moon catalog p60-104.. - University of Virginia

“The Moon Has No Home”Japanese Color Woodblock Printsfrom the Collection of theUniversity of Virginia | Art Museum

Subverting AuthorityRepetition,Deconstruction andCombinations ofWords and Images15a15b15Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864No Title (Figures Against Landscape)Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada gatwo panels of a multiple panel set684.110 a, b16Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864Asakusa Kinryūzanc. 1843–45Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada gaone panel of a multiple panel set684.11617Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864Distant View of Oji(Oji enken no zu)c. 1810–45Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada gatriptych16684.123 a, b, c60 “The Moon Has No Home”

17a17b17cThese six prints share the same composition: a single, female figure standsbefore scalloped clouds, above which is a landscape. Kunisada often usedsuch clouds as a connecting device for a print series. The first two printsform a continuous composition and have the same publisher: Nantembanisaka iriguchi Fujihiko. In addition, a baby boy carried by his motherin one print holds a bamboo pole that continues into the next print. Fromthe pole, dangles a turtle on a string. The third print has a very similarcomposition, but does not match up exactly with them. A different publisheralso published the print: Fujioka-ya Keijirō (Fuji-Kei) Shorindō. Thus, thisprint may come from a different set of very similar composition or it andthe previous two may represent parts of polyptychs that included morethan three panels. The last three prints form a continuous composition andare all from the same publisher: Ezakiya Tatsukura (E-tatsu) Sankindō.We may identify them as a triptych. The six works together show hownineteenth-century Ukiyo-e repeated compositions, an important point intheir evaluation.S.K.61

1Utagawa Yoshitora1850–70sNo Title (Battle before Mt. Fuji)c. 1849–50Signed: Ichim_sai Yoshitora ga684.258It took three people to make an Ukiyo-e print. An artist (eshi), in this caseYoshitora, designed a composition, which was then copied and pasted to awooden block. A second artisan, the cutter (hori), cut this sketch away tocreate the key or line block from which the color blocks were then produced.A third artisan, the rubber (suri), received the blocks, applied pasteand water, inked them and took the print.The rubber’s art is particularly well represented here. The grain of the woodblockis used to suggest the rocky texture of Mt. Fuji in the background.The fading sunset was produced by first puddling water on the woodblockand then introducing color, so that capillary action would draw the pigmentto the edge of the sky area. As Suzuki Jun has pointed out, such techniquesproduce the edgeless effects one would expect in painting but not in woodcuts.Note also the precision of the registration of the red and yellow on thegreaves of the warrior thrusting a spear and the intensity of the red andblack in his cast-off helmet.S.K.15a62 “The Moon Has No Home”

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1Utagawa Yoshitora1850–70sNo Title (Battle before Mt. Fuji)c. 1849–50Signed: Ichim_sai Yoshitora ga684.258It took three people to make an Ukiyo-e print. An artist (eshi), in this caseYoshitora, designed a composition, which was then copied and pasted to awooden block. A second artisan, the cutter (hori), cut this sketch away tocreate the key or line block from which the color blocks were then produced.A third artisan, the rubber (suri), received the blocks, applied pasteand water, inked them and took the print.The rubber’s art is particularly well represented here. The grain of the woodblockis used to suggest the rocky texture of Mt. Fuji in the background.The fading sunset was produced by first puddling water on the woodblockand then introducing color, so that capillary action would draw the pigmentto the edge of the sky area. As Suzuki Jun has pointed out, such techniquesproduce the edgeless effects one would expect in painting but not in woodcuts.Note also the precision of the registration of the red and yellow on thegreaves of the warrior thrusting a spear and the intensity of the red andblack in his cast-off helmet.S.K.17a64 “The Moon Has No Home”

