37 - Kyōsai: Tengu and a Buddhist Monk

Kyōsai: Tengu and a Buddhist Monk

Tengu are folkloristic figures of Japan. A sort of  kami or yōkai. They are something in between humans and birds and are depicted with a beak or long nose. The one we see here (right), is clearly bird-like.

Tengu and a Buddhist Monk, is a painting by Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831-1889).

36 - Kuniyoshi: The Okazaki Cat Demon

Kuniyoshi: The Okazaki Cat Demon, about 1850

Utagawa Kuniyoshi loved cats and made innumerable prints with various cat motives. Here he combines cats with yakusha-e. This is a scene from a Kabuki play by Tsururya Namboku IV, "Okazaki Ghost Cat", from 1827. The print was made about 1850, and is called The Okazaki Cat Demon.

35 - Kaigetsudō Ando: Bijin and Attendant

Kaigetsudō Ando: Bijin and Attendant, 1710

Painter Kaigetsudō Ando (1671-1743) founded the Kaigetsudō school, and some of “his” works might very well have been painted by his disciples. He belongs to the few ukiyo-e artists who never made woodblock prints but restricted his work to paintings.

As many East Asian paintings, Bijin and Attendant is painted on silk. That gives the picture a special lustre.

The musical instrument is a shamisen. It has three strings and its closest western relative is the banjo.

34 - Nobukazu: Snow Landscape

Nobukazu: Snow Landscape, about 1890

Snow Landscape, from the series Snow, Moon and Flower for the Minamoto and Taira by Watanabe Nobukazu (1872?-1944). The print is from about 1890.

33 - Toyokuni I: Actor Iwai Hanshirō V as Sukeroku

Toyokuni I: Actor Iwai Hanshirō V as Sukeroku, 1816

Utagawa Toyokuni (1769-1825), or Toyokuni I, was a very influential ukiyo-e artist, best known for yakusha-e, kabuki motives. He changed the direction of how yakusha-e developed and set the standard for more than a generation. He even influenced the kabuki theatre itself.

Through Toyokuni and his students, who included Kunisada and Kuniyoshi, the Utagawa school became dominant within ukiyo-e, a dominance previously held by the Torii school.

The picture shows an uchiwa-e, a fan print, Actor Iwai Hanshirō V as Sukeroku, from 1816.

Fans of kabuki used to carry a fan (no pun intended) with a picture of their idol. However, there were fan-shaped prints in other sub-genres of ukiyo-e as well.

32 - Hokkei: En'ryû zu - The salt dragon

Hokkei: En'ryû zu - The salt dragon

This is a surimono by Totoya Hokkei (1780–1850), one of Hokusai's students. The exact year when this print was produced is unknown, but one can assume that it was made for The Year of the Dragon, and that would give us two alternatives, 1820 and 1832.

The print shows a salt dragon. The poem on the left hand side at the top was written by Ganjotei Hakuyo.

Hokkei is a versatile and interesting ukiyo-e artist. Skilled and clearly inspired by his master, Hokusai, yet he remained highly individualistic.

31 - Sûgakudô: Tit and Maple Leaves

Nakayama Sûgakudô: Tit and Maple Leaves

I don't know much about Nakayama Sûgakudô (active 1850–1860), but he made kachô-e, prints of birds and flowers. This is a Manchurian Great Tit, Maple Leaves, and Late Blooming Cherry. It is number 36 in the series Forty-eight Hawks Drawn from Life, [in Japanese: Ikiutsushi shijûhachi taka], from the 6th month of 1859.

Kachô-e was a sub-genre of ukiyo-e from the very beginning. Already then, flowers and birds had been popular motives in East Asian art for centuries.