#Yoshitora Utagawa

[nobrashfestivity]

Utagawa Yoshitora Kite-flying at a boys' festival in early spring. Color woodcut by Yoshitora, 1865.

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"BOY, WHERE'S THE FIRE?" -- HOW TO SIGNIFY A FIREFIGHT IN THE EDO PERIOD.

Artist: Utagawa Yoshitora.

Title: The Flowers of Edo Children's Amusement; Fireman, First Squad, "Yo" Brigade.

Date: c. 1858

Details: ARC Ukiyo-e Database

Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, USA.

Source: https://ukiyo-e.org/image/met/DP148993.

[nyaa]

A Japanese Illustrated History of America (1861), pictured: George Washington punching a tiger.

[the-evil-clergyman]

The Fox-Wedding Procession by Utagawa Yoshitora (1860)

[the-cricket-chirps]

Utagawa Yoshitora

Founding of Miyajima

Circa 1850

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In the Western Sea, The Diving Women See the Ghosts of the Heike Clan Deep Under the Water by Utagawa Yoshitora (1843-47)

* * * *

“One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting External ghost, Than an interior confronting That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop, The stones achase, Than, moonless, one's own self encounter In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed, Should startle most; Assassin, hid in our apartment, Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver, He bolts the door, O'erlooking a superior spectre More near.” ― Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

[art-collecteur]

The Hag of Hell (Datsueba) and Her Worshippers, 1849

by Utagawa Yoshitora

[english-history-trip]

A triptych woodblock print depicting London in 1866, as imagined by Japanese artist Utagawa Yoshitora

[japaneseaesthetics]

Notes on Sericulture by Utagawa Yoshitora, 19th century, Japan.

[thekimonogallery]

Japanese warlord Tachibana Muneshige, by Utagawa Yoshitora

[unhonestlymirror]

"Concubine Gozen Tomoe" by Utagawa Yoshitora Ichimosai (1850-1880)

[eucanthos]

47 samurai 四十七士, shijūshichishi

also known as Akō incident (赤穂事件, Akō jiken)

A historical event in which 47 rōnin avenged the loss of their master on January 31, 1703, fully aware of their consecutive death. A legendary moral example of integrity and respect to the samurai principles.

Asano Naganori lord of Akō (now in Hyōgo prefecture) was invited to Edo (now Tokyo) as the 4th member of the official reception group for imperial envoys arriving from Kyōto, during shogun Tokugawa Tsunayoshi's rule. Kira Yoshinaka, retainer of the shogun, had the duty to inform them about the court etiquette.

Kira, annoyed by lord Asano's lack of manners (he didn't offer Kira some informal but hefty bribe/prasent), became insultingly rude. Asano lost his temper, drew his sword and inflicted Kira a minor facial wound, but a sword drawn inside the shogunate was a grave breach of protocol and Asano had to commit ritual suicide at once.

The forty-seven samurai of Asano's bodyguard, reduced to ronin, decided that their code of honour demanded revenge. Taking to ostentatious idleness and dissipation to put both Kira and the authorities off guard, they waited for almost two years. While the oldest, who was in his eighties, was excluded from the attack as witness and messenger of the events, on the night of January 30, 1703, they attacked Kira’s mansion, killed several of Kira's samurai, found him scared shirtless hiding in a closet and decapitated him.

The avengers washed and carried the head to Sengakuji Temple and put it on their lord's grave.

To this day, the story remains popular in Japan, and each year on 14 December, the temple where Asano Naganori and the rōnin are buried, holds a commemorative festival.

Fictionalised accounts of the tale of the forty-seven rōnin are known as Chūshingura. The story was popularised in numerous plays, including in the genres of bunraku and kabuki. Because of the censorship laws of the shogunate in the Genrokuera, which forbade portrayal of current events, the names were changed. The first Chūshingura was written some 50 years after the event.