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Subverting Authority18Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864No Title (Figure Against Landscape)c. 1804–06Signed: Gototei Kunisada ga684.101The composition of this and the following print, a woman tying her obi (sash)on her back, are almost the same, although the patterns of the kimono andthe backgrounds are different. Kunisada, who was Toyokuni III, created alarge number of series of beauties, especially after the Kōka Era (1844–1847).Some series consist of as many as one hundred prints.The print has no inscriptions. It might be one of a polyptych since singleprints usually have titles. Most of Kunisada’s polyptychs have the title onlyon the print at the right of the group.T.A.66“The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority19Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864The Kannon Temple at Asakusa (Asakusa Kannon)from the series Famous Places in Edo(Edo meisho no uchi)c. 1800–50Signed: Kōchōrō Toyokuni ga684.130This print has the title Asakusa Kannon in a red rectangle on the upper right.The landscape behind the woman is framed. The print can be identified asone in the series Famous Places in Edo because the Hagi Museum of Art inYamaguchi Prefecture has a print with the same composition and framedesign but with text on the print stating that the view is One of the FamousViews of Edo: Takanawa. Kunisada preferred the combination of a beautyand a landscape after the success of the Tōkaidō series. Asakusa in Edohas been a famous temple town surrounding the Asakusa Kannon templesince the seventeenth century. For further analysis of this print, see theessay “The Enigma of Allure.”An example of Kunisada’s prints that repeat a figure, occasionally withdifferent backgrounds, includes a seated woman combing her hair. Kunisadaused this design in Pride of Edo (Edo jiman) of 1818, Hundred Beauties inEdo’s Famous Places (Edo meisho hyakunin bijin) of 1857–1858, and FamousWomen of Then and Now (Kokon meifu den) of 1862. The designs are almostall the same. Another example is a woman putting charcoal in a lantern.Kunisada applied this design to Twelve Hours of the Clock of Present Day(Imayō tokei jūni koki) of c. 1820, Frost of Stars: Current Manners (Hoshi noshimo tōsei fuzoku) of c. 1819, Secret Meeting by Moonlight (Tsuki no kageshinobiau yo) of c.1836, One Hundred Poems (Hyakkunin isshu eshō) of c. 1844,and One Hundred Beauties in Famous Places in Edo (Edo meisho hyakuninbijo) of 1858. In the case of this design, Kunisada changed compositionsslightly case by case.T.A.68“The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority20Utagawa Kuniyoshi1797–1861Kabuki Actor Iwai Shijaku as Kojorōc. 1830–42Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga684.203This portrait of female impersonator Iwai Shijaku is an excellent example ofhow words and images could be combined in Ukiyo-e. The print bears anextensive inscription reading:Aha! Even if I accept that it is my fate to have a greedybrother, considering the transitoriness of life, I can at leastdepend on that Shinbei. Relying on the kindness [heshowed me in] our past friendship, I could, when he disagreedand said no to me, insist and make him promise.Why then did my brother accuse poor me of inhumanconduct and adultery in this, and why did he hit me?When I think of things up to now, Shinbei has sufferedmuch because of you. But, you do not think of that at all.No matter how much he was once your retainer, if youthink of him as nothing, how can it be that heaven will notpunish you? How would it be if you think back a bit ofyour father living at home...and please change your mind?You are cruel indeed.Dialogue from a Kabuki play, the words of the inscription act on the vieweras strongly as the image. Thus, the image does not illustrate the inscription,as much as function in tandem with it.S.K.70“The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority21Utagawa Kunichika1835–1900No Title(Sakamoto Mitsugorō as Mikuniya kojorō andSeki Sanjurō as Oshimono no hahafrom the Kabuki play Tomimoto Buzen Daiū)1864684.97The print shows two figures, a young courtesan and an old woman holdingsome sheaves of corn. The intensity of the old woman’s gaze and thedelicate way in which the younger woman touches her hair and tucks a handin her sash suggest a clash of emotions. The long inscription clarifies themeaning of the scene.The old lady looked closely at the form of the youngprostitute who seemed most attractive.… (meaning unclear)She took out her bag, seeing which the girl, not expecting it,was most surprised. To this action, the old lady said, slidingup slowly alongside the young prostitute: “Even if yourhusband’s feelings change, you should not be jealous.”[The girl] replied: “Hatred and hostility are like the dew.I do not speak of them. However, because I am a woman,I do feel that they are unbearable. Like a disease whosecause is not known, day by day I grow thinner. Sad. I amnot even twenty in body but am now a widow and will beso all my life. I am a girl made widow. For duty’s sake,I accept this unreasonable request.” With that, the youngprostitute felt in her heart a feeling like waves splashing ona rock.Knowing the text clarifies the meaning of the scene. And yet, just from theimage itself, much of its emotional content can be grasped. Translating thedifficult Japanese inscription contributes to our understanding of the print,but such translation is not absolutely necessary for the appreciation of thisprint as a work of art.S.K.72“The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority22Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864No Title(Ichikawa Danzaburō as a Woodcutter,Ichikawa Danjurō as a Monkey andIchikawa Shinnosuke as a Child Monkey)c. 1805–42Signed: Gototei Kunisada gatwo panels of a multiple panel set684.126 a, bThese two prints show actors of the Ichikawa family. Inscriptions identify theman bearing sticks on his back and the large man-monkey as IchikawaDanzaburō and Danjurō respectively. The third inscription reads “IchikawaShinnosuke as the child monkey.” The monkey presents a strong imagein Japanese art and literature, ranging from positive religious significance tobeing thought of as clever but duplicitous.Both adult Ichikawa wear jackets with a crest of squares in squares, a crestadopted by the Ichikawa family of actors after the Shogun gave them a gift ofsquare wooden drinking boxes nested in one another.Kunisada drew every hair on the bodies of the two monkeys, portrayed theclothing with meticulous care, and took pains to show every detail of the treebranch, staff, and belt. And yet, this print is finally not about reportage onreality but about playing with what is real, as noted in my catalogue essay.S.K.74“The Moon Has No Home”

