Kikukawa Eizan
Kikukawa Eizan (菊川 英山, 1787 – July 17, 1867) was a designer of ukiyo-e style Japanese woodblock prints. He first studied with his father, Eiji, a minor painter of the Kanō school, and subsequently with Suzuki Nanrei (1775–1844), of the Shijō school. He is believed to have also studied with ukiyo-e artist Totoya Hokkei (1790–1850). He produced numerous woodblock prints of beautiful women (bijin-ga) in the 1830s, but then abandoned printmaking in favor of painting.
This artist should not be confused with Harukawa Eizan, an ukiyo-e print designer who was active in the 1790s.
Eizan was the most prolific, longest-lived and ultimately the best of those late followers of Utamaro who attempted to carry on the master's bijin style after his death in 1806.
Along with Tsukimaro and Utamaro II, Eizan has generally been dismissed by connoisseurs as a plagiarist of Utamaro's late style, but his work in fact develops, like that of most ukiyo-e artists, from a close identification with a leading master to a studied independence, and contains pieces of remarkable beauty and interest.
As Eizan reached artistic maturity he began to develop his own figural style, still focused for the most part on prints of beautiful women (bijin-ga). Eizan's work retains the sensitivities and lyricism that marks the Utamaro style, as opposed to the earthier realism and more overt sensuality of Kunisada and Keisai Eisen.
Eizan, like Toyokuni I in actor prints, is the last manifestation of the classical ukiyo-e style in bijin work, with harmonious colors and graceful lines and subjects. After him, one senses the introduction of a different aesthetic, with harsher colors, angular lines and less ethereal material, more of an emphasis, in sum, on the material weight of earthly life, rather than its transformation into something of elegance.
With Eizan, the alchemy of elegance is still alive, and in his best work, properly produced, he can cast a magic glow over the forms of the world and create lightness and grace.
He is also left-handed, which was strange at such a time in Japan.
Gallery
- Woman with Shamisen. 1808
- Geisha Playing the Hand-Game Kitsune-ken, 1820
- Bijin
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- Woman Performing the Tea Ceremony
References
- Lane, Richard. (1978). Images from the Floating World, The Japanese Print. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192114471; OCLC 5246796.
- Newland, Amy Reigle. (2005). Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints. Amsterdam: Hotei. ISBN 9789074822657; OCLC 61666175
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- Ukiyo-e
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- List of ukiyo-e terms
of 17–19th centuries
- Asayama school
- Eishi school
- Furuyama school
- Harukawa Eizan school
- Harunobu school
- Hasegawa school
- Hishikawa school
- Hokusai school
- Ippitsusai Bunchō school
- Ishikawa Toyonobu school
- Kaigetsudō school
- Katsukawa school
- Kawamata school
- Keisai Eisen school
- Kitagawa school
- Kitao school
- Miyagawa school
- Nishikawa school
- Nishimura school
- Okumura school
- Ōoka school
- Osaka school
- Ryūkōsai school
- Shigenobu school
- Shunkōsai Fukushū school
- Torii school
- Toyohara school
- Utagawa school
- Utagawa Toyoharu
- Utagawa Toyohiro
- Utagawa Toyokuni I
- Utagawa Kunimasa
- Utagawa Kunisada
- Utagawa Kunisada II
- Utagawa Kunisada III
- Utagawa Sadahide
- Utagawa Kunimasu I
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- Utagawa Kuniyasu
- Utagawa Kuniyoshi
- Ryusai Shigeharu
- Utagawa Yoshitsuya
- Utagawa Yoshitora
- Kawanabe Kyōsai
- Utagawa Yoshiiku
- Utagawa Yoshitoshi
- Utagawa Yoshifuji
- Utagawa Kuniteru I
- Utagawa Hiroshige
- Utagawa Hiroshige II
- Utagawa Hiroshige III
- Utagawa Hirokage
- Utagawa Sadafusa
- Adachi Ginkō
- List of Utagawa school members
- Not associated with any school
artists and movements
- Shin-hanga
- Sosaku-hanga
- Azechi Umetarō
- Eiichi Kotozuka
- Un'ichi Hiratsuka
- Itow Takumi
- Kitaoka Fumio
- Yasuhide Kobashi
- Sakuichi Fukazawa
- Masao Maeda
- Senpan Maekawa
- Maki Haku
- Matsubara Naoko
- Yoshitoshi Mori
- Shikō Munakata
- Tetsuya Noda
- Gihachiro Okuyama
- Kōshirō Onchi
- Kiichi Okamoto
- Saitō Kiyoshi
- Sekino Jun'ichirō
- Toko Shinoda
- Hiroyuki Tajima
- Sadao Watanabe
- Kanae Yamamoto
- Shōzaburō Watanabe
- Hodaka Yoshida
- Tōshi Yoshida
- Suwa Kanenori
- Fujimori Shizuo
- Reika Iwami
- Tadashige Ono
- Chosei Kawakami
- Others
- Kohno Michisei
- Tadashi Nakayama
- Fujio Yoshida
- Japanese painting
- Rinpa school
- Kanō school
- Akita ranga
- Hara school
- Hasegawa school
- Kyoto school
- Nanpin school
- Nanga
- Nihonga
- Shijō school
- Yōga
- Ukiyo-e influenced non-Japanese art
- Japonisme
- Japonaiserie (Van Gogh)
- Impressionism
- Anglo-Japanese style
- Post-impressionism
- Art Nouveau
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