| Art Encyclopedia: Suzuki Harunobu |
(b ?Edo [now Tokyo], ?1725; d Edo, 1770). Japanese printmaker, book illustrator and painter. A central figure in the development of ukiyoe ('pictures of the floating world') woodblock printmaking during the mid-Edo (1600-1868) period (see JAPAN,
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| Biography: Suzuki Harunobu |
Suzuki Harunobu (ca. 1725-1770) was one of the six great masters of the Japanese wood-block print and was responsible for inventing the fully developed color print called nishiki-e, or brocade painting.
Born in Edo (modern Tokyo), Harunobu was one of the large group of artists whose work was devoted to the portrayal of scenes from contemporary life, especially the Kabuki theater and the courtesans of Yoshiwara, the amusement district of Edo. Tradition has it that Harunobu was a pupil of the famous Kyoto printmaker Sukenobu, but it is clear that he must also have studied the printmakers of the Torii school as well as Toyonobu and Chinese figure painters of the Ming period.
Harunobu's early works are of little distinction, generally following the conventional style of the day. At the age of 40 Harunobu emerged as the master of the color print. The event which established his reputation took place in 1765, when a group of amateur poets decided to print a deluxe edition of an illustrated calendar which they wished to distribute among their friends. Due to the genius of Harunobu and the excellence of the engraving and printing, which for the first time used multiple colors, this work at once became the rage of Edo. Encouraged by the enthusiastic reception of the color prints, the artist embarked upon a period of great activity during which he produced no less than 600 prints in 6 years, but his brilliant career was cut short when he died at the age of 45.
The prints of Harunobu, which many Ukiyo-e collectors regard as the best ever made, are outstanding both for the beauty of their design and the superb quality of their execution, in which the finest natural colors and the best-quality cherry wood were used. Harunobu's subjects were graceful and slender young girls, some of whom were courtesans, though he was more apt to portray beauties from the streets and shops of Edo. Another group of his prints dealt with erotic subjects, which were treated with the refinement and sophistication for which he was famous. His vision of life is a very poetic one in which 18th-century Edo is transformed into a world of charm and elegance, with willowy beauties in colorful kimonos meeting their lovers, viewing nature, or simply pursuing the daily activities of their domestic life.
Although Harunobu was merely one of hundreds of Ukiyo-e artists who made prints dealing with these subjects, he is outstanding for the lyrical quality of his images and the delicate beauty of his colors and designs. Reducing the forms to flat, clearly defined, decorative patterns of color and showing a technical mastery rarely achieved in the history of Ukiyo-e, Harunobu produced some of the masterpieces of this art, works which were much admired in his own life and aroused the enthusiasm of artists like Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas when the prints were introduced to Paris in the late 19th century.
Further Reading
Studies of Harunobu include Yoné Noguchi, Harunobu (1940); Ichitaro Kondo, Suzuki Harunobu, English adaptation by Kaoru Ogimi (1956); and Lubor Hajek, Harunobu (trans. 1958).
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Suzuki Harunobu |
Bibliography
See catalog of his works by J. Hillier (1970); biography by I. Kondo (1956); study by S. Takahashi (1968).
| Wikipedia: Suzuki Harunobu |
Suzuki Harunobu (鈴木春信, 1724 – July 7, 1770) was a Japanese woodblock print artist, one of the most famous in the Ukiyo-e style. He was an innovator, the first to produce full-color prints (nishiki-e) in 1765, rendering obsolete the former modes of two- and three-color prints. Harunobu used many special techniques, and depicted a wide variety of subjects, from classical poems to contemporary beauties. Like many artists of his day, Harunobu also produced a number of shunga, or erotic images. During his lifetime and shortly afterwards, many artists imitated his style. A few, such as Harushige, even boasted of their ability to forge the work of the great master. Much about Harunobu's life is unknown.
