Sadanobu II 53 Stations of the Tokaido

Sadanobu II 53 Stations of theTōkaidō

Cristina Berna and Eric Thomsen

2021

Copyright

Cristina Berna and Eric Thomsen  

Sadanobu II 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō

Copyright ©2021 by Cristina Berna and Eric Thomsen

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

The pictures of the prints are in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less. This book is void of sale where disallowed.

Availeable as full color print book  

ISBN 978-1-956215-02-1    (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-956773-50-7    (hardcover)

About the authors

Cristina Berna loves photographing and writing. She also creates designs and advice on fashion and styling.

Eric Thomsen has published in science, economics and law, created exhibitions and arranged concerts.

Also by the authors:

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World of Art

Hokusai  36 Views of Mt Fuji

Hiroshige 69 Stations of the Nakasendō

Hiroshige 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō

Hiroshige 100 Famous Views of Edo

Hiroshige Famous Vies of the Sixty-Odd Provinces

Hiroshige 36 Views of Mt Fuji 1852

Hiroshige 36 Views of Mt Fuji 1858

Joaquin Sorolla Landscapes

Joaquin Sorolla Beach

Joaquin Sorolla Boats

Joaquin Sorolla Animals

Joaquin Sorolla Family

Joaquin Sorolla Nudes

Joaquin Sorolla Portraits

and more titles

Outpets

Deer in Dyrehaven – Outpets in Denmark

Florida Outpets

Birds of Play

Christmas

Christmas Nativity  Spain

Christmas Nativities Luxembourg Trier

Christmas Nativity Hallstatt

Christmas Nativity Salzburg

Christmas Nativity Slovenia

Christmas Market Innsbruck

Christmas Market Vienna

Christmas Market Salzburg

Christmas Market Slovenia

Christmas Market Strasbourg

and more titles

Contact the authors

[email protected] 

Published by www.missysclan.net  

Cover picture:   Front:  no 01 Kyoto, Sanjō Ōhashi Bridge  Inside: no 18 Fujikawa

Introduction

The 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō by Kano Shugen Sadanobu (Sadanobu II) is a series of 50 miniature prints published by the Tokyo Metro Library to ukiyo-e.org.

It is interesting for the Tōkaidō subject, because it is in reverse order, the trip going from Kyoto to Edo, like the Tōkaidō meisho zue from 1797 ISBN 978-1-956215-31-6.

It is miniature copies of Hiroshige’s Kichizo Tōkaidō, and the main difference is that the artist lightens Hiroshige’s evening and night colored prints. The artist does not change the directional views in the prints. The authors were only able to find 50 of the expected 54 prints in a Tōkaidō series. The missing prints are the last four in the trip.

The artist is identified as Sadanobu II Hasegawa (Kano Shugen, Konobu) 1848 -1890, some say born c. 1850.

Sadanobu II

Sadanobu II Hasegawa (Konobu)  1848 -1890

Sadanobu II Hasegawa (Konobu) 1848 -1890, some say born c. 1850. The art dealer artlino identifies him as Kano Shugen. Tokyo Metro Library gives his name as Kano Shugen Sadanobu, the name under which the series is published to ukiyo-e.org.

Ukiyo-e.org also publishes other prints by the alleged same artist, under the name of Hasegawa Konobu (149 prints) and Sadanobu II (30 prints) and there is no overlap.

Sadanobu II Hasegawa is the son of Sadanobu I Hasegawa (1809-1879). His given name was Tokutarô (徳太郎); first geimei was Konobu I (1867-c. 1875?)

He worked under the name of Konobu I until 1879 and lived in Shitaya, Edo. He worked in his father’s style during the Meiji period which lasted 1868-1912.

The second of six generations of Hasegawas, starting with his father Hasegawa Sadanobu I (1809-1879) and continuing through Sadanobu IV (1914-1999) and Konobu V (born 1946),  see Hasegawa Lineage below. He was born in Osaka and used the gō (artist name) Konobu  小信 until 1879 when he started using the Sadanobu name as his gō upon the death of his father Sadanobu I.  He studied with his father and with Osai Yoshiume 鶯斎 芳梅 (1819-1879), (a.k.a. Utagawa Yoshiume), a student of Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s (1797-1861).  He spent about three years in Kobe starting in 1867 during which time he produced a number of prints showing scenes of the impact of Westerners in and around the city. 

