Kunisada's Tokaido

Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints
Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-90-04-19146-4
Verlag: Brill Academic Publishers

Buch, Englisch, 360 Seiten, Gewicht: 2062 g

The Tokaido highway, connecting Edo with Kyoto, was the most vital thoroughfare in Japan. Its cultural presence in pre-to early modern Japanese society led to the publication of woodblock print series, such as the widely known landscape prints by Hiroshige, that took this famous road as their theme.
The prints of Utagawa Kunisada, the most sought-after woodblock print designer of his day, represent a different treatment of the Tokaido, in which popular kabuki actors in specific roles are paired with Tokaido post stations. This study discusses the phenomenon of serialization in Japanese prints outlining its marketing mechanisms and concepts. It then proceeds to unravel Kunisada’s pairings of post-stations and kabuki roles, which served as puzzles for his audience to decipher. Finally, this study analyses Kunisada’s methods when he invented and developed these patterns.
Kunisada’s Tokaido is a valuable visual source for the print collector, illustrating over 700 prints.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Marks, Andreas

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstformen, Kunsthandwerk Malerei: Gemälde
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Einzelne Künstler: Biographien, Monografien
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunststile Asiatische Kunst

Über Autor(innen)

Andreas Marks is Head of the Japanese and Korean Art Department at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. He received his Ph.D. in Japanese art history from Leiden University, The Netherlands, and a M.A. in East Asian art history and Chinese studies from Bonn University, Germany. He is the author of Japanese Woodblock Prints: Artists, Publishers and Masterworks (2010), Publishers of Japanese Prints: A Compendium (Hotei, 2011), Genji's World in Japanese Woodblock Prints (Hotei, 2012) and other books.