Zashiki Hakkei

This article is about the print series. For the child-like, house-dwelling Japanese apparition, see Zashiki-warashi.
Evening Snow on the Nurioke, colour ''nishiki-e print, third in the series, 1766

Zashiki hakkei (Japanese: 座敷八景, "Eight Parlour Views") is a series of eight full-colour nishiki-e prints from 1766[1] by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Suzuki Harunobu (c. 1725 – 1770). The prints are mitate-e parodies of the 11th-century Chinese landscape painting series, Eight Views of Xiaoxiang; Harunobu replaces natural scenery with domestic scenes.

Harunobu made an erotic shunga version of the series called Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei (風流座敷八景, "Eight Fashionable Parlour Views" or "Eight Modern Parlour Views").[2] Torii Kiyonaga produced a version of Harunobu's Zashiki Hakkei under the title Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei with altered details.

Background

Ukiyo-e emerged in Japan as a genre of paintings and woodblock prints in the late 17th century.[3] Early prints were printed with black ink; colour was sometimes added by hand, and by the mid-18th century with extra woodblocks.[4] Suzuki Harunobu (1725–1770) achieved fame in the latter 1760s for his pioneering nishiki-e "brocade prints" made with a large number of coloured blocks.[5] These arose at a daishōkai[lower-alpha 1] calendar-picture printing event hosted in 1765 by Ōkubo Kyosen,[6] a hatamoto samurai who produced haiku poetry and ukiyo-e art.[2] The prolific Harunobu became the dominant ukiyo-e artist of his time.[7] He made these prints typically on commission, and they bore the name of the patron rather than the artist on first printings; later printings for the public removed the patron's name or replaced it with the artist's.[8]

The Eight Views of Xiaoxiang is a Chinese series of eight shan shui "mountain-water" paintings of views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers in China.[2] The scholar-painter Song Di produced the first rendition in the 1060s with a series of lanscape handscrolls, to which he later attached a one-line poem to each. The theme soon became a popular subject in artistic circles.[9] It later became a popular them with Japanese bunjin literati painters[2] and became widely known after its introduction in Japan during the Muromachi period (1336–1573). Thereafter the subjects and titles formed the basis for paintings and poetry.[10] Harunobu requently employed numerous complex mitate allusions in his prints for viewers to take pleasure in recognizing and deciphering.[11]

Publication

Wrapper to the private first printing of Zashiki Hakkei

The series appeared in chūban-size (19 by 22.5 centimetres, 7.5 in × 8.9 in)[12] from the publisher Shokakudō[lower-alpha 2] of Yokoyama-chō in Edo (modern Tokyo)[13] in c. 1766.[lower-alpha 3] As was common at the time, the higher-quality first printing of the series bore the seal of the client who commissioned it:[1] Kyosen (巨川), for Ōkubo Kyosen.[2] Kyosen distributed some of the print sets,[13] which came in an expensive paulownia box[14] in which a packet wrapping the prints displayed Harunobu's name and the titles of the prints, which did not appear on the prints themselves in this printing.[lower-alpha 4][13]

The publisher Shōkakudō[lower-alpha 5] republished the prints for the general public with Harunobu's name on the wrapper, on which it advertised the new full-colour technique as Azuma nishiki-e[15] ("brocade pictures of the Eastern Capital"—"Azuma" refers to the country's administrative capital Edo, found in eastern Japan).[16] The publisher sold this edition of the set without Kyosen's seal, and sold the prints indivually without a wrapper from the third printing on with Harunobu's seal on them. Later printings appeared from other publishers as well, some of the full set, others of individual prints, sometimes with certain prints reused in other series.[15]

