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Hishikawa Moronobu
Japanese, 1620 - 1694
Japanese print designer and painter. He is popularly known as the father of ukiyoe (‘pictures of the floating world’; see Japan, §§VI, 4(iv)(b) and IX, 2(iii)(a)), a position he shares with Iwasa matabei, whose genre paintings predate Moronobu’s. He was the son of Hishikawa Kichizaemon (d 1662), an embroiderer and textile designer from Hota. Moronobu initially followed his father’s trade, but moved to Edo (now Tokyo) upon Kichizaemon’s death. He studied the painting style of the Kano- and Tosa schools, but soon turned to depictions—often sexually explicit—of the demi-monde of the Edo kabuki and Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. In the 1660s Moronobu first attracted attention because of the quality of his paintings and drawings. Looking for greater freedom as a draughtsman, Moronobu turned to illustrating picture books (ehon). By 1673 his success with book illustrations led him to seek and obtain a wider circulation and public by designing single-sheet prints (ichimaie), which included yakushae (‘pictures of actors’) and bijinga (‘pictures of beautiful women’).
Moronobu, who did not produce ukiyoe paintings before 1662, must have known about the work of Iwasa Matabei, who had died in 1650, yet he claimed to be the originator of ukiyoe. According to Ficke, Matabei and Moronobu were both founders of ukiyoe, but with the qualification that Matabei’s activities were confined to painting, while Moronobu extended to picture books and single-sheet prints. He describes Moronobu as the first of the great print designers. His production of print designs was primarily in black and white (sumizurie), although copies of his prints were hand-coloured by other artists. Yellow and green were common, but vermilion prints (tan’e) were particularly popular. Because Moronobu signed few, if any, of his prints, many late 17th-century black-and-white prints are attributed to him.
Moronobu took several students, including members of his family, and a school was formed that bore his family name, Hishikawa. His most successful pupil was Sugimura Jihei ( fl c. 1681–1703), who specialized in book illustration and shunga (‘spring pictures’; erotic prints). Another outstanding student was Furuyama Moroshige ( fl 1678–98), who produced high-quality bijinga and was allowed to sign his work with his master’s name. Moronobu’s eldest son and pupil Hishikawa Morofusa ( fl 1685–1703) gave up printmaking and returned to the family’s traditional textile business. This contributed to the decline of the Hishikawa school, which also suffered from competition with other emerging ukiyoe studios, such as the Torii. Torii Kiyonobu I, the founder of the Torii school in Edo, had been a pupil of Moronobu, under whom he studied book illustration and single-sheet printmaking.
James Glendinning. "Hishikawa Moronobu." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T038289 (accessed May 8, 2012).
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