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Subverting Authority23Ikeda Eisen1790–1848Yōkyō from the seriesTwenty-four Ukiyo-e Favorites(Ukiyo-e nijūshikō:Yōkyō)Signed: Eisen ga684.42The inscription states:Seeing the tiger-cat stalk the nightingale under the eaves,hearing daughter “sho-sho” him away, [I] feel the filialpiety of Yōkyō, as she flies towards the roof. Stretching thepoint to see the cat as tiger, here is a play between the 24Favorites of Ukiyo-e and the 24 Paragons of Filial Piety.Mention of the figure of Yōkyō shows that Eisen’s intent was a playbetween the 24 favorite interests (or pastimes) of Ukiyo-e and the ChineseConfucian “24 Filial Exemplars.” Compiled by Fuo Jūjing of the YuanDynasty, the latter consisted of 24 stories of filial piety, a crucial elementin human relationships in Confucian society.The story of Yōkyō (Chinese: Yang Xiang) tells how this fourteen-year-oldboy rescued his father when the latter, out harvesting, was attacked bya particularly ferocious tiger. The tiger, which had a white forehead, issupposed to have eaten one hundred people before he attacked Yōkyō’sfather. Yōkyō beat the tiger off bare-handed.In Eisen’s portrayal of the scene, a pet cat replaces the tiger. The cat is stillstalking its prey—in this case a bird. A baby girl carried by her mother,like the brave young Yōkyō, scares the cat away by brandishing a stick.The picture wittily modifies the perilous situation in the Chinese story intoa parody of a feminized and residential scene.J.L.76“The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority24Utagawa Hiroshige1797–1858Kogane Plain in Shimofusa Province(Shimofusa: Koganehara)from the series Thirty-six Views of Mt. Fuji(Fuji sanjūrokkei)1858Signed: Hiroshige gaMuseum Purchase with funds from theE. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation2002.23This work is print number 33 of Hiroshige’s version of Thirty-six Views ofMt. Fuji, issued around 1858–1859 by the publishing house Tsutaya inresponse to the more famous set by Hokusai that the Eijudō issued around1829–1833. The volcano Mt. Fuji, some 12,385 feet high and shaped like aninverted fan, was by then dormant, having last erupted around 1708.The mountain is one of the great beauty spots of Japan and is pictured byHiroshige from an unusual viewpoint. For further analysis of this print,see the essay “The Enigma of Allure.”S.K.78 “The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority25Utagawa Toyokuni1769–1825No Title from the series Five Beauties (Gonin bijo)c. 1780–1825Signed:Toyokuni684.235This print features a beauty seated at a kotatsu (a low table with a quiltcover and a brazier below for keeping the lower half of the body warm inwinter). The woman is lifting the quilt to place hot coals from the brazierat her side into the brazier at her feet.Prior to the Tenmei era (1781) depictions of women seated at a kotatsuwere classified as abuna-e, “revealing pictures” that showed the female formeither naked or partially clothed and clearly erotic, but at the time thisparticular print was made, the distinction between abuna-e and bijinga(portraits of beauties) was fading.Nonetheless, there is a distinctly erotic quality to this print, due to the actionof “revealing” what has been hidden—the woman’s feet and lower body.The focal point of the print is clearly on the woman’s bare foot, madevisible by her everyday action of lifting the quilt. In Japan bare feet are eroticin and of themselves. (Geisha were not allowed to wear tabi, or socks, asmost people did.) Modern Japanese author Tanizaki Jun’ichiro (1886–1965)dramatically demonstrates this in his 1919 novella Fumiko no ashi(Fumiko’s Feet, untranslated), in which the chief love interest, an Edo-stylebeauty and the mistress of a pawnbroker, is first seen seated at a brazier,as in this excerpt:When I came into the room, a woman was leaning on oneelbow at the kotatsu. Her knees were slightly askew, whileher neck and body were twisted in my direction. WhenI say that her “neck” and “body” were twisted, it seemedthat each were entirely separate things, and I wasimpressed by the beauty of both. In other words, thatsupple, streamlined neck moved together with that soft,slim, almost too-thin body, as though sending off ripples,one wave after another. Even after she faced me straighton, it seemed that those ripples remained, slowly driftingtoward me from somewhere in her body, perhaps fromthe place where her shoulders emerged from her kimonothat was slightly pulled open at the nape of her neck.In many ways, Tanizaki’s description could be of this Toyokuni print. Thewoman in the print is in an awkward, even impossible pose. The wave-likedesign on the woman’s kimono reminds one of ripples on the water, andthe shoulders of the kimono droop down, revealing the neck. In boththe story and the print, however, it is ultimately the woman’s foot to whichthe eye is inextricably drawn, as it embodies the woman’s sensuality.G.J.80 “The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority26Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864No. 22 from the seriesTale of the Life Story of Loyal Ōboshi(Seichū Ōbohsi ichidai banashi)c. 1847–48Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada ga684.138The title bar identifies the print as the twenty-second in the series Tale ofthe Life Story of Loyal Ōboshi (Seichū Ōboshi ichidai banashi). The shavedforehead and double-comma crest of the figure identify him as ŌboshiYuranosuke, leader of the forty-seven masterless samurai (rōnin) ofThe Treasury of the Loyal Retainers (Kanadehon Chūshingura), who avengetheir dead lord. This Kabuki drama, popular since 1748, was based onan actual incident. The inscription reads:Ōishi Rikiya (Chikara), age 15.After the death of the Lord of Ako, his [retainers] scattered.They idled their time away in Yamashina Kyoto. [Rikiya’s]father Yuranosuke lost himself in play, doing nothing butbad things. This, Rikiya deeply regretted. One day, heremonstrated with his father. Using every word that hecould, he admonished his father. Yuranosuke got angry.With a fan, he beat Rikiya. Downtrodden, Rikiya went tohis room. Writing a letter, he would have killed himself.Yuranosuke ran there and stopped him. He then said:“Because you are so young, I did not tell you, but there isa secret plan. You are so brave, so I should tell you whatis in my heart. We camouflage [our intent] by seeming tolose ourselves in pleasure, but the loyal ones are pledged[to take revenge].” Thus he explained himself in detail andRikiya cried with happiness.Signed: Ippitsu-An (Katsushika Hokusai)Ukiyo-e often did not just illustrate Kabuki plays but served as a kind ofparallel art, showing what the theater could not. Consider the appearanceof Yuranosuke. His powerful resolution comes through clearly and hisfirmness contrasts strongly with the feeble shadow seen in the window.Is the scene a metaphorical representation of Yuranosuke’s intent asexpressed in act nine of The Treasury of the Loyal Retainers? There, thedrunken Yuranosuke made a snowball and explained its significance toRikiya, saying “As snow will not melt in shade, so the rōnin, living undera shadow, will survive.” Is the faint shadow in back the false image thatYuranosuke’s enemies see and the clear figure in front what he truly is?Assuming so, the print literally visualizes a metaphor, doing what the actoron stage cannot.J.L.82 “The Moon Has No Home”