His print designs include depictions of actors (yakusha-e), landscapes (fūkei-ga), civilization and enlightenment-modernization (bunmei kaika-e), the Sino-Japanese War (senso-e), illustrations for novels (kuchi-e), advertising flyers (hikifuda 引き札) and prints for newspaper supplements (nishiki-e shinbun). His nishiki-e shinbun prints were mostly created for the Osaka Yubin hochi shinbun (Postal News) and the Osaka nichinichi shinbunshi (Osaka Daily News), for which he also wrote stories.

For a full range of the artist's work see the website of Kansai University Library at http://kul01.lib.kansai-u.ac.jp/library/etenji/hasegawa/shodai.html

Kano Shugen Sadonubo (Hasegawa Sadanobu II): An advertisement for the Yamaguchi Kuzaemon art store, which sold Japanese and Western pigments for painting and dying in Kyoto during the Meiji period.  Dimensions 26 x 37 cm. Private issue horizontal oban. Sold by Sotheby’s from the Sokolow Collection.

The Hasegawa Lineage

Name  gō (artist name)  birth-death  notes

Hasegawa Sadanobu I  did not use the Konobu gō   1809-1879   

Hasegawa Sadanobu II  Konobu I  1848-1940   son of Sadanobu I

never took Sadanobu name  Konobu II   1866-1886   younger brother of Sadanobu  II

Hasegawa Sadanobu III  Konobu III  1881-1963   son of Sadanobu II

Hasegawa Sadonobu IV  Konobu IV  1914-1999   son of Sadanobu III

Hasegawa Sadonobu V

(ascended to this name in  2003)  Konobu V   b. 1946   daughter of Sadanobu IV

http://www.myjapanesehanga.com/home/artists/hasegawa-sadanobu-ii-1848-1940

Hasegawa Sadonubo II: Daily News

Hasegawa Sadonubo II: Daily News (Nichinichi shinbun), A blood-stained, murdered woman tied to a tree, signed sadanobu.ga c. 1875, (series variously published by Fujisei, Kinsei and Yaozen), chuban tate-e (c. 25 x 19 cms / 9 7/8 x 7 1/2). 

The print Daily News  is print no. 11 out of 32 known prints of the Osaka-based Nichinichi Shinbun (Daily News) which illustrated stories published in other papers. Following their introduction in Tokyo, nishiki-e shinbun made their appearance in Osaka. The Osaka issued prints differed from their Tokyo counterparts in being half-size (chuban rather than oban size) and not tied to a particular newspaper.

His nishiki-e shinbun prints were mostly created for the Osaka Yubin hochi shinbun (Postal News) and the Osaka nichinichi shinbunshi (Osaka Daily News), for which he also wrote stories. (Quotes from the  Lavenberg Collection).

The Prosperous Port in Kobe, Settsu Province by Hasegawa Sadanobu II is a detailed print published by the Kobe City Museum.

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/prosperous-port-in-kobe-settsu-province-hasegawa-sadanobu-ii/BgFQSQ5ozH5-yA?hl=en

Haseghawa Sadanobu II: Oeyama Demon Extermination (3)

Haseghawa Sadanobu II: Oeyama Demon Extermination (3) 大江山鬼人退治_三, f rom the picture album Nishiki-e  画帳『錦絵』より, National Diet Library

It shows the coastal road of the settlement that continues to the East from the coastal street of the multi-tenant land. The small jetty in the center is Meriken Wharf. Japanese and foreign ships float in the port. The Western-style building with the word Transmission Machine in the back of the settlement Kaigandori where Western-style buildings are lined up, is a temporary telegraph station for a line established between Kobe and Osaka in 1870. New vehicles such as horse-drawn carriages, rickshaws, and bicycles are seen, foreigners and Japanese who come and go, and Chinese and Japanese merchants who exchange business talk are shown together, and the impression of the painter who came into contact with the breath of a new era at the opening of the port, Kobe.

A point to note about this series is that his father is noted to have copied several of Hiroshige’s Tōkaidō series as miniatures. One of the the series his father is known for is Famous Places in the Capital (Miyako meisho no uchi).

Focusing on the Koshin era, he drew many kaika-e paintings based on the scenery and customs of the development period in Kobe and Osaka, and also worked on a wide range of genres such as war paintings, Nishiki-e newspapers, export tea trademarks and Hikifuda, and play fliers.

