Hishikawa Moronobu facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Hishikawa Moronobu
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Bijin-ga hanging scroll (detail)
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| Born | 1618 Hodomura, Kyonan, Awa Province, Japan
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| Died | 25 July 1694 (aged 76) |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Known for | ukiyo-e |
Hishikawa Moronobu (Japanese: 菱川 師宣; 1618 – 25 July 1694) was a Japanese artist known for popularizing the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock prints and paintings in the late 17th century. He consolidated the works of scattered Japanese art styles and forged the early development of ukiyo-e.
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Early life
Born in Hoda at the distant end of Edo Bay, Moronobu was the son of a well-respected embroiderer of rich tapestries who produced it for the use of temples and wealthy patrons. After moving to Edo in the 1660s, Moronobu, who had likely learned skills from his father's craft, and studied both Tosa and Kanō-style painting. He thus had a solid grounding in both decorative crafts and academic painting, which served him well when he then turned to ukiyo-e, which he studied with his mentor, the Kanbun Master.
Work
The earliest known illustration of Moronobu that can be dated comes from his work titled One Hundred Warrior Poets from 1672, although earlier works are yet possible to surface. By the mid-1670s Moronobu had already become the most important ukiyo-e printmaker, a position he maintained until his death. He produced more than 100 sets of illustrations, perhaps as many as 150. Though it is difficult to attribute to him many unsigned examples. Very few of Moronobu's single-sheet prints have survived, and most, if not all, are unsigned.
Moronobu was not the "founder" of ukiyo-e, as some early scholars surmised. Instead, he made an assimilation of inchoate ukiyo-e designs by previous artists, a consolidation of genre and early ukiyo-e painting and prints. It was Moronobu who created the first truly mature form of ukiyo-e, in a style of great strength and presence that would set the standards for generations of artists who followed. Moronobu's mastery of line has often been cited in assessments of his oeuvre, as well as the interactive arrangement of figures, which seem always to serve a dramatic function not usually seen in the work of his predecessors.
Some of Moronobu's prints are found with hand coloring, but this specimen is a sumizuri-e (ja:墨摺絵) (print with black pigment only) in its original, uncolored state. There is something almost elemental in Moronobu's line work and figure placements in black and white, which most often was diminished into more decorative effects when colors were applied by hand. The black and gray lines and solid areas contrast boldly with the white paper to produce a range of tonal values, with emphasis on the shape and movement of the lines and the "positive" values of the white spaces. As in many other designs by Moronobu, the artist was inventive in his use of curvilinear forms juxtaposed against straight diagonals.
Groupings of 12 images had been common for centuries in court and genre paintings. Among the more famous surviving early specimens were the painted single sheets by the master Tosa Mitsunobu (1434–1525). Thus Moronobu's adoption of a grouping of 12 was conventional enough, particularly as such an arrangement afforded a context in which to alter the furnishings, clothing, and design patterns, matched more or less to the months of the year.
In 1685, the ukiyo-e book Kokon Bushidō ezukushi (古今武士道絵つくし, "Images of Bushidō Through the Ages") by Moronobu was published. It features heroic popular tales of samurai warriors with simple descriptions per artwork. The title includes the word bushido and it was meant for children which shows that it had spread among the general population.
Moronobu's work is held in numerous museum collections around the world, and in the Library of Congress.
Gallery
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Women dressmaking and artisans at work, between 1675 and 1695, Brooklyn Museum.
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Book cover of Kokon Bushido Ezukushi (Bushido Through The Ages) (1685)
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Two beauties (ink and color on silk)
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See also
In Spanish: Hishikawa Moronobu para niños
