Chats on Japanese Prints

by Arthur Davison Ficke

The work of Kiyonobu varies greatly in attractiveness. Some of his prints have more force than beauty; and it requires little effort to understand the contempt of the aristocracy for these crude manifestations of the mob's taste. Yet even in these grosser designs Kiyonobu realizes the power and passion of the dramatic rôle which he depicts, achieving an effect of tragic rage that is no less intense and impressive because of its lack of subtlety. Most of his prints suggest the shout and roar of bombast: this is precisely what they were meant to convey. But there are a few of another type, that embody the masterful power of line of the first Torii, joined with a simplicity and refinement of design which his work frequently lacked, or which, if present, is disguised from us by the repellent violence of the figure portrayed. One must see Kiyonobu's rarest and greatest prints in order to realize why he is regarded as so great an artist.

I have written of Kiyonobu as if he presented no difficulties; but such is not the case. A stumbling-block for the student is created by the fact that there exist many two-colour prints signed Kiyonobu. It is recorded that Kiyonobu died in 1729, many years before the date fixed upon by Fenollosa and most other authorities as the date of the invention of colour-printing. If we are to believe that the numerous colour-prints signed Kiyonobu are by the first Torii, we must either put back the date of the invention of colour-printing to an extent that is improbable in view of other facts, or we must abandon the recorded date of Kiyonobu's death and regard his life as having extended well beyond the middle of the eighteenth century. Formerly this difficulty was not appreciated, and all work signed Kiyonobu was confidently attributed to the first Torii; but at present it is generally regarded as likely that there was a second Kiyonobu who produced all the two-colour prints signed with that name. Whether he produced any hand-coloured prints is uncertain. This Kiyonobu II theory has met with scepticism in certain quarters, and some students prefer to accept the alternative of one of the two other possible solutions of the puzzle. Certain differences in style between the hand-coloured and the two-colour work confirm the Kiyonobu II theory to such an extent that I have felt constrained to adopt it here. It may be disproved eventually, but it is the best solution available at present. I shall therefore take up Kiyonobu II as a separate artist, without again drawing attention to the unsettled state of the relation between him and Kiyonobu I.

TORII KIYOMASU.

Kiyomasu.

Kiyomasu, the second head of the Torii School, has been variously regarded as the brother or the son of the first Torii. The question of this exact relationship is a matter scarcely worth all the words that have been wasted upon it. What is important is the well-known fact that the two kinsmen worked side by side in the same studio for many years producing work of precisely the same type. The most experienced judges would find it impossible in some cases to distinguish between their productions.

Kiyomasu was born about 1679; some authorities say 1685; but if it is true, as Von Seidlitz states, that there exists a play-bill by him which is dated 1693, the earlier of the two dates is the only possible one. Since Kiyonobu was born in 1664, the theory that they were brothers is the more probable. Kiyomasu's chief work was done contemporaneously with Kiyonobu's, in black and white, tan-ye, and urushi-ye; but later he produced some prints in two colours. His subjects were chiefly women and actors; he executed a few small landscapes and some fine representations of birds. His work must have continued some years after 1743, but appears to have terminated a considerable time before his death in 1763 or 1764.

A more prolific artist than the first Torii, Kiyomasu was in some particulars an equally distinguished one. Possibly his originality was less marked in that he merely followed the actor type which had already been created by Kiyonobu; but in the power of his draughtsmanship, reminding one again and again of a tempered Kwaigetsudō, he is no secondary figure. Nothing can surpass the vigour of linework in some of his large figure prints—great curves made with a heavily charged brush, expressing with notable simplicity the beauty of flowing drapery. His masterpiece is undoubtedly that superb figure in black and white of the actor Kanto Koroku (in the Buckingham Collection, Chicago), drawn in the Moronobu-Kwaigetsudō manner, which is reproduced in Fenollosa's "Epochs of Chinese and Japanese Art" with the erroneous attribution of Kiyonobu. This print is a triumph. Nothing finer was designed by all the succeeding generations of artists.

The Second Kiyonobu.

Kiyonobu II, who signed all his work simply Kiyonobu, was a son of Kiyomasu, and probably a nephew of Kiyonobu I. His whole name was Torii Kiyonobu Shirō. He appears to have worked chiefly from about 1740 to about 1756, the period of the predominance of the two-colour print. All two-colour prints signed Kiyonobu are by this artist and not by the first Torii, who died before the process was invented. Kiyonobu II is regarded by many collectors as the best representative of the two-colour technique. His figures have a delicacy and grace that is alien to the work of his two predecessors in the Torii School; and his handling of the green and rose designs of these prints is charming. The great insistent colour masses and monumental figures of his predecessors undergo a change in his hands to a more detailed division of colours and a slightening of the forms of the bodies and limbs. Also the old passionate vigour of brushwork disappears in the new technique—a loss that seems a grave one.