Yashima Gakutei (八島岳亭) (artist 1786 – 1868)
Ichiro's Picture Album (Ichiro gafu 一老画譜)
1823
6 in x 8.7 in (Overall dimensions) Publisher seal: Gasendo
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
National Diet Library
British Museum
National Museum of Asian Art - only one double page shown, but they have the whole volume Album of Gakutei drawings in a complete volume with orange covers. There are illustrations and texts are color woodblock prints. This work reflects Gakutei's skill as a landscape painter who used the Chinese classic "Hsi yu chi" as his model. It contains plum, cherry flowers, snow scenes, bamboo, human figures, willow, mountains, pine, rain, wind, and other classical subjects.
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"Ichiro was one of Gakutei's art-names. The prints appeared first in a privately published 'kyoka' book in two volumes entitled 'Sansui kikan kyoka-shu' (Collected 'kyoka' and Landscapes of Strange Sights)." This volume illustrates the continuing vitality of the tradition of 'kyoka' illustration in the woodblock book form.
The British Museum curatorial files list this volume in literature:
Brown, Louise Norton, 'Block Printing and Book Illustration in Japan', London and New York, 1924, pp. 190-1; Toda, Kenji, 'Descriptive Catalogue of the Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago', Chicago, 1931, p. 277.
Most of the quote and information given directly above is taken directly from the British Museum curatorial comments.
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Two versions of 'The Night Scene' are illustrated in The Art of the Japanese Book by Jack Hillier, vol. 2, p. 858, #s 563 and 564. Hillier wrote on pp. 854-855: "Gakutei's designs for kyōka books frequently took the form of landscapes, and he employed a wide variety of styles. One of his best known and admired books is Ichirō Gafu (Ichirō was one of Gakutei's art-names), which has a date of 1823, but this is, in fact, a reprint, omitting the verses, of the very little known Sansui Kikan Kyōka Shū, published, according tot he bibliography of kyōka-bon, Kyōka Shomoku Shūsei, in 1820, though the few known extant copies of the book are undated. That titile, 'Collection of Kyōka adn Unusual Landscapes', indicates that Gakutei intended to depart from the orthodox itineraries, and when Minamoto no Mitsuhiro wrote his preface to the later edition he ponted out that the artist 'avoided following the ancients and went his own way', which could refer both to the places visited and the style in which they were drawn. Although, the results are uneven, there are a few strikingly original prints, adn in this book, and in others later. Gakutei seemed conscious of the potential of the woodblock medium and able to induce the print-makers to experiment."
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There is a copy of this volume in the collection of Columbia University.
picture book (ehon - 絵本) (genre)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)