A THE FIELD OF ART HUMOR IN JAPANESE ILLUSTRATION By Louise Norton Brown ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE AUTHOR'S COLLECTION OF RARE PRINTS MONG other misconceptions in regard to the Japanese is the belief held by many foreigners that they are a stolid people. One might search the dictionary and not find an adjective less applicable to them. They have, it is true, attained a self-control that deceives superficial observers, but under this restraint is all the fire and emotion and effervescence of the Latin races or the Celts. One expression of this volatile and effervescing spirit is a quick wit and a keen humor. A very slight acquaintance with Japanese art will reveal this quality expressed in many forms-in designs for fabrics, lacquer work, fans, carvings, bronzes, screens, and kakemono, and, last but by no means least, in many of their delightful illustrated books. Comic pictorial work probably goes back in Japan to the first immature sketches of her earliest artists, and if the greater part of this work has been lost in the serious religious art that followed the advent of Buddhism into the country, there are still fragments that indicate the humor which animated even the men of the Yamato-ryū. Among these early examples are some drawings discovered a few years ago on the pedestal of one of the carved wooden figures in the Nara Museum. The work belongs to the Tempyō period (eighth century), and was found when repairs necessitated the removal of the figure from its base. Slight as the drawings are, having been dashed off in a moment of waiting, perhaps, by some old artist-priest-the technic in them is by no means crude or primitive. The comic drawings of the eleventh-century priest, Toba Sōjō, are known the world over, and since his time all caricatures have gone by the name of toba-ye among the Japanese. A caricature by Oöka Shunboku in the Wakan Meihitsu Ehon Te-kagami (1720). In the late seventeenth century there arose a galaxy of wits and caricaturists in Ōsaka. The first of these irrepressible spirits was Hanabusa Itchō, who lived between 1651 and 1724. Although he went to Yedo before his twentieth year, and entered the Kanō school as a pupil of Yasunobu, no amount of classical training could kill his love of fun. This tendency was expressed in caricature once too often, and after some outrageous drawings of the Shōgun and one of the latter's fair favorites, Itchō was banished to the island of Hachijō, some five hundred miles south of Yokohama-there to repent and grow in wisdom and seriousness. Delightfully humorous sketches are found in the many books containing his drawings-the "Hanabusa Itchō Hyaku-gwa" (5 vols., c. 1760); the "Itchō Gwafu" (3 vols., 1770); the "Gun From the first volume of the Toba-ye Akubi-dome (1793), by Takahara Shunchōsai. chō Gwayer" (3 vols., 1772), and the rare "Yeirin Gwakyō" (3 vols., 1773); all containing, mixed in with the serious work, most amusing sketches done with characteristic dash and freedom. A close contemporary of Itchō's was the Buddhist priest, Meiyo Kokan, who lived between 1653 and 1717. From Koriyama, near Nara, where he had been a priest in the temple of Saigan-ji, he went to Ōsaka, and finally toward the latter part of his life was made Abbot of Hoön-ji in Kyoto. He studied painting under Kanō Yeino, and some kakemono of enormous size which he made of mythical subjects became very famous. A delightful painted scroll in sumi from his brush, representing the rebuilding of the Daibutsu-den in Nara is one of the temple treasures of Todai-ji in that city. After Kokan's death a book of very clever caricatures by him was printed by his followers. These of Högen by the Shōgunate. He was largely self-taught, and formed his style on close study of the old Kano work. In early eighteenth-century art in Japan his was an important name, not only locally but throughout the country. In time he headed what came to be known as the Dokuritsu or Independent School, and left numerous followers to carry on his work. He dipped into many things in an art way; copying famous old classic paintings by early Chi From the Kishi Empu (1803), by Aoi Sōkyū. drawings appeared anonymously in the nese and Japanese masters, illustrating old "Ruise Sogwa" (3 vols.), in 1724. This early edition was printed on the fine Chinese paper known as toshi, and is excessively rare. In 1735, and again in the Hōreki period, these books were reprinted under the title of "Jimbutsu Sogwa," and Kokan's name, as the artist, is given on the title-page. Religious subjects, priests at their devotions, temple scenes, etc., are all caricatured by this rollicking old monk, and the big, dashing technic of the drawings might have come from Paris last year.. Three contemporary artists, Oöka Shunboku, Hasegawa Mitsunobu, and Heizaburo Nichōsai, were all working in Ōsaka toward the middle of the eighteenth century. Shunboku was an aristocrat, Mitsunobu had leanings toward the Ukiyo-ye style, and Nichōsai was just frankly of the proletariat and frankly vulgar and funny. Shunboku (1688-1772) was first of all a great painter, having been given the degree legends and historical subjects, making drawings of flowers and birds (in the "Meika Jūni-shū"), and producing charming designs for carvers in his "Ramma Dzushiki," a series of three rare books, signed Oöka Haito, and