27Utagawa Kunisada1786–1864Investigator of Boats Kingorō,The Geisha Kozan,The Dealer in Used Goods Jinzō(Funa aratame Kingorō, Geisha no Kozan, Furuteya Jinzō)1856Signed:Toyokuni gatriptych684.172 a, b, cKabuki stage sets could create the image of boats at sea. A solid structureresembling a boat was constructed on stage or cut-outs (kiridashi) were used.Alternatively, the shuttered rooms of Edo pleasure boats could be reproducedon stage rather than the whole ship. When scenes at sea were portrayed,the cloth covering the stage floor, called a jigasuri or dorogire, would bepainted blue rather than brown to suggest water. In this case, the coveringwas sometimes called a mizu nuno. The stage assistants would also dress inblue rather than black, and their water-colored clothing was called nami-ko.A label in the print identifies one of the struggling figures as the owner ofa furuteya or furugiya, a shop specializing in the sale of used clothing, books,and other things. A highly lucrative business, furuteya grew so prosperousthat the government eventually licensed the trade in an effort to control it.S.K.84 “The Moon Has No Home”

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Subverting Authority28Kitagawa Utamaroc. 1753–1806The Courtesan Chozan from Chōjiya(Chōjiyanai Chozan)c. 1800Signed: Utamaro hitsuMuseum Purchase with funds from theE. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation2003.4.1Like Hiroshige and Hokusai, Utamaro is a quintessential and even emblematicUkiyo-e artist who had a major influence on European Impressionistsof the nineteenth century. Although often admired for his elegant serenityand Classical beauty and restraint (in supposed contrast to later and wilderUkiyo-e artists), Utamaro has at times been accused of having an obsessionwith the high-class courtesans of the Yoshiwara district. His lyrical anddeeply affecting observations of the everyday detail of the lives of thesewomen may have opened the eyes of Western artists but also exposed himto accusations of “decadence” and voyeurism. The elongated loveliness ofhis women, whose kimonos have wave-like rhythms, has been calledmannered by some and by others, indicative of the spiritual or idealisticnature of his “obsession.” Utamaro was, however, capable of makingequally lovely, observant, and moving pictures of mothers and children.Like other Ukiyo-e artists, he was persecuted by the government authoritiesof the oppressive and feudalistic Tokugawa regime in the days beforeJapan was opened to the West.This print is actually an image of a picture within a picture and, like otherprints in The Moon Has No Home, possesses a magical quality, which notonly erases the distance between art and reality or fact and imagination,but also subtly allows the image to rise into the viewer’s mind. At the sametime, like many of those other prints, it acknowledges its own artifice whilesustaining the poetry of its effects. For further analysis of this importantprint, see the essay “The Enigma of Allure.”S.M.86 “The Moon Has No Home”