Art historians have traced major compositional elements to earlier works by Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671–1750).[17] It is thought that Kyosen had the prints based on kyōka poems by Fukuo Kichijirō[lower-alpha 6] and Nagata Teiryū [lower-alpha 7] (1654–1734);[18] both had produced sets of poems on the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang, Teiryū in c. 1722 and Kichijirō in c. 1725.[12] Kyosen and Harunobu were almost certainly familiar with their work, and the poems on the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei prints bear a close resemblance to Kichijirō's.[18] Kichijirō's Zashiki Hakkei appeared in the Kyōhō Sesetsu[lower-alpha 8], a collection of poetry assembled in the Kyōhō era (1716–36). The Kyōhō Sesetsu exists only in hand-copied manuscripts, amongst which there may have been small differences, though because not one is precisely the same as Kichijirō's, scholars believe Harunobu's are not mere copies.[12]

Harunobu produced an erotic shunga version of the series in c. 1769[lower-alpha 9] titled Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei.[12] Art historians did not have access to a complete set of Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei until 1994. Tadashi Kobayashi published the first study of the complete in 1999. Monta Hayakawa provided an in-depth interpretation of mitate elements in them in a book on Harunobu's use of mitate in 2002.[19]

Harunobu re-used compositional elements from the series in other prints, as did other artists.[20] There is a series on the four seasons that uses rearranged visual elements from Zashiki Hakkei with the poems from Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei attached; it is signed "Harunobu" but is likely the work of Shiba Kōkan, who signed many of his works with Harunobu's name. In c. 1777[21] Torii Kiyonaga (1752–1815) produced two of his own versions of Harunobu's Zashiki Hakkei under the titles Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei (1877) and Zashiki Hakkei Mono (1778),[22] to both of which he added the poems from Harunobu's Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei.[23] Kiyonaga's versions modernize the styles of the hair and kimonos[24] and rearrange the figures and viewpoints of Harunobu's originals.[23]

Zashiki Hakkei has come to be seen as a representative example of Harunobu's work.[15]

Description

With the exception of Clearing Mist of the Fan, the prints depict indoor scenes set in a zashiki—a Japanese-style room floored with tatami straw mats. Two women feature in each print of Zashiki Hakkei, and each is a mitate parody that alludes to the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang series, replacing the landscape scenery of the paintings with contemporary domestic scenes and objects.[15]

Descending Geese of the Koto Bridges

Descending Geese of the Koto Bridges (琴柱の落雁 Kotoji no rakugan) parodies Wild Geese Descending on a Sandbank (平沙落雁 Heisa rakugan),[25] which traditionally depicts a flock of geese descends on the banks of the Xiang River.[26]

A koto with its 13 bridges

The scene depicts a young girl from a privileged family practising the koto,[27] an instrument with movable bridges for each of its 13 strings.[28] The diagonal arrangement of bridges suggests a skein of geese across the broad paulownia-wood surface like a sandbank in allusion to The Wild Geese Descending on a Sandbank; the pine-strewn beach design of the girl's long-sleeved kimono reinforces the allusion. The Japanese clovers that peek out from behind the shōji sliding door indicate the scene takes place in autumn.[27]

The Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version, titled 琴柱落雁, was the first in the series, which is thus perhaps why it is quieter and less explicit than the rest. In the print a young girl plays the koto while receiving a kiss from behind from a young male. The uncut forelocks of the male indicate a wakashū—a boy who has not yet had his genpuku coming-of-age ceremony,[29] which at the time would have taken place when he reached 15 or 16.[30] The changing colours of the leaves outside the window suggest indicate autumn, the season of migrating geese of The Wild Geese Descending on a Sandbank, a version of which appears on a partitioning screen behind the pair. Further allusions include those relating to the koto, as in the original version of the print.[29] To the right a black dog appears to feign disinterest in its owner's lovemaking.[31]

 Poem accompanying Descending Geese of the Koto Bridges
Japanese text[29] Romanized Japanese English translation[32][lower-alpha 10]
琴の音に
ひきとどめけん
初かりの
あまつそらより
つれておちくる
Koto no ne ni
hikitodomeken
hatsu kari no
ama tsu sora yori
tsurete ochikuru
Perhaps attracted by the sound of the koto,
this year's first flock of geese
descends together from the sky.

