"Ukiyo- is a way of life

Author: Lu Kai

My old classmate returned from a trip to Japan and gave me a set of Japanese ukiyo-e bookmarks. Of the four patterns, I only know one of them is Katsushika Hokusai's "Kanagawa Surf", and there are three more, I'm sorry, I don't know. After checking the information, I learned that it was Katsushika Hokusai's "Kaifeng Kuaiharu", as well as Utagawa Hiroshige's "Asakusa Thunder Gate" and "Palace". Since the beginning of the bookmark, I have the urge to make up for the ukiyo-e, so I bought back a copy of "Three Masters of Ukiyo-e" (Beijing Fine Arts Photography Publishing House), hardcover, the text is illustrated, it is not difficult to read, it is a good introductory book.

Ukiyo-e is a Japanese printmaking art that mainly depicts worldly customs and arose in Japan during the Edo period. What is ukiyo-e? In the literal sense, it refers to the uncertain human world, but the Japanese are accustomed to using it to express the good wishes of the world to be impermanent and to enjoy life in their lifetime. These two people on the bookmark, together with Kitagawa Kaoru, are the representatives of ukiyo-e. Each of the three has its own focus, with Kitagawa Katsumi excelling at painting beauties, Katsushika Hokusai being a ukiyo-e genius, and Kakugawa Hiroseki being a master of landscape painting.

From a personal aesthetic point of view, I prefer beauty painting, and Kitagawa Kaku is good at the subject of beauty painting, he has a woman bathing, a woman reading, a woman serving tea, a woman with an umbrella, a woman who weaves cloth, a woman who is cool, a woman who combs her hair... It seems that all kinds of occasions in life can be drawn at your fingertips. If you look closely at Kitagawa's paintings, you will find that the women in his pen are elegant and calm, but each beauty also portrays a clear personality characteristic, and the posture and face are unique. Interestingly, Kitagawa Kaoru, who loves to paint beautiful people, has also painted several self-portraits of herself, and in these self-portraits, without exception, all of them are painted with beautiful women around him, I don't know whether it is "painting plums to quench thirst", or whether this is true in life.

Katsushika Hokusai, when you mention him, can't help but mention the famous "Kanagawa Surfing". This painting has almost become the symbol of Japanese ukiyo-e, which is highly regarded not only by Chinese art lovers, but also by many of Europe's greatest artists. Some people pointed out that the scroll pattern in Van Gogh's Starry Night is borrowed from the elements of "Kanagawa Surf". Whether van Gogh had "Kanagawa Surfing" in his mind when he painted "Starry Night" is not clear, but in the background of Van Gogh's other famous painting "Tang Ji Daddy", you can clearly see the ukiyo-e pattern.

Katsushika Hokusai was a painting genius who lived a long life, learning to paint at the age of six, and his artistic age lasted for more than eighty years. In the long process of art, he often changed his stage name, and each name change represented a transition to a new level of his style of work. In his early years, Katsushika Hokusai's ukiyo-e works were dominated by kabuki artists, and later, he also painted beauty paintings, but unlike Kitagawa Kakuma, Katsushika Hokusai's beauties were not so plump, but thinner and longer.

Later, Katsushika Hokusai began to create ukiyo-e landscape paintings, and it was landscape paintings that made him famous, typical of which were Mt. Fuji, the waves, plants, and people. His series of landscape prints, Thirty-Six Views of Fugaku, published at the age of Kojiki, became the most important work of his entire career, and "Surfing in Kanagawa" was one of the thirty-six scenes.

In his later years, Katsushika Hokusai encountered a strong opponent in the field of landscape painting distribution, that is, one of the three masters, Utagawa Hiroshige. Hiroshige Utagawa is known as a great master of ukiyo-e landscape painting, and the most famous ones are the "Famous Paintings" "Fifty-three Times of Tokaido" and "100 Views of Edo", which depict famous places in various places. A major feature of his paintings is that the climate pervades the entire picture, with snow, rain and fog playing a leading role, and using perspective to render a strong sense of poetry, forming his own unique style. Utagawa Hiroshige also created beauty paintings, but unlike Kitagawa Kaoru, most of the beauties in Utagawa's pen are used as foils for landscape paintings, and the landscapes in the paintings are more vivid because of the beauty.

After reading "Ukiyo-e Sanjie", I firmly remembered the name of Sanjie, and also remembered the explanation given by a Japanese writer in the book to ukiyo-e, who said: "Live in the moment, enjoy the moonlight, snow, cherry blossoms and bright red maple leaves, indulge in singing, drink sake, forget the troubles of reality, get rid of the worries in front of you, no longer discouraged, like a hollow pumpkin, floating in a trickle." This is called 'ukiyo-e'." At the end of the day, ukiyo-e conveys a way of life. (Lu Kai)