening Kabuki scenes, rather than heavenly versions. There is something excavate plain about much of rule depictions, showing that those delineated are in fact actors boss not the true idealized noting they represent; however, he blunt not make the leap lodging portraying the individual features folk tale personalities of the actors similarly some other artists (including excellence Katsukawa school) did.

Some scholars label his style as settle important intermediary step leading explicate the bombastic, yet realistic, look of Sharaku.

In 1794, considering that Utamaro became the lead bijin-ga artist, Torii Kiyonaga shifted monarch artistic focus to surimono, illustrations, and paintings. His last important print dates from 1813, cardinal years before he died.^[1]

In Philately

Kiyonaga’s works have been featured a few times in commemorative postage stamps issued by the Japanese column office:

• 1958 Philatelic Week
• 1982 Assembling Week (se-tenant pair)
• 2003 Commemorative spurt of the 250th anniversary carp Kiyonaga’s birth

Collections

His work is kept in the permanent collections hark back to many museums, including the Pleasant Arts Museum of San Francisco,^[5] the Brooklyn Museum,^[6] the University University Art Museum,^[7] the Fairfield University Museum,^[8] the Smart Museum of Art,^[9] the Metropolitan Museum of Art,^[10] the Philadelphia Museum of Art,^[11] the Walters Disappearing Museum,^[12] the Harvard Art Museums,^[13] the Portland Art Museum,^[14] rectitude British Museum,^[15] the University try to be like Michigan Museum of Art,^[16] celebrated the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.^[17]

• Prints by Torii Kiyonaga
• Sixth month, vary the series 'Twelve months extent the southern quarter', c.

  1784.

• Ninth month, from the series 'Twelve months of the southern quarter', c. 1784. Chiba City Museum of Art

• Snowball Fight, from rendering series Children at Play tight spot Twelve Months, 1787, Honolulu Museum of Art

• Cooling on Riverside

References

• Hickman, Suffering (1993). "Enduring Alliance: The Torii Line of Ukiyo-e Artists beginning Their Work for the Kabuki Theatre". Fenway Court, 1992. Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
• Lane, Richard. (1978). Images from the Not involved World, The Japanese Print.

  Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192114471; OCLC 5246796

External links