Hayakawa finds mitate allusions in the poem that relate to the image: he sees the "first geese" signifying the boy's first love, and the sound of the koto—an instrument that most often young women learn—representing the awakening of the girl's romantic feelings. He sees the reddening Japanese maple leaves reflecting the girl's growing passion for the boy and the pattern of maple and Japanese ivy leaves on her sleeves representing her sensuality.[30]

Clearing Mist of the Fan

Clearing Mist of the Fan (扇の清嵐 Ōgi no seiran) parodies Mountain Village, Clearing Mist (山市晴嵐 Sanshi seiran).[25]

A folding hand fan set with two prints by Harunobu

The print depicts a young girl in a kimono with flowing long sleeves at a street corner ōgi folding hand fan[lower-alpha 11] while leading another girl, who turns her head away from the first, perhaps against the wind that clears the mist. The first girl appears to shield herself from the sun, which suggests the summer scene of Mountain Village, Clearing Mist.[33]

The erotic Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version takes place at a hand-fan seller's machiya home; lacquered boxes for illustrated hand fans lay on the floor, as does a yet-unset printed fan sheet of a tiger amongst bamboo trees. At the time the custom was to change fan sheets in early summer.[31]

Before he bagan to produce full-colour prints, Harunobu used the same composition in a benizuri-e print, Before the Tomiyoshi-ya,[lower-alpha 12] in which the lead figure carries a closed umbrella rather than a fan while passing before the Tomiyoshi-ya liquor store.[34] Harunobu later reused the composition in other prints, such as In Front of the Matsumotoya[lower-alpha 13] (c. 1767–68) and Geisha and Attendant on Riverbank[lower-alpha 14] (c. 1768–69),[20] the latter of which also reuses the poem from the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version.[35]

 Poem accompanying Clearing Mist of the Fan
Japanese text[31] Romanized Japanese English translation[36][lower-alpha 10]
吹からに
ゑがける雲も
きへぬべし
扇にたゝむ
やまのはの風
Fuku kara ni
egakeru kumo mo
kienubeshi
ōgi ni tatamu
yama no ha no kaze
In the wind from the fan
the painted clouds will probably disappear,
like the mountain wind driving away clouds in the mountains.

Evening Snow on the Nurioke

Evening Snow on the Nurioke (塗桶の暮雪 Nurioke no bosetsu) parodies River and Sky in Evening Snow (江天暮雪 Kōten bosetsu).[25] While kōten (江天, "large river and sky") implies a composition in which a broad skyline lies against a wide river, the renderings in the Eight Views of Xiaoxiang tend to emphasize the snow-covered mountains. Harunobu replaces these mountains with nurioke, lacquered wooden forms that silk floss was placed on to dry.[37] The young man at the top helps the young woman at the bottom prepare wadding from white silk floss.[13] The print's embossing gives the feeling of the softness of the silk floss detail, a technique called karazuri (空摺り) that uses an uninked woodblock.[38]

The erotic Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version is of a cotton worker having sex with a clerk who has come to collect goods. The clerk's account book lies behind him to the right, and the print employs the same nurioke allusion to the mountains of River and Sky in Evening Snow. At the time this cotton work was understood as typically a front for women who also worked as prostitutes.[39] Outside the shōji in the background appear the head and forelegs of a white dog whose arched posture suggest a female in mid-copulation. Harunobu employs a range of contrasts—white cloth on black nurioke, public work and private, male and female—from which Hayakawa surmises the unseen male dog must be black, stating that such calling forth of the imagination was one of the pleasures of mitate for contemporary viewers.[40]

 Poem accompanying Evening Snow on the Nurioke
Japanese text[39] Romanized Japanese English translation[41][lower-alpha 10]
ふじの山
ふもとはくらき
夕暮の
空さりげなき
雪をみるかな
Fuji no yama
fumoto wa kuraki
yūgure no
sora sarige naki
yuki wo miru kana
The foot of Mt Fuji is dark,
but as I look upward at the dusty sky,
white snow is sparkling.