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Though some scholars assert that Harunobu was originally from Kyoto, pointing to possible influences from Nishikawa Sukenobu, much of his work, in particular his early work, is in the Edo style. His work shows evidence of influences from many artists, including Torii Kiyomitsu, Ishikawa Toyonobu, the Kawamata school, and the Kanō school. However, the strongest influence upon Harunobu was the painter and printmaker Nishikawa Sukenobu, who may have been Harunobu's direct teacher.
Harunobu began his career in the style of the Torii school, creating many works which, while skillful, were not innovative and did not stand out. It was only through his involvement with a group of literati samurai that Harunobu tackled new formats and styles.
In 1764, as a result of his social connections, he was chosen to aid these samurai in their amateur efforts to create calendar prints. Calendars prints of this sort from prior to that year are not unknown but are quite rare, and it is known that Harunobu was close acquaintances or friends with many of the prominent artists and scholars of the period, as well as with several friends of the shogun. Harunobu's calendars, which incorporated the calculations of the lunar calendar into their images, would be exchanged at Edo gatherings and parties.
These calendar prints, would be the first nishiki-e (brocade prints). As a result of the wealth and connoisseurship of his samurai patrons, Harunobu created these prints using only the best materials he could. Harunobu experimented with better woods for the woodblocks, using cherry wood instead of catalpa, and used not only more expensive colors, but also a thicker application of the colors, in order to achieve a more opaque effect. The most important innovation in the creation of nishiki-e was the ability of Harunobu, again due to the wealth of his clients, to use as many separate blocks as he wished for a single image; Just 20 years previously, the invention of benizuri-e had made it possible to print in three or four colors; Harunobu applied this new technique to ukiyo-e prints using up to ten different colors on a single sheet of paper. The new technique depended on using notches and wedges to hold the paper in place and keep the successive color printings in register. Harunobu was the first ukiyo-e artist to consistently use more than three colors in each print. Nishiki-e, unlike their predecessors, were full-color images. As the technique was first used in a calendar, the year of their origin can be traced precisely to 1765.
In the late 1760s Harunobu thus became one of the primary producers of images of kabuki actors of Edo, and of similar and related subjects for the Edo print connoisseur market. Often, a patron's name will appear on the print along with, or in place of, Harunobu's own. The presence of a patron's seal, and especially the omission of that of the artist, was another new development of this time.
Between 1765 and 1770, Harunobu created over twenty illustrated books and over one thousand color prints, along with a number of paintings. He came to be regarded as the master of ukiyo-e during these last years of his life, and was widely imitated until, a number of years after his death, his style was eclipsed by that of new artists, including Katsukawa Shunshō and Torii Kiyonaga.
In addition to the revolutionary innovations that came with the introduction of nishiki-e, Harunobu's personal style was unique in a number of other respects. His figures are all very thin and light; some critics say that all his figures look like children. However, it is these same young girls who epitomize Harunobu's personal style. Richard Lane describes this as "Harunobu's special province, one in which he surpassed all other Japanese artists - eternal girlhood in unusual and poetic settings"[1]. Though his compositions, like most ukiyo-e prints, may be said to be fairly simple overall, it is the overall composition that concerned Harunobu. Unlike many of his predecessors, he did not seek to have the girls' kimono dominate the viewer's attention.
Harunobu is also acclaimed as being one of the greatest artists of this period in depicting ordinary urban life in Edo. His subjects are not restricted to courtesans, kabuki actors, and sumo wrestlers, but include street vendors, errand boys, and others who help to fill in the gaps in describing the culture of this time. His work is rich in literary allusion, and he often quotes Japanese classical poetry, but the accompanying illustrations often gently poke fun at the subject.
Many of his prints have a solid, single-color background, created by a technique called tsubushi. Though many other artists used the same technique, Harunobu is generally regarded as having used it to the strongest effect. The colored background sets a mood and tone for the entire image.
Harunobu’s works have been featured three times in commemorative postage stamps issued by the Japanese post office:
His works have also been depicted in topical stamps from the Federated States of Micronesia, Sierra Leone and St Vincent.
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