Subverting Authority29Utagawa Kuniyoshi1797–1861Onoe Kikugorō (as Nagata no Tarō Nagamune)c. 1841Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga684.194Another image of Nagata no Tarō Nagamune by Kuniyoshi can be found inthe Library of Congress, where the figure wears the same unusual tasseledrobe. This clothing and the rats appearing in the print identify it as anillustration of the Kabuki play Raigō ajari kaisoden, an adaptation ofKyokutei Bakin’s (1767–1848) novel of 1808.Bakin was the fifth son of a low-ranking samurai who gave up warriorstatus to become a chōnin. Like his teacher, Santo Kyōden (1761–1816),a writer and Ukiyo-e artist who was jailed once for his burlesque ofConfucianism, Bakin became an important figure in popular fiction(yomihon), dominating the field between 1803–13. In this time, he producedmore than thirty titles. He later turned to historical romance, writingthe famous Biographies of Eight Dogs (Nansō satomi hakkenden) in periodicinstallments between 1814–42. Bakin went blind before the project wascompleted, and he finished it only with the aid of his daughter.Robert Hegel has remarked on how the rise of popular fiction in Chinaaided the development of the print industry there by providing literaryworks that lent themselves easily to illustration. Unlike earlier writings,whose images, if refined, were difficult to draw, popular prose producedsimple, graphic descriptions of things that could be easily transformed intoprinted images. We may see a similar process at work here.S.K.88 “The Moon Has No Home”

Yoshitoshi Group30Tsukioka Yoshitoshi1839–1892The Moon at High Tide (Ideshio no tsuki) from the seriesOne Hundred Aspects of the Moon (Tsuki hyakushi)1886Signed: YoshitoshiGift of Kendon and Patricia Stubbs1998.24This print depicts an old couple sweeping pine needles in the moonlight.They are figures from the Noh play Takasago, written by Zeami Motokiyo inthe early fifteenth century. Takasago is a “god play” in which a Shinto priesttraveling from the Aso shrine in Kyushu to Kyoto passes by a pine-forestedbeach at Takasago in Harima Province (modern day Hyogo Prefecture).As the moon rises, the figures of an old man, Jō, and an old woman, Uba,appear beneath the pines. They are the spirits of the pine at Harima and atSumiyoshi (near Osaka). Although separated by space, their hearts are one.Together in their humble waraji (straw sandals), the pair sweep the fallenneedles of their spiritual home until the dawn when they vanish aboard aboat singing “together with the moon and the rising tide” (Tsuki morotomoniideshio no nami), which gives the print its title.As spirits of the pine tree, the old couple represent vigor and long life (evergreensdo not change and die with the seasons and so represent immortality).Pine trees are one of the three auspicious symbols of Japan, along withbamboo and plum blossoms. The trees themselves suggest an umbrella-likeform over the aged couple, a holy space over which the spirit of the tree canexercise strong power.The figures of the two spirits borrow imagery from Noh masks and costumes.The male figure’s face resembles the Noh mask for an old man, or Jō,a human manifestation of an aged Japanese kami, or god. His expressionderives from Shinto sculptures of old men whose long suffering shows in thedeep wrinkles of the brow. Traditionally, the Jō wears the large culotte-likepants called hakama over a kimono with an outer robe called a haori andcarries a rake. His wife’s face is that of another Noh mask, the old woman,or Uba, which is a manifestation of a female god come to earth. She alwaysappears with a hachimaki headband and a broom made of branches. Thegreen lines in her robe evoke the needles of the pine tree that she inhabits.The evergreen pine, the masks, and the old couple are major symbols atmodern Japanese weddings. Most hotels and wedding halls have largeimages of the pair, complete with their pine tree, painted on an entry wall,or used as a stage backdrop during receptions. Older Japanese may beasked to sing the utai, or song from Takasago, to a newly married coupleas a reminder of the real meaning of marriage.T.K.90 “The Moon Has No Home”

Yoshitoshi Group31Tsukioka Yoshitoshi1839–1892The Story of Jirōzaemon of Sano(Sano Jirōzaemon no hanashi)from the seriesA New Selection of Eastern Brocade Pictures(Shinsen azuma nishiki-e)1886Signed:YoshitoshidiptychMuseum Purchase with funds from theE. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation1997.27.3 a, bIn this image, Yoshitoshi depicts a scene from a Kabuki play. Kabuki andUkiyo-e were often inspired by what today might be called material fortabloids. The artist makes a very strong contrast between the stately andsplendid courtesan and the ugly country bumpkin (Jirōzaemon) who ismurdering her out of resentment for being rejected. Although the slaughteredgrand courtesan Yatsuhashi is drawn in a somewhat traditional idealizedUkiyo-e style, the bumpkin is drawn with Western realism in a manner thatemphasizes his maddened cruelty. The bloody, lurid light of the bumpkin’slantern is used with a sense of drama and aesthetic self-awareness worthyof Alfred Hitchcock. We see in the light of the artist, whose handiworkis observable in the bloody handprint on the bumpkin’s leg (the handprintwas probably made by poor Yatsuhashi, but reminds us that handprintscould serve as a kind of signature in Japan). The plover design on thecourtesan’s kimono seems to metamorphose into the tissue papers thathave scattered into flight like birds. Is her soul flying away from this tragicstage? High-class courtesans were sometimes viewed as heroic or almostsaintly, at least in Kabuki or Ukiyo-e, because they were thought to haveentered their profession for reasons of self-sacrifice. Uninked passagesin this richly “brocaded” print may remind us of the possibility of purity andpeace. Once condemned as vulgar, the boldness of color, design andpsychology exemplified by Yoshitoshi, his teacher, Kuniyoshi, and Kunisadanow seem prophetic of Modernist sensibility. For further analysis of thisprint, see the essay “The Enigma of Allure.”S.M.92 “The Moon Has No Home”