Evening Bell of the Clock

Evening Bell of the Clock (時計の晩鐘 Tokei no banshō) parodies Evening Gong at Qingliang Temple (烟寺晩鐘 Enji banshō).[25]

A 17th-century Japanese clock on a stand

The print depicts the proprietress of a bathhouse relaxing on the veranda outside the baths. A female servant attends to her while looking back at a Japanese clock inside. The indicates the evening hour, alluding to the evening gong, and sits upon a tall stand, alluding to the mountain Qingliang Temple sits upon.[42]

In the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version a female servant peeps from behind a fusuma sliding door at a man and woman having sex, a common theme in Harunobu's shunga prints as typified in his Maneemon series. As in the original, a clock at the far right edge alludes to the gong in The Evening Gong at Qingliang Temple. The clock and the thick bedding were costly items at the time and indicate the home of a wealthy merchant.[43] The composition and the poem about "becoming extremely lonely" draw attention to the servant, rather than the copulating couple as would be expected in an erotic print.[44]

 Poem accompanying Evening Bell of the Clock
Japanese text[43] Romanized Japanese English translation[45][lower-alpha 10]
ひまもなく
時をはかりの
かねのこへ
きくにさびしき
夕まぐれかな
Hima mo naku
toki wo hakari no
kane no koe
kiku ni sabishiki
yūmagure kana
The sound of the clock
continuously marking the time—
hearing the sound and becoming extremely lonely at dusk.

Harvest Moon of the Mirror Stand

Nadeshiko fringed pink—in Japanese kara-nadeshiko

Harvest Moon of the Mirror Stand (鏡台の秋月 Kyōdai no shūgetsu) parodies Harvest Moon over Dongting Lake (洞庭秋月 Dōtei shūgetsu).[25] The print depicts a hairdresser doing up the hair of a young girl in a long-sleeved kimono with a pattern of plovers flying over waves, which perhaps alludes to the surface of Dongting Lake. The flowering Japanese pampas grass indicates an autumn scene,[46] and the round mirror before them alludes to the autumnal harvest moon.[42] [46]

In the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version a husband, smoking a pipe, embraces his half-naked wife from behind and pulls at her kimono as she applies makeup. Her eyebrows are unshaved, which indicates she is newly wed and has not yet had a child. An amulet for a paper charm dangles from her neck. The mirror before her alludes to the moon in The Moon in Autumn on Dongting Lake.[44] A nadeshiko fringed pink grows in a potter on the veranda, which suggests the word nadeshiko, meaning "a child who is caressed", but used to mean "the woman I love" in ancient waka poetry.[47] The nadeshiko fringed pink was also a traditonal symbol of a beautiful, desirable woman.[11] To Hayakawa, the woman's body partly covered by the kimono is an allusion to the accompanying poem's "mid-autumn full moon ... hidden in the clouds".[48]

 Poem accompanying Harvest Moon of the Mirror Stand
Japanese text[44] Romanized Japanese English translation[49][lower-alpha 10]
秋の夜の
雪間の月と
見るまでに
うてなにのぼる
秋のよの月
Aki no yoru no
yukima no tsuki to
miru made ni
utena ni noboru
aki no yo no tsuki
The mid-autumn full moon—
just when you think it is hidden in the clouds,
shines over the mirror stand.

