Okumura Masanobu

Dyeing Paper

1770

Woodcut on cream laid paper, 7 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (182 x 63 mm), narrow margins. Laid down to non-archival board with scattered soiling and some adhesive staining. Okumura Masanobu (Japanese 1686 – 13 March 1764) was a Japanese print designer, book publisher, and painter. He also illustrated novelettes and in his early years wrote some fiction. At first his work adhered to the Torii school, but later drifted beyond that. He is a figure in the formative era of ukiyo-e doing early works on actors and bijin-ga ("pictures of beautiful women"). While Masanobu's early life is largely undocumented, he is believed to have been born about 1686, possibly in Edo (modern Tokyo). Edo was a small fishing village when Tokugawa Ieyasu chose it as his administrative capital of the Tokugawa shogunate, and by the early 17th century the city had prospered and its population had grown to half a million. Masanobu appears to have been self-taught painter (though he did study poetry under Tachiba Fukaku); he is not known to have belonged to any artistic school. His early work shows the influence of the Torii school of ukiyo-e painting...

A scene from a series of ghost stories and spooky rural legends. Tokyo: Matsuki Heikichi, 1896. Woodcut in ink with embossing and hand-coloring in watercolor on handmade mulberry pa...

Japanese Artisans - Japanese Woodblock Print J Japanese woodblock depicting six women, all wearing vibrant kimonos, working on crafts by Tosa Mitsuoki (Japanese, 1617-1691). Japanese,c. 1600. Handcraft depiction (dye works).Section from a painted screen with presentations of handcraft.Kita-in, Saitama. Stamped lower left. Presented in a white mat and giltwood frame. Frame: 19"H x 14"W Mat: 18.25"H x 13.25"W Image: 14.5"H x 9.5"W Tosa Mitsuoki was a Japanese painter, reinvigorating the Yamato style of classical Japanese painting. Yamato-e originated from interest in reproducing early Tang dynasty paintings, and was later reinvented and further refined to fit Japanese cultural perceptions in the late Heian period. Yamato, sometimes referred to as wa or kazu had become synonymous with the Tosa-ha by the Muromachi period as a way for Japanese artist to distinguish their works from those of mainland Chinese paintings, kara-e. Yamato-e incorporated various visual and literary techniques for establishing narrative. Works were not always accompanied with text and may rely on heavily on period specific visual motifs, icons, and symbols to relay a story or theme. Tosa style by the time of Mitsuoki focused heavily on depicting themes of plants and nature, famous places, meisho, the four seasons, shik, bird-and-flower, kacho. Many of these popular symbols and icons from mimicking Chinese practices, treating the original Chinese masterwork as a sort of prototype to improve upon. Popular formats for Mitsuoki's pictures were wall scrolls kakemono, or handscrolls that would be read from right to left with the accompanied story, sliding doors fusuma and folding screen panels byobu that featured up to six panels. Mitsuoki's style incorporated the depth and calligraphy techniques of ink wash brushwork similar to Song dynasty and Yuan dynasty Chinese court paintings...

One Hundred Prints Of The Noh - 1925 Original Japanese Woodblock Print Original Japanese woodblock print by Tsukioka Kogyo (Japanese, 1869...