Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Nissaka (日坂): The Nightly Weeping Rock (小夜の中山夜啼石) from the series Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui - 東海道五十三対)
mid 1840s
9.875 in x 14.125 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō
(Marks 127 - seal 21-095)
Hagi Uragami Museum of Art
National Diet Library
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
British Museum
Chazen Museum of Art
Harvard Art Museums
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Ritsumeikan University
Walters Museum of Art
Google maps - Nissaka
Muzeum Sztuki i Techniki Japońskiej Manggha, Krakow
Lyon Collection - Nissaka station by Kunisada
Ashmolean Museum
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan)
Museum of Oriental Art, Venice (via Ritsumeikan University)
Ritsumeikan University - Sadayoshi version of Kuniyoshi's original design
Pushkin State Museum
Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida
Spencer Museum of Art
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden) via Ritsumeikan University
The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts (via Cultural Japan)
The National Museum, Prague There are nine prints from this series, Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui - 東海道五十三対), in the Lyon Collection. See also #s 382, 815, 816, 819, 861, 951, 1022 and 1095.
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"Sayo no nakayama is a mountain pass between the town of Nissaka and Kakegawa, in Shizuoka prefecture. It is mentioned in waka poetry as one of the most difficult passes of the Tōkaidō, together with Hakone and Suzuka. It was famous for the 'nightly weeping rock' (yonaki ishi) and the 'child-rearing-candy' (kosodate ame), after a legend, according to which one faithful Buddhist woman who was pregnant was killed by a bandit while traveling to visit her husband. The kannon (Buddhist goddess of mercy) from nearby Kyūen-ji caused a stone by the side of the road to cry for help, which was heard by a priest (probably the kannon in disguise), who took the child from the woman's womb and fed it with a candy. When the boy grew up he revenged his mother's death. After that, the temple changed its name to Kosodate-bosatsu (child-rearing bosatsu) and the candy has been sold at a local tea-house as meibutsu. The stone was removed from the street in 1877..."
Quoted from: The Tōkaidō Road: Traveling and Representation in Edo and Meiji Japan by Jilly Traganou, fn. 94, p. 237.
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There is another copy of this print in the National Gallery, Prague, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.
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Illustrated:
1) in color in Kunisada's Tōkaidō: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints by Andreas Marks, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 104, #T78-26.
2) in a small black and white reproduction in Kuniyoshi: The Warrior Prints by B. W. Robinson, 1982, p. 16, fig.11, S44.26.
3) three times in color in Tōkaidō Texts and Tales: Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada, edited by Andreas Marks, University Press of Florida, 2015, on pages 32, 92 and 172.
4) in a poor, black and white reproduction in Andon 22, Spring, 1986, p. 22
5) in a full-page color reproduction in Japanese Ghosts and Demons, edited by Stephen Addiss, pl. 10, p. 43, 1985.
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The original Tōkaidō was established by the Kamakura bakufu (1192-1333) to run from Kamakura to the imperial capital of Kyoto.
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The Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui: A collaborative work
Andreas Marks wrote in 'When two Utagawa masters get together. The artistic relationship between Hiroshige and Kunisada' in Andon 84, November 2008, pp. 37 and 39:
"The artistic relationship between Hiroshige and Kunisada entered a new period in 1845, when both artists were commissioned to contribute to the series Fifty-Three Pairs of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui). The Fifty-Three Pairs of the Tōkaidō is an example of a series where a number of artists were commissioned to contribute complete and individual designs under a specific theme. A few years before, the Kisokaidō series by Hiroshige and Eisen had been published with the same concept. This concept became quite common in the second half of the 1840s until the early 1850s, and sometimes the artists were supported by their disciples who drew inset cartouches.
The main contributor to the Fifty-three Pairs of the Tōkaidō was actually Kuniyoshi with 30 designs, followed by Hiroshige (21 designs), and Kunisada (eight designs)." This series of 59 ōban falls in a period when designers, actors, writers, and publishers had been imprisoned or expelled from Edo in the aftermath of the so-called Tenpō reforms (Tenpō no kaikaku). Only the joint effort of six different publishers made this series possible."