Evening Glow of the Lamp

Evening Glow of the Lamp (行燈の夕照 Andon no sekishō) parodies Fishing Village in the Evening Glow (漁村夕照 Gyoson sekishō).[25]

The print depicts an autumn scene with coloured leaves on the trees in the background.[50] A woman—likely a nobleman's wife—in a short-sleeved black kimono with its obi tied in the front, an old-fashioned style at the time.[46] She reads a letter in the rapidly sinking sun as her daughter readies the andon paper lamp. The artificial lamplight alludes to the sunset and the water outside to the fishing village of The Fishing Village in the Evening Glow.[50]

In the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version a woman, carrying an andon lamp and identifiable as pregnant by the iwataobi sash around her belly, walks in on her husband having sex with another woman, likely a housemaid.[51] The wife's expression is of anger, the husband's of surprise, and the other woman's of ecstasy. Hayakawa identifies the mitate with setting sun of The Fishing Village in the Evening Glow as the waning passion of the husband for his wife for his wife during her pregnancy.[52]

 Poem accompanying Evening Glow of the Lamp
Japanese text[47] Romanized Japanese English translation[53][lower-alpha 10]
山の端に
入るひのかげは
ほのぐらく
ひかりとゆつる
宿のともし火
Yama no ha ni
iru hi no kage wa
ho no guraku
hikari to yutsuru
yado no tomoshibi
The evening sun enters into the mountain shadows,
the surroundings grow dim,
and in all the houses lamps start to be lit.

Night Rain on the Daisu

Night Rain on the Daisu (台子の夜雨 Daisu no yau) parodies Rain at Night on the Xiaoxiang (瀟湘夜雨 Shōshō yau).[25]

Harunobu sets the print in the tea room of a machiya merchant's home.[54] A teapot and other items are set out on a daisu tea utensil stand, before which dozes a young girl as she sits. A young boy appears about to play some mischief with her hair while another girl in a long-sleeved kimono smiles at it behind him. Hayakawa sees the mitate as the sound of boiling water in the pot representing the rain in Rain at Night on the Xiaoxiang.[55]

In the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version a man has forcible sex with a woman holding a piece of kaishi paper used in the tea ceremony. From between the shōji peeps a woman with a hand to her mouth in surprise. She has shaved eyebrows, signifying she has already given birth and thus is likely the man's wife. The boiling teapot again to Hayakawa represents the "sound of rain on the wooden floor" in the accompanying poem; he further speculates the sound of rain represents the unease the woman feels at her husband's waning passion for her.[56]

 Poem accompanying Night Rain on the Daisu
Japanese text[56] Romanized Japanese English translation[57][lower-alpha 10]
たぎる湯の
音はしきりに
さよふけて
ふるとぞあめの
板間にやもる
Tagiru yu no
oto wa shikiri ni
sayo fukete
furu to zo ame no
itama niya moru
Night deepens,
the sound of the boiling water is thick and fast—
or is it the sound of rain on the wooden floor?

Returning Sails of the Towel Rack

Returning Sails of the Towel Rack (手拭いかけの帰帆 Tenuguikake no kihan) parodies Ship Returning from a Distant Bay (遠浦帰帆 Enpo kihan).[25] Towels blowing in the breeze from a towel rack on the veranda of a tea room in the print allude to the returning sailing ships. Beside it a the mistress of the house is using a bucket meant for washing the hands and face; her kimono is patterned with riverside threeleaf arrowheads, a plant associated with summer. A housemaid sits inside sewing; an uchiwa hand fan lies on the floor beside her.[58]

A Japanese rock garden lies outside in the background of the Fūryū Zashiki Hakkei version, in which a middle-aged man has his beard plucked by a young woman. The man has one arm around the woman and reaches for her kimono as they kiss.[59] Hayakawa assumes the young woman is the man's mistress, and interprets her as the "distant bay" to whom the older man "returns", or as the male ship pulling into the female harbour.[60]

 Poem accompanying Returning Sails of the Towel Rack
Japanese text[59] Romanized Japanese English translation[61][lower-alpha 10]
真帆かけて
うらにより来る
船なれや
いるとは見へて
いづるとはなし
Maho kakete
ura ni yori kuru
fune nareya
iru to wa miete
izuru wa nashi
The boat over there with sails swelling to the front—
is it coming into this harbour?
Ah, yes, it's coming in!