published in 1734. His experiments in color-printing form perhaps the most interesting artistic adventures in his career, for the beautiful and excessively rare "Minchō Seido Gwayen," published in two volumes in Enkyō 3 (1746), is one of the very early examples of full polychrome work in Japan. Shunboku had lighter moments in which dignity was thrown aside, when he indulged in the toba-ye which were just then the rage in the Ōsaka studios. Three famous sets of books of caricatures, although variously attributed at different times to Hasegawa Mitsunobu and Nichōsai, having appeared anonymously in the original editions, are now known to have been Shunboku's work. These are the From the first volume of the Keihitsu Toba-guruma (1720), by Oöka Shunboku. "Keihitsu Toba-guruma" (3 vols., 1720); the "Toba-ye Sango-kushi" ("Comic Sketches of Three Cities"-Spring in Kyoto, Evening in Yedo, and Autumn in Ōsaka-3 vols., 1752); and the "Toba-ye Ögi-noMato" (caricatures of people at different pastimes-3 vols., Hōreki period, and again in 1788 when the earlier books were also republished). Just why Shunboku allowed these clever books to appear unsigned is not known. Probably his position in the art world of the day and the fact that he was known as a follower of the classic methods, and had been given the rank or degree of Hōgen, made it seem beneath his dignity to produce the laughtercompelling if not over-nice sketches in the above volumes. Even if the secret had not been out, however, when the 1788 editions of these books appeared, naming Shunboku as the artist in their advertising pages, it might easily enough have been guessed by the examples of toba-ye in the last volume of the “Wakan Meihitsu Ehon Te-kagami." This famous and delightful book, signed Hōgen Ichiō Shunboku, appeared in six folios in 1720, and although chiefly given up to descriptions and copies of classical work, in it the revived popularity of the toba-ye is spoken of, and examples of it are given on the 13th, 14th, and 15th pages of the last volume. The technic in these drawings is identical with that in the three sets of books of caricatures spoken of, although even now these books are frequently attributed to Mitsunobu and in the "Hayashi Catalogue" were listed as by Nichōsai. This mistake is difficult to understand, because even a superficial comparison of work by the three men reveals such fundamental differences in the style as to prove the drawings to certainly not have been by either Mitsunobu or Nichōsai, whoever else's work they may have been. Of the life of Hasegawa Mitsunobu almost nothing of any importance is known. He used as other signatures the names Nagaharu, Baiōken, and Hasegawa Shō From the Ehon Jugen (1751), reproductions of Hanabusa Itchō's drawings by Ippō. suiken, and we know that he was working which are extremely rare. His "Ehon in the Kyōhō period, since a well-known book of caricatures, the "Toba-ye Fude Byōshi" (3 vols.) appeared in the ninth year of that period (1724), and a rare set of books of kimono designs, in which he collaborated with Tachibana Morikuni, followed in 1727. His most interesting book is an undated kubari-hon or gift book, of one hundred poems and toba-ye drawings of artisans, entitled the "Haikai Futawarai"; a lelightfully humorous folio and excessively Mizuka-Sora" (2 vols., 1780), containing caricatures of actors; the "E-banashi Nichōsai" (4 vols., 1782) with its anecdotes and drawings of authors and artists during the four seasons; the "Katsura Kasane" (1 folio, colors, 1803); and the "Ehon Kotsu Dzue" (3 vols., 1805), are practically never to be found now in the original editions. The "Katsura Kasane" was reprinted under the title of "Saiji Mepokai," but even this reprint is rare. The immense rare. From the Yamato Jimbutsu Gwafu, by Yamaguchi Soken (1804). The "Toba-ye Fude Byōshi" is known chiefly through reprints, the original edition having become practically extinct. The third member of this Ōsaka group of caricaturists was Haizaburo Nichōsai,* a sake brewer, who, in his leisure hours, was given to writing novels, reciting Jōruri ballads, and drawing caricatures, and who later in life became a dealer in curios. His drawings of actors and wrestlers were almost as popular as his comic sketches, and he, himself, was so well known for his witty stories and queer pranks that he was called by a nickname that might be translated as the "crank of Ōsaka." Other names used by him in his work were Matsuya Heitazaemon and Matsuhei. There are about a dozen books illustrated by Nichōsai, all of Sometimes incorrectly spelled and pronounced Jichōsai. ly clever caricatures in this book are beautifully printed in colors on a white ground. It is one of the rarest of the toba-ye books and commands a high price when it comes up for sale. All of these men left followers who produced toba-ye books along with their more serious work. Takahara Shunchōsai, chiefly known as an illustrator of meisho-ki or guide-books, produced one set of amusing toba-ye books. This is the "Toba-ye Akubi-dome" ("Comical Sketches to Prevent Yawning"), published in three volumes in 1793. In Kyōto several of the Shijō-Maruyama and Bunjingwa artists produced delightfully amusing drawings done in a dashing style that would seem ultramodern, did not the dates in the books go back to a century and more ago. |