Yōshū Chikanobu

Yōshū Chikanobu 楊洲周延 (1838-1912) 

PROFILE

Yōshū Chikanobu was a leading artist1 of the Meiji period (1868-1912), a time when Japan saw the reinstatement of the emperor as ruler and was undergoing rapid westernization. He was one of the most prolific woodblock print artists of this period, working with both traditional subjects, such as actors, courtesans, scenes of famous sites, beautiful women, and with topical subjects, such as the Satsuma Rebellion (1877) and the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895.)2 Chikanobu used the flat planes and decorative patterning of the ukiyo-e tradition to striking effect, adding brilliant colors, especially reds, purples, and blues to his compositions.  He worked in a style that often reflected western conventions in art.

Artist Names

In addition to Yōshū Chikanobu (楊洲周延) he used the artist names (gō) Ikkakusai (一鶴斎), Yōshūsai (楊洲斎), Hashimoto Chikanobu (橋本周延), Naoyoshi (直義) and Toyohara Chikanobu (豊原周延).

BIOGRAPHY

Little is known about Chikanobu’s early life.  Born in Niigata Prefecture as Hashimoto Naoyoshi (橋本直義), he was the eldest of two children.  His father was Hashimoto Naohiro (died 1879) who was a lower level retainer of the Sakakibara daimyo.   As a youth Chikanobu trained in the martial arts and in the late 1860s fought in the Boshin Civil War (1868-1869) with the Shōgitai, supporting the Tokugawa shogun’s military government against those seeking to install a modern government under the auspices of the emperor.  In 1868, he was captured during the fighting, but was let go when it was confirmed he was a well-known artist.

As a child, he showed a talent for painting and he trained in a private studio teaching Kano School painting.  He first studied print design with disciples of Keisai Eisen (1790-1848) and then around 1852, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, with Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi (1797-1861).   During his time at Kuniyoshi’s studio Chikanobu may have known Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), who joined the studio in 1850.  In about 1855 or 1856, Chikanobu moved to the studio of Utagawa Kunisada I (1786–1865).  Coats states that Chikanobu’s earliest works were influenced by Kunisada’s style, “but he moves away from the Kunisada figural models by the 1880s.  Over time Chikanobu’s women become taller, thinner and more graceful in their gestures, establishing a new canon of beauty for the mid-Meiji period that reflected a revival of interest in prints of a hundred years earlier.”1

In about 1862, Chikanobu began working with Toyohara Kunichika (1835–1900) studying actor portraiture, which Kunichika, his contemporary, was famous for.  Later on Chikanobu and Kunichika would compete in designing actor prints for the same kabuki plays, but Chikanobu would go on to an expanded range of subject matter.

In 1871 Chikanobu established himself in Tokyo as a woodblock print artist, designing prints of familiar subjects such as the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters, scenic views and actor prints.  In tracing the evolution of Chikanobu's actor prints, Coats writes, “…he moved away from the Utagawa school models he had been taught by Kunisada and Kunichika.  Chikanobu’s actor prints changed from being posters in the 1870-80s, like others produced in the Utagawa school tradition, to compositions in the late 1890s that are individual works distinctly in his own style.”

In the mid-1870s, Chikanobu, like many other artists, designed kaika-e, prints that documented Japan's modernization and the Emperor Meiji and the imperial court's promotion of that modernization. 

In 1877, Chikanobu would document, in over 45 triptych prints, the events around the Satsuma Rebellion, a short-lived samurai insurrection, led by Saigo Takamori (1827-1877).

