Hello! This is Sachiko sending Shukado Newsletter vol.12.
We are enjoying lovely early summer weather in Tokyo now. Fresh green and flowers are so beautiful.
Do you know who first opened Tokugawa shogunate Japan in the 19th Century?
Commodore Mathew Perry and Townsend Harris, the first US Consul General to Japan are very famous historic figures in Japan, who came to Japan in the black ship to open the country. They appear in every history textbook from elementary to high school level in Japan. I am not sure if the school history textbooks outside of Japan mention about their visit to Japan.
The biggest reason that the United States sent Matthew Perry to Japan was to use it as a "coaling base" or a base where steamships, which used coal, could restock their coal supply. Japan was a perfect location for this because it was at almost the same latitude as San Francisco. The United States Navy already used Hawaii as a port for coaling, but they needed another port for steamships in the east. Other big reasons were improvement of shipwrecked sailors' treatment in Japan and trade.
The other day, I had a chance to visit Tokyo Edo Museum
(http://www.edo-tokyo-museum.or.jp/english/) to see the "The Perry and Harris Exhibition --- The Dawn of US-Japan Relations---". Perry and Harris contributed to concluding the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1858, which opened major ports of Japan to the US vessels. This treaty increased the volume of export from Japan and finally triggered the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate.
The US Deputy Secretary Negroponte enjoyed a visit to this exhibition during his visit to Japan a couple of weeks ago. Why don't you visit there if you are in Japan? This special exhibition opens until June 22.
Some pictures taken there can be seen at the President's blog. (I didn't see the Deputy Secretary when I visited there.)
At the exhibition, it was very interesting to see ukiyo-e portraits of Perry and Harris. All of ukiyo-e prints of their portraits look so different. Some of them are totally based on ukiyo-e artist's imagination and one of them even looked like a famous Chinese warrior.
Although some of those ukiyo-e portraits were far away from their actual images, those ukiyo-e prints were distributed all over Japan after their arrival and spread the information on them such as their height, appearance, the distance between Japan and Washington. It was also very interesting to find
that Perry was depicted like a Kabuki actor while William Heine, a painter came to Japan with Perry, depicted Japanese people in Western style. (e.g. slightly bigger nose and bigger eyes)
In the Edo era, ukiyo-e prints were spread from children to adult and from commoners to samurai.
Ukiyo-e always reflected the latest social trend and news and sometimes served as news media, educational material and pure entertainment. Therefore, the news of the visit of Perry and Harris spread all over Japan in a short period of time.
Different from paintings, ukiyo-e prints were not so highly valued at that time. The low price of ukiyo-e made them accessible even for children. Small sized yakusha-e (actor's portrait) priced around 8 mon (current value of 150 yen or 1.5 dollars considering the fact one bowl of hot soba noodles with no topping priced around 16 mon (presently 300 yen) at that time ).
Although there were high quality nishiki-e prints sold at around 100 mon, the Tokugawa shogunate tried to set the limit of their price in order to restrict commoners' extravagance.
They were mentioned in the book titled "Edo Ukiyo-e o Yomu" written by Tadashi Kobayashi who is a famous scholar of ukiyo-e and Edo culture.
After the U.S.-Japan Treaty of Amity and Commerce was concluded, ukiyo-e was used as packing material for ceramic ware to export overseas. Many people appreciated this "packing material" and some people were even eager to collect them.
Then after the Paris Expo in 1859, Japanese art dealer such as Hayashi Trading and Samurai Trading began to sell ukiyo-e which were not so highly valued in Japan but very popular among people overseas.
The collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1867 caused financial difficulties for many of the feudal lords and had to sell off their collection and bigger volume of Japanese fine arts were exported overseas. Then exporting Japanese fine arts became a big business later on in the Meiji era.
In the next newsletter, I would like to touch upon the reasons why ukiyo-e prints could become so popular overseas and the influence of ukiyo-e on overseas artists.
Well, I would like to wrap up my news letter here by introducing you our recommended items.
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New Arrivals:
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Utagawa Kunisada "Azuma no utsushi-e" Ukiyo-e print
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/108000273/
This is a print created by Utagawa Kunisada between ca.1847 and 1852 and published by Sanoya Kihei.
Utagawa Kunisada (1786 - 1865) who was also known as Utagawa Toyokuni III(He called himself Toyokuni II) was the most popular, prolific and financially successful designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in 19th-century Japan.
Fanciful "Rokaku" (multistoried building) where ocean and mountain are overlooked far away is depicted in this work. Men and women wearing florid kimono are friendly chatting, and the patterns of their kimono and furnishings in the room suggest that the theme of the tale of Genji is hidden in this artwork.
This kind of intellectual game is a part of ukiyo-e's appeal.
and more:
Beautiful landscape painting of Hashimoto Dokuzan, Visit to the Mountain Retreat
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/107008360/
Fantacy san-sui-ga world of Yamada Kaido, Visit to the Retreat on the Water, Landscape with Chinese Poem
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/108001080/
Chinese style bird-and-flower painting of Nanpin-ha Anonymous Artist, Birds and Flowers, Edo Era
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/108000130/
Odake Kokkan's "Celestial Maden" and Kawabe Mitate's Kakejiku depicting misterious beauty (Hanging Scrolls)
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/108000200/
http://www.japanese-finearts.com/item/list2/108000190/
That is all for this week.
Thank you for taking your prescious time for reading this newsletter to the end.
See you next week!
Have a wonderful week!
Sachiko & Chiaki
**We are sending Shukado News Letter - the information of
new arrivals.
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