woodblock print | Ubaguito.us

I have always been fascinated with Japanese design, and the fabrics (and certainly the design itself) of my bags and pillows and other items–I am currently in the throes of designing scarves using the wonderful kimono silks I have been collecting–all reflect that interest. Many of the Kasuri indigos and all of the silks come directly from the Ichiroya Kimono Flea Market. Recently Ichiroya has added affiliate shops. My favorites: Rikyu, a tea mart with interesting items associated with the tea ceremony –tea accessories and some folk art; Ichiroya Antiques where I have been finding amazing Christmas gifts–an antique red lacquered sewing box and a wonderfully playful clay Bizen rabbit; and most recently a fine arts shop, Shukado, with some marvelous Japanese woodblock prints, from which I have just convinced BW to buy me this extraordinary Kuniyoshi 1852 woodblock print and now have the distinction of having been their first online customer.

Here is the history of my print (with some further translation from the description on the website–my additions in bold type):

The artist is Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)

In the late 1840s, Kuniyoshi began to illustrate actor prints. He produced the 70 Medetai (happy) series in 1852. At the background of a beauty, his pupil depicted well-known specialties from all over Japan. I assume this means that the artist himself completed only the figure of the woman/beauty with pupil/apprentices working on the scene of the pottery workers in the background.

The series title Sankai Medetai zu e , and the title of the piece Atama ga itai (headache) and Satsuma Yakimono are shown to the upper right of the image. The artist signature Kuniyoshi and his seal are shown on the bottom right corner.

In this piece, satsumayaki (a type of Japanese earthenware pottery) and the industrial artists are depicted on the back. In the front, there is a woman who is turning down for headache, but the relationship between the satumayaki and the woman is unknown.

One of the things I loved about teaching was that I was constantly learning new things, not only to know what my students didn’t know, but possibly more importantly, to learn what they did know–about their generation, two removed from mine–their films, their music, their art. Retired, I continue to learn, to be daily surprised anew by the things I don’t know–even some things I thought I knew. A case in point. Returning to the theme of names and naming, I had oh, so cleverly named my latest series of bags Indigo & Geisha. With few exceptions the fabrics are traditional Japanese indigos, and the flaps that decorate the front of the bags are beautiful Japanese women’s faces from a series of prints by Kona Bay which are listed as The Geisha Series. I knew, from my own art history, that these were mainly reproductions from early woodblock prints by the 16th century artist, Utamaro, but what I didn’t know was that calling them all Geisha was simply wrong. I guess that Geisha has become a generic word for these women, when, in fact, the generic word should be Bijinga, meaning beautiful woman. According to Merriam-Webster, a Geisha is “a Japanese girl or woman who is trained to provide entertaining and lighthearted company especially for a man or a group of men.” One of Utamaro’s favorite models, and I believe the one pictured above, was a waitress in a tea shop. Still others in the titles of the prints were called Courtesans–a different kind of woman, providing more than entertaining and lighthearted company?–or simply a Geisha by a different name? Maybe a “rose by any other name…” but I think not. Oh, and I also learned that indigo is “ai” in Japanese. So should the series be called Ai & Bijinga?

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Atami ga itai (Headache)

When is a geisha…