Kakemono-e - 掛物絵 (genre )

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Biography:

"Woodblock prints served many purposes and were viewed in many different ways. Some prints were published as sets in albums, others were published separately and kept loose in boxes or mounted in albums by collectors. In Harunobu's time, and even more in the nineteenth century, prints were pasted on walls and standing screens as decoration. Other prints were used as fans and to decorate boxes, and others were meant to be mounted as scrolls and hung as paintings. The earliest of these large prints were called kakemono-e, or prints in the format of hanging scroll paintings. None, to my knowledge, has survived in its original mounting, but some show signs of mounting along the edges. The early kakemono-e were larger than the available paper, so large sheets were made by piecing. In 1718 or shortly thereafter, this format was discontinued, and print designers turned their attention to smaller, more brilliantly colored prints, printed on thicker more durable paper. In the late 1730s large sheets of this paper were used for the first large prints designed in western perspective, and shortly afterwards, hand-colored kakemono-e reappeared, narrower than the older prints, but carefully colored, and printed on one sheet of fine, thick paper. The most prolific and successful designers in this new format were Toyonobu and Masanobu, who may have introduced it."

Quoted from: Japanese Woodblock Prints: A Catalogue of the Mary A. Ainsworth Collection by Roger Keyes, 1984, p. 26.

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"Early ukiyo-e printmakers made large vertical prints by cutting a sheet of paper in half and attaching the two pieces end to end. This format was known as kakemono-e because its proportions resembled those of hanging scrolls (kakemono), designed to fit within architectural alcoves (tokonoma). Since hanging scrolls were mounted with borders of sumptuous brocades, kakemono-e, too, were often embellished with decorative, but less expensive, paper mountings. In the late eighteenth century, Torii Kiyonaga was the first artist to join two pieces of ōban paper together to create a similarly attenuated format (roughly 78 x 26 cm.). Though far less popular than single-sheet ōban prints or horizontal diptychs and triptychs, kakemono-e remained a standard format for ukiyo-e production. "

Quoted from: Worldly Pleasures, Earthly Delights: Japanese Prints from the Minneapolis Institute of Art, text by Yōsuke Katō, p. 320.

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The curatorial files at the British Museum, in describing a kakemono-e by Eisen says:

"In the early nineteenth century the custom caught on of vertically linking two large prints to form a kind of substitute for the hanging scrolls that were typically used to decorate a display alcove (tokonoma) in a reception room. This special format of print came to be known as a ‘hanging-scroll picture’ (kakemono-e) and was very popular. Auspicious subjects such as Seven Gods of Good Fortune and Pine and Crane were often used for this kind of print, also landscapes and figures from mythology and history. However, Eisen and his teacher Kikukawa Eizan (1787–1867) also created many examples of courtesans. Traditionally, pictures of beautiful women by ukiyo-e artists had taken the form of specially commissioned hanging-scroll paintings, and here was an inexpensive substitute. Demand must have been enormous. This example has preserved its original dyed paper borders, and crudely carved and blacked roller ends, in place of the silk brocade borders and ivory or wood roller ends typically used to mount more expensive paintings. Eisen was celebrated for his voluptuous paintings of beautiful women redolent with the fragrance of powder and paint. Floating world art in the early nineteenth century was dominated by the Utagawa school. Eisen, however, was influenced by Hokusai, and was unusual for the independence he maintained from the Utagawa school artists during the Bunka (1804–18) and Bunsei (1818–30) eras. His artistic rivalry and artistic exchange with Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1864) is a fruitful topic for further study."