Show Us Your print

[Bernard]

Malcolm, your contribution to this thread is greatly appreciated. Please, keep posting !

 

Bernard D

[Bugyotsuji]

Boring without Malcolm here. :sulk:

[hobnails]

Here is one I got twenty-odd years ago its a bit beat up, no idea what the subject matter is.

[SteveM]

Its the actor Bandō Mitsugorō, and the artist is Kunisada. 1815 - 1830s? 

This is one of a series of a lot of Bandō Mitsugorō prints.

He must have been the Brad Pitt of his generation.

I wish I could find the exact one, but I can't locate it in any of the databases. 

[raaay]

All ,

 

these are not woodblock prints,  but paintings on silk all measure approx.  700mm x 500mm ,  just trying to se if anyone can recognise the signatures ? and confirm they are Japanese artists .

 

 

 

There was originally six of these paintings , but unfortunately the antique dealer retained two of the paintings for his on collection !  i never seen the other two  , apologies for the poor photos and reflections

 

 

     

 

 

 

      

[Brian]

Malcolm, as the mainstay of anything to do with Ukiyo-e here, please don't hold back. You are the single reason I even got into the subject and have those ones waiting for me to receive from auction.
Your input, info and humour is badly needed.

[Bugyotsuji]

Brian, Malcolm will not be seeing this.

Unfortunately he felt forced to close off all activity here.

Thanks everyone for your understanding.

[Brian]

That would be a huge loss. Can someone pm me how to get hold of him please? I think his email on file is altered.

[SteveM]

For Ray's post #185

 

The first one is Ohara Koson

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohara_Koson

 

The second one, the artist's name is Yoshitaka (芳高), but I can't identify him beyond his name.

 

The third and fourth are an artist named Shunsui (春翠). As above I cannot identify the exact artist. There were a few who used this name.

[raaay]

Steve 

 

once again many thanks ,     

 

 

on another note,  i hope what ever happened  to cause Malcolm to withdraw from the NHB ?       maybe and hopefully Brian can  convince him  to rejoin the group.

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Guys,

 

I'm Back, with perhaps a more appropriate username!

 

Nothing to see here!

 

Move on!

 

The Artist previously known as Malcolm, now signing as Malcolm T, when he can work out how to do it, and zero ratings......... ROFL.

 

Cue for Handel's "Sarabande":

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWMR79IMQ-M

 

Pip Pip Cheerio Mateys!!

 

[Brian]

[Bernard]

A "modern" Japanese print ?

 

There  are inscriptions written in pencil in the bottom, but I am unable to decipher.  Any information about this print ?

 

Bernard D

[Bugyotsuji]

Bernard, the most important details are faint and on the edge of impossible to expand, on my mobile screen anyway!

[Bernard]

Thank you Piers. Here are more photos. Hope this helps...

Bernard D

[Ken-Hawaii]

With prints, what is considered as "modern?" Post-WWII? Post-Meiji? I don't have a clue.

[Baka Gaijin]

Good morning everyone,

 

A few posts back, I used the term pentimenti, being the visible trace of other drawing beneath the final design.

 

Literally "evidence of the hand", showing the decision making process as the artist works the layout of the elements of the drawing.

 

Here's an example by Yoshitoshi.

 

[Brian]

Wow..fascinating indeed. So was this an unfinished print, or is this from a sort of planning sketch book? And is there an example of what this design looked like once completed?
Love to see the planning evolved and how the thought process works.
Was he snatching the flag from the soldier at bottom right?

[Baka Gaijin]

Hi Brian, this would have been a preparatory drawing.

 

The dealer Richard Kruml,who originally displayed it, described it as probably showing Satsuma troops battling with an Imperial soldier on a rearing horse.

 

http://www.japaneseprints-london.com/1085/

 

As the production of a woodblock print involved the destruction of the artist's final drawing, a number of preparatory sketches would be done to get the balance correct, then a crisp line drawing would have been produced, which would be pasted to the first block and the Master block carver would start the cutting process..

 

This final drawing was known as the Hanshita - e.

 

This will fill in the gaps:

 

http://www.aisf.or.jp/~jaanus/deta/h/hanshita.htm

 

Here's a similar, albeit reversed rearing horse in this triptych by Yoshitoshi:

 

https://data.ukiyo-e.org/bm/images/AN00694564_001_l.jpg

 

[Bernard]

Malcolm, I like your Yoshitoshi drawing alot. One can almost feels the characters moving. Sometimes, this spontaneity is lost in the final print, with the intervention of the engraver.I have also observed this phenomenon in oil paintings , where it may happen that the final result, although  from the master’s hand himself, does not show the freshness found in the preparatory drawing. 

Here is another Japanese drawing, without pentimenti (“repentirs” in French), possibly by Hokusai, of a more simple and quiet subject, but definitely by the hand of a great artist.

 

Bernard D

[Brian]

Wow. Love that. You can feel the power in the muscles and there is just so much expressed with simple lines.
I think the Japanese are masters of expressing rain.

