Shunshō Katsukawa (Japanese:
Biography
editShunshō first came to Edo to study haiku and painting. He became a noted printmaker of actors with his first works dating from 1760. Though originally a member of the Torii school, he soon broke away and began his own style, which would later be dubbed the Katsukawa school. Among his students were the famous ukiyo-e artists Shunchō, Shun'ei, and Hokusai.
Most of Shunshō's actor prints are in the hoso-e (33 × 15 centimetres (13.0 × 5.9 in)) format common at the time, but he created a great number of works in triptych or pentaptych sets. However, what truly set his work apart from that of earlier artists was the depiction of large portrait-style heads and the insides of actors' dressing rooms. He was also one of the first to pioneer realistic depictions of actors; in Shunshō's prints, unlike in the works of the Torii school, it was possible for the first time to distinguish not only the theatrical role, but also the actor portraying that role. Shunshō also made use often of the long and narrow hashira-e format.
Though he painted many revered paintings of bijin, he produced very few prints depicting them. Seirō Bijin Awase Sugata Kagami (
Names
editOriginally Katsumiyagawa Yūsuke, "Katsukawa Shunshō" is one of many art-names (gō) taken on by the artist during his life. Others include Jūgasei, Ririn, Yūji, Kyokurōsei, and Rokurokuan.[2] Prior to signing his works with one of these gō, he used a stamp in the shape of a gourd surrounding the character mori (
References
edit- ^ a b Paine, Robert Treat and Alexander Soper (1955). The Art and Architecture of Japan. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 263.
- ^ Frédéric, Louis (2002). "Japan Encyclopedia". Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
External links
edit- Grove Art Dictionary
- FAMSF
- Shunshō in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
- Bridge of dreams: the Mary Griggs Burke collection of Japanese art, a catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on this artist (see index)