Yoshitoshi Group32Tsukioka Yoshitoshi1839–1892Reflected Moonlight from the seriesOne Hundred Aspects of the Moon(Tsuki hyakushi)1886Signed:YoshitoshiMuseum Purchase with funds from Kendon and Patricia Stubbs1997.27.1Lady Ariko, the subject depicted, wrote the poem inscribed on the print(translated in John Stevenson’s Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of theMoon). This print is often referred to as Reflected Moonlight, but that is notthe title. The inscribed poem on the upper right is as follows:How hopeless it isit would be better for me to sink beneath the wavesperhaps there I could see my man from Moon CapitalThe print is one of a highly regarded series that ranges widely in Japanesehistory and legend and that attains a subtle serenity and humanity incontrast to the cruelty and explosive violence sometimes apparent inYoshitoshi’s work. The moon, symbol of both purity and change, plays arole in each image. In fact, the Moon Series may represent a high point inthe art of the Meiji period and a successful fusion of traditional Japanesestyle and belief with considerable innovation and Western stylistic influence.Ariko no Naishi was a lady-in-waiting at the highly refined Heian Court ofclassic Japan, whose suicide over unrequited love inspired a Noh play.In this image, Lady Ariko holds her lute while weeping and covering herface. She seems about to drown herself in the very brilliance of moonlightreflected on the waters of Lake Biwa. In a sense, she is going to enter thenaked sheet of paper, since the moonlight effect is created by not inkinga portion of the woodblock. Her kimono, burnished, shines. She willparadoxically sink only to rise to the sky through the moonlight. The motifon her kimono, called the half-wheel pattern, was used to symbolize awoman who has been abandoned by her lover, although it may, for somepeople, also recall the Buddhist Wheel of Life. “Moon Capital” refers toKyoto, the Heian capital, according to Stevenson. For further analysis ofthis print, see the essay “The Enigma of Allure.”S.M.94 “The Moon Has No Home”

Yoshitoshi Group33Tsukioka Yoshitoshi1839–1892Gravemarker Moon(Sotōba no tsuki)from the seriesOne Hundred Aspects of the Moon(Tsuki hyakushi)1886Signed:YoshitoshiGift of Kendon and Patricia Stubbs1998.1In the Noh play that is the inspiration for Yoshitoshi’s print, the famousninth-century poet Ono no Komachi is sympathetically portrayed asachieving wisdom and salvation, despite the former beauty being “punished”in old age by poverty and decreptitude. She badly ill-treated a suitor,whose ghost occasionally takes possession of her. The play, entitled SotōbaKomachi (Gravemarker Komachi), is by Kwanami (or Kan´ami) and has beentranslated by Arthur Waley in his The Nō Plays of Japan (London, 1954).In Yoshitoshi’s image, Komachi sits on a fallen gravemarker. In the Nohplay, two priests will rebuke her for dishonoring Buddha by sitting on asacred Stūpa. Bested by her in what amounts to a theological dispute overletter versus spirit, they end by acclaiming her as a saint in spite of heroutcast status. They seem convinced by her argument that salvation arisesin the heart no matter what one sits upon. In Waley’s translation, Komachisays of her hope in Buddha: “For the welfare of the humble, the ill-instructed,/Whom he has vowed to save,/Sin itself may be a ladder of salvation.”Yoshitoshi depicts Komachi as radiating benevolence and serenity in herloneliness. He is even more sympathetic to her than is the play. Her tatteredstraw hat, emblem of poverty and abandonment, almost looks like a pair ofwings on her back. Her costume reminds us of her gorgeous and lofty pastbut its uninked embossed area, together with her white hair and palefeatures, make her seem angelic or ghostly, especially in contrast with thenight scene around her. The pampas grass in back of Komachi emphasizesthe wing-like nature of her straw hat while the meandering stream remindsus of the Floating World and of a poem by Komachi herself, translated inJohn Stevenson: “I’m so lonely that I’d break off this sad body from itsroots/and drift away like a floating reed—if the current were to beckon.”S.M.96 “The Moon Has No Home”

