Life and death, Hana Go, from Chapter 39 of the Tales of Genji

Utagawa Yoshiiku, later Ochiai Yoshiiku (1833-1904) was a major pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi, a versatile and highly successful Japanese print designer, and book, magazine and newspaper illustrator. He was a rival of the slightly younger and slightly more famous Yoshitoshi (1839-92), also represented in Te Papa's collection, whom he allegedly bullied at school. However, their later collaborations and sharing of the same writers and publishers for several decades suggests that any possible bitterness between them didn’t get in the way of their work. Yoshiiku went on to become an important teacher, whose pupils included Kobayashi Ikuhide. Yoshiiku’s versatility is shown in his exploration of <em>bijin-ga</em> (pictures of female beauties), <em>musha-e</em> (warrior pictures), <em>yakusha-e</em> (kabuki stars portraits) and Yokohama-e (modern life images of Yokohama), as well as the notorious <em>chimidoro-e</em> (‘blood-stained pictures’). He co-founded the <em>Tokyo Daily Newspaper</em>, where he is probably best known for his triptychs of bathhouse women.

This <em>oban</em> woodblock print is very different in content and mood, however. Complex threads of superstition and supernatural phenomena provided popular motifs for artists and the Edo populace. The narrative in the cartouche at the top of the composition explains the pictorial scene: ‘Hanako is the wife of Major General Yoshida Korefusa. She chased her lost son Umewakamaru, wandering around in eastern countries [i.e. the Kanto region] and by the Sumida River she found the figure of her son. Overjoyed, she tried to say something to him; then, the figure turned into a willow tree.’ (Information: Dr Emerald King). Yoshiiku’s view of the figure of Hanako and Umewakamaru at the moment of his transformation reflects a widely held belief in lingering spirits caught in a suspended state between the world in which we live (kono-yo) and the world beyond (ano-yo). This liminality, evident in Japan in the Jizo motif, recognises a state in which 'the soul is perceived not as transitory; death even constitutes a kind of aesthetic, in spite of one's abhorrence of the process'. That sensitivity suffuses the Heian narrative of Genji monogatari (The tale of Genji). The yellow cartouche at upper right in Yoshiiku’s print carries the series title and characters for the chapter,<em> '</em><em>Yugiri'</em> ('Evening mist'), of Genji monogatari. Curiously, however, the Genji-mon (chapter logo) on the green 'page' behind this cartouche are for chapter 21, 'Otome' ('The maiden'). Unsurprisingly, neither chapter refers to the narrative included in Yoshiiku's work – the respected calligrapher and senior court minister Fujiwara no Korefusa (1030–96) in the tale was born two decades after the original publication of the novel.

Sources:

David Bell and Mark Stocker, 'Rising sun at Te Papa: the Heriot collection of Japanese art', <em>Tuhinga</em>, 29 (2018), https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/document/10608

Lavenburg Collection of Japanese Prints, 'Utagawa Yoshiiku (1833-1904)', http://www.myjapanesehanga.com/home/artists/utagawa-yoshiiku-1833-1904

Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art   May 2019