Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Sōshin (曽参) on the left and Binshiken (閔子騫) on the right, from the series The Twenty-four Chinese Paragons of Filial Piety (Morokoshi nijūshi-kō - 唐土廾四孝)
1847
13.5 in x 9.5 in (Overall dimensions) color woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Full signature seen on the right.
Cut off on the left sheet.
Seal: kiri
Inscription: Ryūkatei Tanekazu
Tokyo Metropolitan Library - left sheet
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna - left panel
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna - right panel
Tokyo Metropolitan Library - right panel
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts - the print on the right
Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire (via Ritsumeikan University) - left panel only - trimmed
Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire (via Ritsumeikan University) - right panel only - trimmed
Art Institute of Chicago - right panel only
Art Institute of Chicago - left panel
The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, South Carolina
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College - left-hand panel Below is R. Keller Kimbrough's translation of an early edition of the Nijūshikō. It does not specifically apply to these Kuniyoshi prints except in the most general terms.
[5] Bin Shigen 閔子騫 (Min Ziqian)
The Bin family has a wise son, so"Bin Shigen lost his mother when he was young. His father took a second wife, and she bore him two children. The new wife loved her own children deeply, but she despised her stepson. Even in the cold of winter, she would take the ears of reeds and use them to pad his clothes. Because she dressed him in such things, he was chilled to the bone, and when his father saw how he could barely endure, he sought to drive her away. Bin Shigen spoke, saying, “If you drive away your wife, all three children will be cold. As it is now, if I alone can endure the cold, then my two younger brothers will be warm.” Because he dissuaded his father, his stepmother was deeply moved, and from then on she doted on him without reserve, like his very own mother. People of old seem to have been right when they said that the good and bad of a person lie within their own heart."
why should he have resented his stepmother?
Because he keeps her by his father’s side,
all three children escape the wind and frost.
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[6] Sō Shin 曾参 (Zeng Shen)
As the mother gently bites her finger,"One time, Sō Shin went into the mountains to gather firewood. His mother was minding the house when a close friend arrived. The mother wanted to provide for their guest, but Sō Shin was away, and since their family was poor, she had nothing to serve him. “Come home, Sō Shin!” she said to herself, and she bit her finger. Sō Shin was gathering firewood in the mountains, but suddenly he felt his heart race. He rushed home, whereupon his mother explained everything from beginning to end. She bit her finger, just like that, and because of Sō Shin’s profound filial piety, he responded from far away, demonstrating the deep affection that exists between parents and their children. Generally speaking, Sō Shin’s filial piety differed from that of others, because his was a connection from heart to heart. There must be an extraordinary truth in this."
the child’s heart is pained beyond endurance.
Shouldering his firewood, he takes so long to return;
the bonds of blood are profoundly deep.
****
The text below was composed by Ryūkatei Tanekazu (柳下亭種員: 1807-58).
The text of the print on the left reads: 曽参（そしん） 孔子（こうし）が門弟（もんてい）の宗（そう）として大賢人（けんじん）也父は世（よ）を早（はや）くなし母に仕（つか）へて孝心（かうしん）尤（もつとも）深（ふか）し或時（あるとき）山林（さんりん）に薪（たきゞ）を樵日（こるひ）あり母獨（ひとり）家（いへ）にあるに親（したし）き友（とも）遠（とほ）くより来（きた）りぬ是を餐（もてな）さんとすれども一人にて心にまかせず曽参（そしん）はやくもどれかしと思ひ其指（ゆび）を噛（かめ）ば参（しん）山にあつて惣（たちまち）☆（むね）いたむゆゑ母の我（われ）を待侘（まちわび）給ふよと察（さつ）し即時（そくじ）にもどり期[ママ]（かく）と告（つぐ）るに母是をきゝて汝（なんぢ）が孝心（かうしん）によつて感通（かんつう）する所也とこたへぬ 種員謹記
The book entitled The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety was written by the Chinese scholar Guo Jujing during the Yuan Dynasty. His pen name was Yizi, and he is known in Japan as Kaku Kyokei. The book recounts the self-sacrificing behavior of twenty-four sons and daughters who go to extreme lengths to honor their parents, stepparents, grandparents, and in-laws. Many of the images in this series appear Western in style, rather than Japanese, and were probably copied from Italian prints. The prints in this edition appear to have been printed two per ōban sheet (about 9.5 x 13.5 inches) and folded to chuban pages (about 9.5 x 6.75 inches). The were once bound together in an album.
Japanese name: Sôshin
Chinese name: Tsêng Ts’an
Sôshin was gathering wood in the forest one day when his mother back at home bit her own finger in anger at her son’s absence. Feeling his mother’s pain, he immediately returned home. Here he is suddenly sensing his mother’s distress.
Robinson: S60.6
Japanese name: Binshiken
Chinese name: Min-tzu-ch’ien
Binshiken entreated his father to have mercy on his new stepmother after his father found out that Binshiken was being mistreated. Here Binshiken is sweeping the floor for his reclining stepmother.
NOTE: This is a copy of a European print of Juno and the Peacock
Robinson: S60.5
[The above English-language information is all taken directly from the Kuniyoshi Project.]
The text on the panel on the right reads: 閔子騫（ひんしけん） 孔子（こうし）が門弟（もんてい）十哲（じつてつ）の一人早（はや）く母に後（おくれ）父後妻（こうさい）を娶（めと）り二人の弟（おとゝ）を生（うめ）り心邪（よこしま）にして実子（しつし）には衣服（いふ[く］）に綿（わた）を入子騫（しけん）には芦（あし）の花（はな）を入て着（きせ）ければ父が車（くるま）を引（ひく）に身（み）凍（こゞ）へ手（て）に持（もち）し綱（つな）をおとせり父是（これ）によつて衣服（いふく）の弟（おとゝ）に異（ことな）るを察（さつ）し継母（まゝはゝ）を去（さら）んとす子騫（しけん）悲（かなし）み止（とゞめ）て母在（いまさ）ば我獨（われひとり）寒（さむ）し在（いまさ）ざる時は兄弟（きやうだい）三人寒（さむ）しといふ母是（これ）をきゝて身（み）の非（ひ）を悔（くや）み直（たゞち）に心を改（あらため）しとなん 種員謹記
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Illustrated:
1) The right panel in color in Kuniyoshi by Jūzō Suzuki, Heibonsha Limited, Publishers, 1992, no. 200.
2)The right panel is illustrated in color in 歌川国芳展: 生誕200年記念 Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Exhibition to Commemorate the 200th Anniversary of his birth, 1996, #112, p. 100.
3) in black and white in Ukiyoe ni egakareta Chūgoku ten (浮世絵 に 描かれた 中国 展), Ukiyoe Ōta Bijutsukan, 1982, cat. #109, n.p., left side only.
4) in a full page in black and white the right-hand side only in Kuniyoshi by B. W. Robinson, London, Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1961, #39.
5) the right-hand panel in a black and white reproduction in an article, 'Early European influences on Japanese pictorial Art; by Marten Dorhout, in Andon 48, July, 1994, fig. 21, p. 131.
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There are other copies of the print on the right in the Hachinohe Clinic Machikado Museum and the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden.
Historical - Social - Ephemera (genre)
Fushimiya Zenroku (伏見屋善六) (publisher)
Ryūkatei Tanekazu (柳下亭種員 - 1807-58) (author)
Nijūshikō (二十四孝: The twenty-four filial exemplars) (genre)