Yoshitoshi Group34Tsukioka Yoshitoshi1839–1892Lunacy—Unrolling Letters(Tsuki no monogurui-fumihiroge)from the seriesOne Hundred Aspects of the Moon(Tsuki hyakushi)1889Signed:YoshitoshiMuseum Purchase with funds from theE. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation1997.27.2The woman standing on the bridge, Ochiyo, is the servant of a lady in thecourt of one of the most renowned warriors in Japanese history, ToyotomiHideyoshi, who in the sixteenth century played a major role in the unificationof Japan. Ochiyo, however, is going mad over the death of her lover. In hisMoon Series, Yoshitoshi, like Shakespeare, shows sympathy for women andfor breaking hearts, as well as for traditional heroism. She is unrolling thelove letter scrolls of her lover, which she has read to tatters. (There wasa special time of the year for letters to be unrolled and aired out.) The letterseems to unroll of its own accord and rise in twists and curls far up into thesky, where it reaches the sliver of a moon half-hidden behind dark clouds.The twisting folds of Ochiyo’s kimono and its design of a winding streammake the servant woman herself look like a rolled up scroll ready to unwind.Is she herself about to unwind and rise up to Heaven? As in other Ukiyo-eprints, the uninked passages—in this case, areas of the letter—add a noteof purity or eerie spirituality to the image, at the same time possessinga Postmodern touch of exposing the reality of naked paper. John Stevenson,in his book on the Moon Series, points out that the lunacy of the titlespecifically refers to the fetishistic obsessiveness of Ochiyo’s thinking.The bridge she stands on, famous in heroic legend, is shadowy and remindsone of a Buddhist concept also found in The Tale of Genji—that this lifeis a “bridge of dreams” only linking one dream or illusion to another.Bridges in Ukiyo-e had a strong influence on similar bridges that appear inthe works of European Impressionists, such as American expatriate artistJames A. M. Whistler.S.M.98 “The Moon Has No Home”

Yoshitoshi Group35Tsukioka Yoshitoshi1839–1892Lady Chiyo from the seriesOne Hundred Aspects of the Moon(Tsuki hyakushi)1889Signed:YoshitoshiMuseum Purchase with funds fromKendon and Patricia Stubbs2002.22In his Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, John Stevensongives the translation of the poem inscribed on this print. It is often referredto as Lady Chiyo, but that is not the title. The poem on the upper right isas follows:The bottom of the bucketwhich Lady Chiyo filled has fallen outthe moon has no home in the waterEighteenth-century painter, calligrapher, haiku poet, and nun, Chiyo wrotea famous poem describing how morning glories growing in the night hadtaken over her well-bucket, which caused her, in her delicacy, to borrowwater from her neighbor rather than injure the flowers. The poem inscribedon the print may be a Zen poem composed by Chiyo and slightly revisedby Yoshitoshi. It is a somewhat startling variation on the more famous poem,as is the image itself. In fact, Chiyo wrote many poems about water andmorning glories, some of which are lovely in their purity and some of whichare skeptical, witty, and even self-deprecating. Like Yoshitoshi, Chiyoassociated with courtesans. They shared with her a love of poetry and aneed to be apart from the ordinary role of women in Japanese society. Chiyoacknowledges the seemingly contradictory meanings of water and of theFloating World—purity, instability, freedom, sensual immediacy, capacity forcleansing, heartbreaking ephemerality, clear reflector of truth. This key print,whose inscribed poem provides the title for The Moon Has No Home, is morefully discussed in the essay “The Enigma of Allure” in this catalogue.S.M.100 “The Moon Has No Home”

