30 - Chōki: Cat's Cradle

Chōki: Cat's Cradle, about 1804

Eishōsai Chōki (active about 1786-1808) was a student of Toriyama Sekien, who was also the teacher of Utamaro. It is possible that Chōki was the adopted son of Sekien.

The couple on the picture are Okiku and Yosuke. They are supposed to be lovers, but I don't know anything more about them. Here they are playing Cat's Cradle, a game with cords that, in one form or another, exists almost everywhere in the world.

Prints by Chōki are relatively rare and expensive.

29 - Kuniyoshi: Yôkyô (Yang Xiang)

 

Kuniyoshi: Yôkyô (Yang Xiang), 1848

The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety is a book by Chinese scholar Guo Jujing, who wrote under the pseudonym Yizi. In Japan, they call him Kaku Kyokei. He lived during the Yuan dynasty in China (1260–1368).

It describes 24 cases of extreme filial loyalty, a subject that was a part of Confucian moral values.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi made several series of prints of “paragons of filial piety”. In 1848 came Morokoshi nijûshi-kô, [唐土廾四孝] - “The Twenty-four Chinese Paragons of Filial Piety, Part I”, from which this week's print is taken. It is called Yôkyô (in Chinese Yang Xiang). Yôkyô was a boy who jumped in front of his father to protect him from an attacking tiger. The tiger was scared by Yôkyô's unhesitating action and turned away. The print shows Yôkyô, his father, and the approaching tiger.

28 - Moronobu: Beauty Looking Back

Moronobu: Beauty Looking Back

The picture this week is “mikaeri-bijin” [beauty looking back] a painting by Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694), who was the first true ukiyo-e artist. He set the norm for bijinga, a norm to a large extent still defining bijinga as a genre. But his “beauty looking back” is not only artistically interesting, it has also influenced the Japanese language.

見返り美人 – mikaeri-bijin - became a Japanese term for a beautiful woman looking back. But in modern Japanese it has a more special meaning. It is a girl or woman looking beautiful from behind, but, when she turns around, proves to be ugly from the front. The concept contains a degree of disappointment. I don't know of any other language having a special word for this.

There is no reason to believe that the name connoted ugliness or disappointment for Moronobu. That came later.

27 - Yoshikazu: The Angry Ghost of Nitta Yoshioki Takes His Revenge

Yoshikazu: The Angry Ghost of Nitta Yoshioki Takes His Revenge

This is The Angry Ghost of Nitta Yoshioki Takes His Revenge (Nitta Yoshioki no rei okotte ada o mukuu zu), from 1852 - a triptych by Utagawa Yoshikazu, who was active about 1850-1870.

Nitta Yoshioki (1331-1358) was a samurai who, in 1358, was executed by drowning in Tama River. He fought the Ashikaga clan, who held the Shogunate 1336-1573.

There is still a shrine dedicated to Yoshioki as Nitta Daimyōjin, the so-called Nitta Shrine at Yaguchi no Watashi. There is a railway station in Japan, Musashi-Nitta Station, which was named after the Shrine.