Lucky dreams five months late

With this post a further 7 months late... all I can hope for is that my PhD thesis does not befall the same fate.

Hacio gave me a calendar for Christmas this year of details from woodcuts by Rinsai Utsushi (active, c. 1869 - 1890).  The image for the month of May stood out, not only is Mt Fuji snow capped in the distance, there is also an Otaka (goshawk) as the detailed feature in the fore-ground, and the artist name stamp in shape of an eggplant.  

The calendar was put out by a Dutch company, and by the looks of things by designers who are not woodcut enthusiasts, otherwise I think the three lucky dream images associated with New Years Eve would appear as the picture for January.
Below is the print in full.

I did a fairly extensive search for some more information on Utsushi. But not much is online- only a brief entry on a commercial woodcut dealers site that lists his main subjects as Kacho-ga or Kacho-e -flowers and birds. This subject matter started to become popular in the Meiji period and was further developed by the Shin hang print movement. 

However  in the West, by the turn of last century "birds and flowers" was considered to be the genre of women "hobbyists" and I wonder whether this dismissive attitude has contributed to the absence of Utsushi's work from the collections of the Smithsonian, British Museum, V& A, and all Australian state art galleries. There are two prints in the Canadian Museum - the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria. The AGGV has the largest holdings of Japanese art in Canada and like many regional museums the collection is often made up from gifts from local citizens, in this case Mr. & Mrs. William Hepler. Unfortunately the online search facility only allows for searches via artist and artwork title, so I was unable to see what else Mr. & Mrs. William Hepler donated and perhaps make an assessment of Utsushi standing within their collection or even to find out some more information about who where the Heplers. 

All of these dead ends and small findings pose the question about what is collectible, what has ongoing cultural significance and what does not. Utsushi's prints sell for US$250 on some Internet print galleries, which is not much but more than some listed on bay. Is it time to start my own Mt Fuji oban collection? Hmmm... that sounds like more procrastination... 

(if you click on the link for Kacho-e and then the link to Parrots and Birds, you can see that the birds are either Macaws or Australian short-tailed parrots... now there another story to look into... but at least that one is somewhat closer to my Phd thesis...)

trademarks and grey clouds

I have been spending the evenings half watching television and looking through museum digital databases for Fuji-san images. This is a 1949 calender published by Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Company and is in the British Museum. The upward-looking composition with a solitary grey cloud in a large field of pink sky creates a striking image. This feeling is given an uncanny twist with the unusually placed heads of the two female "Americans" right along the base of the image, as though they were humpty-dumpty on the edge of a wall, or body-less phantoms.

I was wondering whether it had been mislabeled as a Fuji image till I enlarged the image and saw the companies logo.

The woodcut print is titled Ginza no tasogare-doki - Dusk in Ginza and is by the artist Onchi Koshiro. On the back there is printed a haunting melancohic text written by the artist, each line rich in poetic imagery.

A suit and one grey painting brush are sufficient. The neon of the PX is still like a dream. The new culture of Japan comes flashing from those sharp words. When one walks here, there comes a feeling that the days when we were struck to the ground are already from a distant world. Probably everybody would like quickly to wash away their hateful memories. The narrow pavements make our shoulders rub together. Through this congestion tall Americans stride. Already there is a sort of magnificence here, but the truth is that Japan is under Occupation. It is not necessary to wait for dusk. People have already lost sight of themselves.


There are 445 Onchi pieces in the Museum's collection, unfortunately most of it is not digitally archived but there are a few more Fuji pieces to save for a another post.

Update:

The store in the image is the Tokyo PX, the post office and stores for American servicemen, then located in the Wako Store in Ginza. Ginza was the fashionable going out district in post -war Tokyo

I don't know how I missed this detail before in the notes but the use of Mt Fuji in the logo above is a pun, as the character used for Fujisawa Pharmaceutical has nothing to do with the mountain. The writer of the object notes also comments that the Fugaku Publishing company, which published the calender and other works by Onchi and other post war print artists also uses Fuji in the logo- Unfortunately I couldn't find a scan on the interweb of their logo- only expensive rare books...

Update #2:
Lawrence Smith speculates that Onchi poetic text was for a Japanese audience as it was printed in Japanese only, which was unusual during the period of American occupation.

Out the window and on a screen

Two Shunga views
Kunisada "Playing cards"

and
One attributed to Toyoshige from an album of 12 lovers in front of decorative screens. This series has a wonderful scene within an scene framing of the screens- but only one of Fuji.