In 1884, Chikanobu created at least ten triptychs on the attempted assassination of Japan's representative in Korea, Hababusa Yoshitada and the burning of the Japanese legation.  These prints, issued very shortly after the incident, brought him "enormous success."2

By the late 1880s he and much of his audience were becoming dismayed by the rapid changes taking place in Tokyo and were increasingly nostalgic about the lost world of the shogun. Throughout the 1890s, Chikanobu produced single sheet prints, diptychs and triptychs, which promoted traditional values and highlighted aspects of Japanese culture that were being forgotten.  He created prints about filial piety and neighborhood festivals to provide an alternative to what many saw as the deterioration of Japanese society caused by imported ideas and modern methods. Chikanobu's last works in the early years of the 20th century featured brave samurai and heroic women of Japan's past, models of appropriate behavior for the future. By 1905, his print production had dwindled.

Chikanobu died at the age of seventy-five from stomach cancer in 1912.

"The Obituary of Yōshū Chikanobu" Miyako Shinbun (Capital City Newspaper), October 2, 1912

Yōshū Chikanobu, who represented in nishiki-e the Great Interior of the Chiyoda Castle and was famous as a master of bijin-ga, had retired to Shimo-Ōsaki at the foot of Goten-yama five years ago and led an elegant life away from the world, but suffered from stomach cancer starting this past June, and finally died on the night of September 28th at the age of seventy-five.

His real name being Hashimoto Naoyoshi, he was a retainer of the Sakakibara family of Takata domain in Echigo province. After the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate, he joined the Shōgitai and fought in the Battle of Ueno. Thereafter he fled to Hakodate, fought in the Battle of the Goryōkaku under the leadership of Enomoto Takeaki and Ōshima Keisuke, and achieved fame for his bravery. But following the Shōgitai’s surrender, he was handed over to the Takata domain. In the eighth year of Meiji, with the intention of making a living in the way that he was fond of, went to the capital and lived in Yushima-Tenjin town. He became an artist for the Kaishin Shinbun12, and on the side, produced many nishikie pieces. Regarding his artistic background: when he was younger he studied the Kanō school of painting, but later switched to ukiyo-e and studied with a disciple of Keisai Eizen; and next joining the school of Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi, called himself Yoshitsuru. After Kuniyoshi’s death, he studied with Kunisada. Later he studied nigao-e with Toyohara Kunichika, and called himself Isshunsai Chikanobu. He also referred to himself as Yōshū.

Among his disciples were Yōsai Nobukazu (楊斎延一), Gyokuei (楊堂玉英) an uchiwa-e painter and several others. Gyokuei produced Kajita Hanko. Since only Nobukazu now is in good health, there is no one to succeed to Chikanobu’s bijin-ga, and thus Edo-e, after the death of Kunichika, has perished with Chikanobu. It is most regrettable. 

- trans. by Kyoko Iriye Selden (October 2, 1936, Tokyo-January 20, 2013, Ithaca), Senior Lecturer, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, ret'd.

Signatures and Seals of the Artist (a sampling)

The following are representative signatures from this collection.  For additional signatures see the website http://www.chikanobu.com/signature.asp [accessed 1-2-24]

[1] 楊洲斎周延 Yōshūsai Chikanobu with 楊洲 Yöshü seal (1877); [2] 楊洲橋本直義敬画 Yōshū Hashimoto Naoyoshi kei ga with 楊洲 Yōshū seal; [3] Yōshūsai Chikanobu hitsu 楊洲斎周延筆 with 年玉 Toshidama seal (1877); [4] 應需 楊洲画  Ōju Yōshū ga (1877); [5] 楊洲周延筆 Yōshū Chikanobu hitsu (1881); [6] 楊洲周延筆 Yōshū Chikanobu hitsu with Toshidama seal (1887); [7] 楊洲周延筆 Yōshū Chikanobu hitsu with Toshidama seal (1890); [8] 楊洲周延 Yōshū Chikanobu (1894); [9] 楊洲周延 Yōshū Chikanobu with 年玉 Toshidama seal (1902)

Prints in Collection

[BELOW PRINTS MARKED WITH AN ASTERISK GIFTED TO THE JORDAN SCHNITZER MUSEUM OF ART, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON]

click on thumbnail for print details