Notes

  1. ↑ 大紹会 daishōkai, "large and small association"; the cultured participants at these parties competed in producing pictures that displayed which months each year were "large" (大 dai, with 30 days) and "small" (小 shō, those with 29 days).[6]
  2. ↑ 松鶴堂
  3. ↑ Meiwa 3 on the Japanese calendar[12]
  4. ↑ The packet displays the title as 風流繪合 坐鋪八景 城西山人巨川工 Fūryū E-awase Zashiki Hakkei Jōsai Sanjin Kyosen, "Fashionable picture collection Zashiki Hakkei, devised by Jōsai Sanjin Kyosen".[15]
  5. ↑ 松鶴堂
  6. ↑ 福尾 吉次郎
  7. ↑ 永田 貞柳, also know a Taiya Teiryū 鯛屋 貞柳
  8. ↑ 享保世説
  9. ↑ Meiwa 6 on the Japanese calendar[12]
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Translation by Patricia J. Fister, 2001
  11. ↑ Ōgi (扇), also called sensu (扇子)
  12. ↑ とみよしや前 Tomiyoshi-ya mae
  13. ↑ 松もとや前 Matsumotoya mae
  14. ↑ 川端を歩く芸者と少女 Kawabata wo aruku geisha to shōjo, signed "Harunobu" but authenticity questioned

References

  1. 1 2 Davis 2015, p. 13.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Hayakawa 2002, p. 58.
  3. ↑ Kikuchi & Kenny 1969, p. 31.
  4. ↑ Kobayashi 1997, pp. 76–77.
  5. ↑ Kobayashi 1997, pp. 80–82.
  6. 1 2 Nishiyama 1997, p. 70.
  7. ↑ Kobayashi 1997, pp. 82–83.
  8. ↑ Lane 1962, pp. 150, 152.
  9. ↑ Ortiz 1999, p. 28.
  10. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 59.
  11. 1 2 Hayakawa 2013, p. 110.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ishigami 2008, p. 69.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Gookin 1922, p. 10.
  14. ↑ Takahashi 1968, p. 24.
  15. 1 2 3 4 5 Kobayashi 1991, p. 9.
  16. ↑ Hempel & Holler 1995, p. 14.
  17. ↑ Ishigami 2008, p. 78.
  18. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, pp. 62–63.
  19. ↑ Ishigami 2008, pp. 69, 86.
  20. 1 2 Ishigami 2008, p. 83.
  21. ↑ Ishigami 2008, p. 85.
  22. ↑ Ishigami 2008, pp. 85–86.
  23. 1 2 Ishigami 2008, p. 86.
  24. ↑ Fukuda 2015, p. 34.
  25. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Zhu 2010, p. 133.
  26. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, pp. 63–64.
  27. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 64.
  28. ↑ Fletcher & Rossing 2013, p. 334.
  29. 1 2 3 Hayakawa 2002, p. 73.
  30. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 74.
  31. 1 2 3 Hayakawa 2002, p. 75.
  32. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 89.
  33. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 65.
  34. ↑ Kobayashi 1991, p. 130.
  35. ↑ Ishigami 2008, p. 84.
  36. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 91.
  37. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 66.
  38. ↑ Metropolitan Museum of Art staff.
  39. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 78.
  40. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 79.
  41. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 101.
  42. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 67.
  43. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 80.
  44. 1 2 3 Hayakawa 2002, p. 81.
  45. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 94.
  46. 1 2 3 Hayakawa 2002, p. 68.
  47. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 83.
  48. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 82.
  49. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 95.
  50. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 69.
  51. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, pp. 83–84.
  52. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 84.
  53. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 97.
  54. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, pp. 69–70.
  55. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 70.
  56. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 85.
  57. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 98.
  58. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 71.
  59. 1 2 Hayakawa 2002, p. 87.
  60. ↑ Hayakawa 2002, p. 88.
  61. ↑ Hayakawa 2001, p. 100.

Works cited

External links

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