Both images from Ukiyo-e Gallery from thier shunga gallery. They have quiet a large selection of images- more available here than from some museum websites. Their descriptions of the condition of the prints can be quiet amusing such as this one for Utamaro, "The kiss":

Very Good. Excellent colors. Margins trimmed; very minor soiling.

or Kunisada II, "Two couples under a blue umbrella" :

Exceptionally clean for "shunga."

There is some information on each print but quiet enough, wiki commons also has quiet a lot of images but also not so much information. Anyone know of a good scholarly texts on this art form?

A secret glimpse

It's dangerous, but I have taken up op-shopping again. I have managed to break (or manage) my addiction for 4 years. But perhaps because I have the difficult job of writing my thesis paper, combined with a hard to find object (Ken Done for this project), coupled with a gamblers luck or finding some nice designer pieces (Dior and Ralph Lauren shirts, YLS, Hermes and Zenga ties), and the addiction is back in full swing. Yesterday when I was in a local op-shop sorting and scanning through the approximately 50 ties in the back for The Done when I spotted this odd design. It's not the sort of tie I would necessary buy- I am collecting stripes and checks at the moment, but it's odd set of colours and patterns, and unusual tag raised a question mark in my mind.

Fancy indeed! The label was making this it was an unusual tie- as the shape of the tag, as well as the name, was a little unconventional. As I was disentangling it from the masses of ties around it, I notice that the lining fabric was also a little out of the ordinary:

There appeared to be a drawing of a girl inside- a beek-a-boo tie. I have only seen one these type of ties- an American 1950's tie with a Alberto Vargas-esque pin-up girl, so thought it might have been a 'rip-off' with the lining badly placed.

(This is the best site I have found for vintage beek-a-boo, scroll down to find your favourite Hawaiian, Irish red head, Leopard skin glad brunette, or Jayne Mansfield or this contemporary one where you can shop via tie design or model.)

Of course I bought it- that's my problem with op-shopping, anything I can't work out I have to buy. That way I can think about it more or show it to people. When I got it home I realised that the factory thread holding the 'top' of the triangle was still in place and when cut, the tie open to reveal:

Shunga!

It's quiet an erotic thing to part the flaps to get the view of your secret picture. I noticed that there was a view out the window behind the couple and when I turn the tongue almost inside out, low and behold Fuji-yama came into view.

When I first saw it I thought the figures a little clumsy, but anatomical correctness is not really a feature of shunga prints. On closer inspection there is you can see that there is quiet a bit of detail and that the hands are a beautiful shape and that her toes are curled in the conventional sign of pleasure. These things make me think that it is either copied from an existing shunga or that it has been drawn and designed by an artist/designer. I have searched for a print it might have come from but have failed to find something similar. It has some formal elements that make it like a modest bijin-ga by Hiroshige:

such as the patterns of the fabrics against a plain background, with geometrical furniture motifs defining the pictorial space. Although this peek-a-boo seems a bit too modest for a Hiroshige shunga woodcut- but then again the decorative pattern around the image on the tie is reminiscent of the border feature in Hiroshige shunga volumes.

Unusually for most of the peek-a-boo ties I have encountered in this research, this one also has an image in the tie small end.

This looks like it might have been copied from a Torii Kiyonaga bathhouse print, or influence by his “Women in a bathhouse”.

There are also versions of this print where the man peeping through the small square window on the left is not there- although the doorway and window remain.

This object is saying 'Beppu' to me.

I think it might have been made as a souvenir for American marines on 'R & R' in this onsen and 'comfort' city for the following reasons:

• The ties overall shape and design is reminiscent of the American "Bold Look": wide, with deco patterning and the era when girlie ties became popular.

• The colours and pattens are very similar to ties I saw in Beppu that where still in there wrappers in dusty old stores run by ancient women in the cities post-war covered arcades

• The bathing and courtesan themes of the peek-a-boo, promote the two big industries of Beppu- hot springs and brothels.

• Fuji, is this instance, symbolises Japan rather than indicates a location.

Fuji was in my room at Beppu anyway.

Visiting Beppu, and the Beppu Art Projects, was one of the highlights of my trip in March. Thank you Takayuki for sending me there!

In celebration of Japanese erotic bijin-ga check out my friend Fuyumi Namioka's show of Araki at Lugnao.

Update: Fuyumi's show is part larger group of exhibitions and events under the title of Nippon, which includes an exhibition of shunga - this is a link to a small pdf catalogue.
Update #2: Jane's Year of Denim is having a 'suited' return including a 70's beek-a-boo!