Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)
View of Yokkaichi (Yokkaichi no zu: 四日市之図) from the chuban series Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi: 東海道五十三次之内)
ca 1838
Signed: Gototei Kunisada ga (五渡亭国貞画)
Publisher: Sanoya Kihei
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - published by Moriya Jihei
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - published by Moriya Jihei and Sanoya Kihei
National Diet Library - published by Moriya Jihei and Sanoya Kihei
Spencer Museum of Art - published by Moriya Jihei
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
British Museum - Hiroshige's 'Yokkaichi Miegawa' version
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art - they date their copy to 1836
Bryn Mawr
Honolulu Museum of Art - published by Moriya Jihei
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California
Princeton University Art Museum This print is number 44 in the series. The curatorial files at the Museum für angewandte Kunst in Vienna say: "Here Kunisada has again adhered to the landscape depiction in Hiroshige's model. However, the hat that has been blown by the wind lands at a greater distance than in Hiroshige's depiction. Kunisada places the woman in the foreground between the hat owner and the hat."
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Gian Carlo Calza in his description in Hiroshige: The Master of Nature of the original Hiroshige print re-imagined in this scene said: "The two figures are icons representing two different sentiments. On the path to the left, a porter is shouting as he chases his straw hat snatched away by the wind and sent rolling off; he is carrying a large load and appears very anxious. To the right, on the delicate bridge, a man moves slowly in the opposite direction, serenely gazing out over the open sea. It is a simple graphic image, compact, almost geometrical. He stands steadfast like the trunk of the willow, yet mobile with his yellow mantle blowing in the wind like the fronds of the tree."
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In Tokaido Landscapes: The Path from Hiroshige to Contemporary Artists, 2011, #44, p. 56, speaking of the original Hiroshige print it says in a text by Sasaki Moritoshi: "The setting is the area at the mouth of the Mie River, but he landscape is so ordinary we would not know this without the subtitle."
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In Hiroshige: l'art du voyage, Paris, 2012, p. 90 it is suggested that the original inspiration for this print is Hokusai's 'Sunshū Ejiri' from his series of 36 Views of Mt. Fuji.
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Muneshige Narazaki in Masterworks of Ukiyo-e: Hiroshige, the 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō (p. 75) noted: "Yokkaichi is also a port town and a major industrial center; and in Hiroshige's day a major market was held on the fourth day of every month - which is what the name of the station means."
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Illustrated:
1) in color in a small reproduction in Utagawa Kunisada: His World Revisited by Sebastian Izzard, p. 26, fig. 15. Izzard wrote: "Later, Kunisada copies those backgrounds from the work of his friend Hiroshige, who had now emerged as a celebrated landscape print artist. Even as the latter's Tōkaidō set was still in production, Kunisada was commissioned by two publishers, Sanoya Kihei and Moriya Jihei, to create a half-size series of beauty prints featuring woman from the fifty-five stations. He used Hiroshige's landscapes as models for backgrounds... He then finished of the series with his own scenes, derived from illustrated travel guide books, since Hiroshige's set had not yet been completed."
2) in a small color reproduction in Kunisada's Tokaido: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints by Andreas Marks, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 74, T24-44.
Sanoya Kihei (佐野屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)