Chats on Japanese Prints

by Arthur Davison Ficke

But just as Harunobu toward the end of his life felt these effects to be only partially adequate, and turned to the larger world of pillar-prints—so from the beginning Kiyonaga found this jewelled delicacy to be incompatible with the scope that was the need of his specific genius. He discarded all those lovely tricks of the engraver and the printer which had been almost an end in themselves to Harunobu. He abstained from giving to his backgrounds Harunobu's exquisite neutral tones, feeling that they could only suffer by the addition of tint. He was no colour-dreamer, but a great harmonist of lines and spaces; and the lofty skies and wide horizons that create distance behind his figures attest his wisdom.

Similarly he was unable to content himself with the flawless grace of line that Harunobu and Buncho had mastered. Either from the powerful and massive brush-strokes of Moronobu or from the even more expressive brushwork of Shigemasa, he derived a style that is one of his chief glories. No use of line was ever more virile than his. The brush seems to vibrate in his hand; the strokes are instinct with life along every fraction of their length; the line narrows, widens, swirls, breaks, and flows in perfect response to the will of the mind behind it. So individual is Kiyonaga's touch that it would be possible for an expert to attribute to him a print of which only one square inch survived.

KIYONAGA: YOSHITSUNE SERENADING THE LADY JORURIHIME.
A triptych. Each sheet size 15 × 10. Signed Kiyonaga ga. Spaulding Collection.

Plate 29.

It is characteristic of Kiyonaga's style that he did not confine himself to the small square sheets used by Harunobu and the small oblong hoso-ye used by Shunsho. His most important work is in the form of the large full-size sheets which he adopted from Koriusai. In these he rose to a height unparalleled in Ukioye; and M. Koechlin is quite right in esteeming Kiyonaga's sense of elaborate composition, here so impressively displayed, as his chief grandeur.

In the series of large sheets without backgrounds, "Designs of Spring Greenery," one of which is reproduced in [Plate 25]—Kiyonaga produced work not very different from that of his collaborator Koriusai. Only in certain sheets is there a harmonious grasp of the full possibilities of pictorial composition. But proceeding to other series, the gap widens. In the series "Present Day Beauties of the Yoshiwara," he advanced to his own unique field. Possibly he touched the supreme height in the great group "Brocades of the Customs of the East," which includes such well-known prints as the two saltwater carriers on the seashore, the three singers at the bath, the two ladies conversing with a flower-vendor, and the print reproduced in [Plate 26].

From these prints Kiyonaga proceeded to still further combinations, devising compositions in which two, three, or even five sheets unite into one wide design. For the triptych we have Kiyonaga to thank. The triptych was not, it is true, literally Kiyonaga's invention; many artists in the First and Second Periods had produced hoso-ye sheets in sets of three that could be joined together to form one picture. In fact, each set of three was originally one sheet printed from one set of blocks; and it was convenience and economy rather than the idea of producing any real three-piece composition that led to the production of these sets. The prints were almost always conceived as separate pictures; they seldom gain by juxtaposition, and frequently suffer by it.

Far other was the impulse that led Kiyonaga to his diptych and triptych compositions. The great triptych of the "Disembarkment," the diptych of the "Night Expedition," the "Serenade" triptych reproduced in [Plate 29], and the whole series of diptychs called "Twelve Months of the South," to which belongs the marvellous "Terrace by the Sea," are all dominated by an indigenous rhythm of line and colour. These designs have not Shunsho's startling force, nor Harunobu's minutely detailed grace, nor Koriusai's richness; all these elements Kiyonaga sacrifices for a broader sweep and a more unified pictorial quality. His designs co-ordinate the elements of line, colour, figures, and landscape into total impressions of such large harmony as we have not seen before and shall hardly see again. To over-estimate the genius that produced the grouping of his best work is impossible; to realize it fully requires careful analysis, so unobtrusive and inevitable are its effects.