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In Tokaido Landscapes: The Path from Hiroshige to Contemporary Artists, 2011, p. 88, is a section with prints by Munakata Shiko loosely inspired by the original Hiroshige Tōkaidō series. The artist also wrote the commentaries to accompany these prints. Of the "Weeping Stone": "This is the famous "weeping stone of Sayo" at the ridge of Say. In Hiroshige's woodblock, it was in the middle of the highway. It has since been moved to a small park and encased in a rather ugly arbor. it was probably in February, with plum blossoms blooming. In their fragrant smell, I made this drawing. However, the ink ran no matter how many times we prints this woodblock. Specialists call it "weeping." Perhaps because it depicted the weeping stone, the ink wept. This is the third of my seven wonder."
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About the fan cartouches found at the top of each print in this series
Laura W. Allen wrote about these fan-shaped cartouches on page 9 in 'An Artistic Collaboration: Traveling the Tōkaidō with Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada' in Tōkaidō Texts and Tales: Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada: "At the outset someone decided that the publishers would promote their individual brands through the use of different-shaped cartouches... at the top of hte prints in the set: a bean shape (mame) for Ibaya Senzaburō (active 1810s to 1860s), a fan shape (ōgi) for Ibaya Kyūbei (active ca. 1804 to 1850s), two overlapped snowflake roundels (yukiwa) for Kojimaya Jūbei (active 1790s to 1860s), two overlapped round fans (uchiwa for Enshūya Matabei (active 1760s to early 1880s), a stylized shrimp (ebi for Ebiya Rinnosuke (active 1830s to 1890s), and a square (kaku for Iseya Ichiemon (active 1820s to 1860s). The six men were all former members of the fan makers' guild, and they worked in close proximity to each other, sharing or independently operating shops within the same Edo neighborhood, Nihonbashi Horiechō, all within the blocks designated as Itchōme and Nichōme. It was only the dissolution of the guild system during the Tenpō reforms that allowed other craftsmen, such as these former fan makers, to begin publishing single-sheet prints. The Tenpō reforms thus stimulated not only artistic change - in the development of new themes - but also social mobility, as the fan makers came to occupy new terrain with the publishing industry."
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The text reads:
昔此駅に何某の浪人妻妊娠しける。夫は忠義の為に吾妻へ赴くに其帰を待居たりし。ある夜佐夜の中山沓掛松原にて盗賊出て恋慕し絶ざるにより斬殺し行衛しれす。此女日比念ずる観世音僧と現じ亡婦の懐なる赤子に飴をあたへ養育なさしむ。夫此事をしらず。夢見あしきゆへ急ぎ我家へ帰る道にて夜啼石のはなしを聞てなほなほ奇異の思ひをなし夜にかヽり沓掛松原の石の辺りを通りしに妻の亡霊あらハれくハしき事を物語り懐の赤子を渡し夫より魂魄付まとひて終に敵を討しけり
The translation:
"Long ago, at this station the wife of a certain masterless samurai was pregnant. An obligation took the man to Azuma, and his wife waited for his return. One evening at Kutsukake-Matsubara, Sayo-no-Nakayama Pass, a thief appeared. Overcome by desire, the thief killed the wife, and none knew her whereabouts. The woman had constantly prayed to Kannon, who then came forward in the form of a monk to give sweets to the baby at the mother's breast, and sustained the baby in that fashion. The husband, unaware of this event, had a strange dream and hurried home. Along the way he heard the story of the Nightly Weeping Rock, and he began to have even greater anxiety. As he passed by the rock in the Kutsukake-Matsubara area in the evening, the ghost of his wife appeared. She explained in detail what had happened, and handed the baby to her husband. After that her ghost shadowed him until he finally struck down the thief."
Ibaya Senzaburō (伊場屋仙三郎) (publisher)
Yūrei-zu (幽霊図 - ghosts demons monsters and spirits) (genre)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
boshi-e (母子絵) (genre)