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______, et. al. The Floating World of Ukiyo-e: Shadows, Dreams, and Substance. New York: Harry N.Abrams, Inc. in association with The Library of Congress, 2000.Kobayashi Tadashi. “Mitate in the Art of Ukiyo-e Artist Suzuki Harunobu.” In The Floating WorldRevisited. Edited by Donald Jenkins. Portland, Oregon: Portland Art Museum, 1993, pp. 85–91.Kominz, Laurence. “Ichikawa DanjūrōV and Kabuki’s Golden Age.” In The Floating World Revisited.Edited by Donald Jenkins. Portland, Oregon: Portland Art Museum, 1993, pp. 63–83.Lane, Richard. Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print. New York: Dorset Press, 1978.Luke, Timothy W. Museum Politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.McClain, James L., John M. Merriman, and Ugawa Kaoru. Edo and Paris. Ithaca, New York andLondon: Cornell University Press, 1994.Matsunosuke, Nishiyama. Edo Culture: Daily Life and Diversions in Urban Japan, 1600–1868.Translated and edited by Gerald Groemer. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.Meech, Julia. The Matsukata Collection of Ukiyo-e Prints. New Brunswick: The Jane Vorhees ZimmerliArt Museum, Rutgers, State University of New Jersey, 1988.Michener, James A. The Floating World. New York: Random House, 1954._______. Japanese Prints: From the Early Masters to the Moderns. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. TuttleCo., 1959.Mishima,Yukio. Death in Midsummer and Other Stories. Translated by Donald Keene, et al. NewYork: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1966.Mitford, A. B. (Lord Redesdale). Tales of Old Japan. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1966.Nakamachi Keiko. “Ukiyo-e Memories of Ise monogatari.” In Impressions 22 (2000). Translated byHenry Smith and Miriam Wattles, 55–85.Noguchi, Yone. Selected English Writings of Yone Noguchi: An East-West Literary Assimilation. Editedby Yoshinobu Hakutani. Vol. 2, Prose. Rutherford, New Jersey: Farleigh Dickinson University Press,1992.Neuer, Roni and Herbert Libertson. Ukiyo-e: 250 Years of Japanese Art. New York: Gallery Books, 1979.Ooms, Herman. “Forms and Norms in Edo Arts and Society.” In Edo: Arts in Japan 1615–1868.Edited by Robert T. Singer. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1998, pp. 23–47.Oshima, Mark. “The Keisei as a Meeting Point of Different Worlds: Courtesan and KabukiOnnagata.” In Women of the Pleasure Quarter: Japanese Paintings and Prints of the Floating World.Edited and with contributions by Elizabeth de Sabato Swinton, et al. New York: Hudson Hills Press,1995, 87–105.Perrucchi-Petri, Ursula. “Japonisme in Bonnard’s Early and Late Work.” In Pierre Bonnard: Early andLate. Edited by Elizabeth Hutton Turner. Washington, DC: Philip Wilson Publishers in collaborationwith the Phillips Collection, 2002, pp. 190–203.Reps, Paul, and Nyogen Senzaki, eds. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings.Boston: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1998.Robinson, B. W. Kuniyoshi. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1961.Screech, Timon. The Western Scientific Gaze and Popular Imagery in Later Edo Japan: The Lens withinthe Heart. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996.______. The Shogun’s Painted Culture: Fear and Creativity in the Japanese States, 1760–1829. London:Reaktion Books, Ltd., 2000.Segalen, Victor. Oeuvres Complètes. Edited by Henry Bouillier. Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1995.103

ColophonDesignAnne ChesnutTypeHiroshige, Gill Sans,MinchoPaperMcCoy 80# coverPrintingColormarkSeigle, Cecilia Segawa. Yoshiwara: The Glittering World of the Japanese Courtesan. Honolulu:University of Hawaii Press, 1993.Shen Fu. Six Records of a Floating Life. Translated by Leonard Pratt and Chiang Su-hui. London:Penguin Books, 1983.Spate, Virginia and David Bromfield. “A New and Strange Beauty: Monet and Japanese Art.”In Monet and Japan. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2001, pp. 1–63.Stern, Harold P. Master Prints of Japan: Ukiyo-e hanga. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1969.Stevenson, John. Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. Redmond, Washington:San Francisco Graphic Society, 1992.Suzuki, Juzō and Isaburō Oka. The Decadents: Masterworks of Ukiyo-e. Translated by John Bester.New York: Kodansha International, 1969.Tanizaki, Jun’ichirō. In Praise of Shadows. Translated by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G.Seidensticker. New Haven, Connecticut: Leete’s Island Books, 1977.Turner, Elizabeth Hutton. “The Imaginary Cinema of Pierre Bonnard.” In Pierre Bonnard, Earlyand Late. Edited and with contributions by Elizabeth Hutton Turner, et al. Washington, DC: PhillipWilson Publishers in collaboration with the Phillips Collection, 2002, pp. 52–73.van den Ing, Eric and Robert Schaap. Beauty and Violence: Japanese Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839–1892.Bergyk, The Netherlands: Society for Japanese Arts, 1992.Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. Edited by Peter Ackroyd. Harmondsworth, Middlesex,England: Penguin Books, 1985.Wood, Gillen D’Arcy. The Shock of the Real: Romanticism and Visual Culture, 1760–1860. New York:Palgrave, 2001.Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. “Japanese Art History, 2001: The State and Stakes of Research.”In Art Bulletin 83 (March 2001): 105–122.Catalogue Index by Artistcatalogue number/page numberIkeda Eisen, 23/76Kitagawa Eishi, 12/54Utagawa Hiroshige, 24/78Utagawa Kunichika, 21/72Utagawa Kunisada, 3/36, 4/38, 11/52, 14/58, 15/60, 16/60, 17/60, 18/66, 19/68, 22/74, 26/82, 27/84Utagawa Kuniyoshi, 5/40, 8/46, 9/48, 10/50, 13/56, 20/70, 29/88Shunpūsha?, 7/44Katsukawa Shunsen, 6/42Utagawa Toyokuni, 25/80Kitagawa Utamaro, 2/34, 28/86Utagawa Yoshitora, 1/32Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 30/90, 31/92, 32/94, 33/96, 34/98, 35/100104“The Moon Has No Home”

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