[SteveM]

Bernard, regarding your steam locomotive print

 

https://www.gerrishfineart.com/urushibara-yoshijiro-in-the-docks-woodcut~2134

[Bernard]

Great ! Thank you very much, Steve.

 

So, the inscriptions in pencil on the lower edge are likely "Y.Urushibara" (left) and "Frank Brangwyn" (right).

 

Bernard D

[Baka Gaijin]

Good morning Bernard,

 

I like the Hokusai attributed drawing, the question arises, which Katsushika?

 

Katsushika Hokusai himself or Katsushika Oi?

 

Fascinating story:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katsushika_%C5%8Ci

 

Have a look under a glass of about 10x magnification and you will see thin and wispy pentimenti under and around the finalised ink in the main body and also amid the diagonal strokes.

 

 

 

Well discovered Steve, re the collaboration between Urushibara and Brangwyn.

 

Urushibara was quite a prolific artist in his own right, sometimes using the name Mokuchu, here is his rendition of a pile of old stones just down the road from me:

 

 

This article from the "Grauniad"  should fill in the gaps:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2017/feb/14/frank-brangwyn-yoshijiro-urushibara

 

 

Re: "Grauniad" (UK Joke, you'll have to be a bit of a Private Eye to work it out).

 

[Bernard]

Hello Malcolm,

 

Thank you for your links, always fascinating.

 

I wish I had more informations about my father’s collection. He left a short information note for many of his objects, but not for all. According to these notes, many pieces came from the Th. Duret and B.H. Chamberlain collections.

 

If Théodore Duret is a well known collector of Japanese art, B.H. Chamberlain is rather famous as a “Japonologist “ and for his controversy with Lafcadio Hearn, although Nathan Chaïkin, in the foreword to his book “The Sino-Japanese War” (1984) evoques “(...)the discovery of this amazing collection on the Sino-Japanese War, gathered by Basil Hall Chamberlain during his tenure as Professor Emeritus at the Tokyo Imperial University (...)”.

 

It seems that Chamberlain, who died unmarried in Geneva in 1935,  brought back from Japan quite a lot of cultural artefacts, that passed along to Charles Bolard-Talbère, his secretary and reader during his last years (cf. “Basil Hall Chamberlain, Portrait of a Japonologist” by Yuzo Ota, 1998, p.112 ).  Mr. Bolard was still living in Geneva in the 1950s and he sold at home objects from the Chamberlain’s collection. My father purchased many pieces from Mr. Bolard and, as a child, I accompanied him several times (souvenirs, souvenirs...). I post a photo of a surimono bearing Chamberlain’s seal in Japanese. Concerning this particular drawing of a man under the rain, I have no evidence of its origin. I simply remember that my father, who posessed many drawings and surimono  by Hokkei, had told me that this one was by Hokusai. This is why I was cautious with its attribution...

 

Bernard D

[Baka Gaijin]

Good Evening Bernard,

 

Such names, Luminaries in the truest sense, despite this current age of instant online expertise.

 

That which you have thus described, surely must fill in some valuable gaps in the perceived history of old school, "feet on the ground" 19th Century contributors to the burgeoning field of Pre and Early Modern Japanese Studies.

 

Thank you

 

[SteveM]

Hello Bernard, Malcom,

 

Maybe the figure in the sketch Bernard has, is a study for one of the figures in Sudden Shower of Shin Ohashi Bridge?

 

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/26545/sudden-shower-over-shin-ohashi-bridge-and-atake-ohashi-atake-no-yudachi-from-the-series-one-hundred-famous-views-of-edo-meisho-edo-hyakkei

 

And Bernard I am trying to decipher the print from Basil Chamberlain's collection. They are poems related to Autumn, but I can't quite nail any of them yet. I can verify that they carry Chamberlain's seal. Fascinating stuff. 

 

[Baka Gaijin]

Good call Steve,

 

I'm currently checking out the 15 volumes of the Hokusai Manga at the National Diet Library.

 

It's got the look of one of those image themes that an artist plays around with for years, until the right combination shows up.

 

A bit like Rembrandt's images of beggars or Picasso's images of bulls.

 

[Baka Gaijin]

I've found two in the National Diet Library Collection:

 

I feel that the composition is an allegory upon the enormity of Nature and the fleeting insignificance of Man:

 

Here in Volume 7 Frame 20, the theme is visited using large leaves:

 

https://dl.ndl.go.jp/view/jpegOutput?itemId=info%3Andljp%2Fpid%2F851652&contentNo=20&outputScale=4

 

Volume 10 Frame 24, the theme using a mat against snow:

 

https://dl.ndl.go.jp/view/jpegOutput?itemId=info%3Andljp%2Fpid%2F851655&contentNo=24&outputScale=4

 

[Bernard]

Thank you guys, you are great !

 

Malcolm, your search reminds me that my father posessed the 15 volumes of Hokusai manga, but he sold them  (for CHF 4000.-, probably in the 1970s. I don't know if this was a fair price, but to him it was certainly a substantial amount).

 

Bernard D