Utagawa Yoshitora: 47 (45) Ronin Portraits, ca 1840. Ukiyo-e

https://www.britannica.com/event/47-ronin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty-seven_r%C5%8Dnin

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/forty-seven-ronin-incident

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

FIRE-THWARTING HEROES OF THEIR TIME -- "FROM THE END OF THE EDO-SHOGUNATE TO THE MEIJI ERA."

PIC INFO: Spotlight on another Edo firefighter woodblock print, artwork by Yoshitora Utagawa, Groupe E, Groupe 5, The Flower of Edo, Children's Game," c. 1858.

MINI-OVERVIEW: "Fires and fights were known as “Edo flowers” because there were frequent terrible fires in Edo-era, therefore, the firefighters were popular among young people of the Edo-era. Yoshitora was one of the pupils of Kuniyoshi and was active from the end of the Edo-shogunate to the Meiji era. In 1968, he become the second artist of the Ukiyo-e artist ranking, and it tells us that he had actually been known in the Ukiyo-e field. He had especially been known with artworks of the depictions of the new culture which came from overseas and the scenery of Yokohama where thrived as the international town. In the era, general citizens hadn't seen the actual western cultures, architecture from foreign countries, and the fashions, so people could know it from Ukiyo-es."

-- GALLERY SOUMEI-DO (Fine Japanese Prints)

Source: www.soumei.biz/en/edoukiyoe/-/portrait/firefighter.

[bakeshichi]

Thomas Lockley lied thus, ‘Stupid, inferior Japanese enslaved blacks, and we great Christian whites opposed it.’ Rebuttal tweet to that.

The link does not show the full text, so it is reproduced below.

"Why can Thomas Lockley's depiction of the samurai Yasuke in his self-claim nonfiction "Yasuke" be considered a fiction? ⑴The character Yasuke described in "Nobunagako-ki" and "Ietada Diary" appears only a couple of times, and is described as "black as charcoal and eight feet and two inches in height," without mentioning his status. That Yasuke was not a samurai is also evident from the fact that samurais of the time were given family names, and even though their name was not known, their family name was described respectfully. ⑵In addition, it was customary for Japanese warlords to read a poem of resignation and entrust it to their retainers in advance when they were prepared to die. If he entrusted Yasuke to deliver the head and sword to his son before the decisive battle at Honnoji, as mentioned in his book, he must have also entrusted him with a phrase of resignation at that time. Nobunaga, however, did not leave a phrase of resignation, and only his last words, "It can't be helped," have been passed down through the generations. ⑶Finally, although this is not part of the history of the Warring States period, Utagawa Yoshitora, an ukiyoe artist active at the end of the Edo period, left many paintings of foreigners, but none of them depict blacks, whether warriors or slaves. If, as he describes in his book, there was a huge uproar over blacks congregating, there would be no reason for the artist not to paint them. In other words, blacks are rarely seen in Japan, and the idea that black slaves were bought with such relish is nothing more than an illusion."

[konjaku]

木天蓼[Matatabi] Actinidia polygama

Reading it as Matatabi is an Ateji. The following "Mokutenryō" is the usual reading, but this one is not used less often. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ateji

木[Moku] : Tree, wood

天[Ten] : Sky; heavens

蓼[Ryō] : Knotweed(Polygonaceae)

Cats have long been known to love this plant. See the link below. This is a picture book called 猫鼠合戦[Neko nezumi kassen](The War Between the Cats and the Rats) by Utagawa Yoshitora in the late Edo period (1603-1868.) The flag above the head of the black cat in the center of page 6 says またゝび[Matatabi]. https://www.kodomo.go.jp/gallery/edoehon/nekonezumi/index_e.html

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi also drew pictures with the same title. On the page linked below, the white bag is labeled またたび. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/462454/

[thedurvin]

Utagawa Yoshitora, 1865: illustrations of rural France (?), Paris, Washington DC, St. Petersburg, and London