Hasegawa Sadanobu II (1848-1940): Bird on Branch of Fruit Tree

Hasegawa Sadanobu II (1848-1940): Bird on Branch of Fruit Tree  枝に小鳥, abt 1900-1910, 22.4 x 28.9 cm (8 13/16 x 11 3/8 in.), signed Ôju Sadanobu 応需貞信, artist’s seal hasegawa, MFA

Hasegawa Sadanobu II Actors viewed as beautiful places in Japan

Hasegawa Sadanobu II (1850 - 1940) Actors viewed as beautiful places in Japan (Haiyu Mitate Nippon Meisho) Late 1870’s. Oban. 24.5 x 37 cm.

This is a great, late Osaka School print, boldly shouting out in Meiji Red. This strong colour palette has habitually been used by slightly sniffy scholars to denigrate later nishiki-e from the Meiji Era. In fact, research carried out in the last few years shows that there was no sudden, European-influenced rush to vulgarity, that Japanese print artists took a gradual approach to new pigments, and that violet was the only direct innovation from aniline dye technology. An article in Viewing Japanese Prints gives fascinating technical insight into the subject.

This print is from a very rare, in fact more or less lost series of prints by the last of the Osaka School, Hasegawa Sadonobu II. The series is a mitate: Actors Viewed as Beautiful Places in Japan. The trick was to put an actor, a role and a view together and let the viewer sort out the puns and links between them. Here we have a view of Enoshima in Sagami Province, a scene lifted directly from Hiroshige’s view of the same place from 1842.

The role is probably that of the priest Jikyu, but the actor is not identified. Shiragikumaru was a young acolyte and lover of the temple priest Jikyu. Unable to live with the harassment of the other priests they resolve to commit suicide in the sea at Enoshima. Jikyu survives the fall to the sea, but seventeen years later, when called upon to minister to the Princess Sakura, he finds that she is the the reincarnation of his young lover. Kunichika made a print of the subject in 1869 and the pose is very similar, as is the actor.

The print is very rare, and the writer Ishikawa Wansuk only found one other print from the series anywhere in the world. The drawing of the landscape is lovely; figure, robust and sensitive.

The original artist of the Kichizo Tōkaidō series, which Sadanobu II has copied, is Utagawa Hiroshige.

Utagawa Hiroshige

Utagawa Hiroshige (in Japanese: 歌川広重), also called Andō Hiroshige (in Japanese: 安藤広重), was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, considered the last great master of that tradition. He was born 1797 and died 12 October 1858.

Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica. The term ukiyo-e (浮世絵) translates as "picture[s] of the floating world".

Hiroshige is best known for his horizontal-format landscape series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō, which is the subject of this book, and for his vertical-format landscape series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

The main subjects of his work are considered atypical of the ukiyo-e genre, whose focus was more on beautiful women, popular actors, and other scenes of the urban pleasure districts of Japan's Edo period (1603–1868).

The Edo period was a period with strong feudal control by the Tokugawa shogunate, with stability and economic growth, very closed to outside influence, although methods were imported and applied, and with a flowering cultural and artistic life.

The popular series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai (ISBN 9781956215243) was a strong influence on Hiroshige's choice of subject. Hiroshige's approach is more poetic and ambient, much more detailed, than Hokusai's bolder, more formal and focused prints.

Futami Bay in Ise Province, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji 1858

Print 27: Futami Bay in Ise Province, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji 1858 ISBN 9781956215236

Where Hokusai gives you an immediate experience just from looking at his prints, with Hiroshige you have to look more carefully, devote more time, to decipher the details and the meaning.

Subtle use of color was essential in Hiroshige's prints, often printed with multiple impressions in the same area and with extensive use of bokashi (color gradation), both of which were rather labor-intensive techniques.

For scholars and collectors, Hiroshige's death marked the beginning of a rapid decline in the ukiyo-e genre, especially in the face of the Westernization that followed the Meiji Restoration of 1868.

The Meiji Restoration followed in 1868 after Commodore Matthew C Perry had forced Japan to open its ports to foreign in 1853. It meant an end to the shogunate, the feudal ruling system, restored the powers to the emperor who centralized government and industrialization.

Hiroshige's work came to have a marked influence on Western painting towards the close of the 19th century as a part of the trend in Japonism.

Western artists, such as Manet and Monet, collected and closely studied Hiroshige's compositions. Vincent van Gogh even went so far as to paint copies of two of Hiroshige's prints from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

Hiroshige was born in 1797 in the Yayosu Quay section of the Yaesu area in Edo (modern Tokyo). He was of a samurai background, and is the great-grandson of Tanaka Tokuemon, who held a position of power under the Tsugaru clan in the Northern province of Mutsu.

Hiroshige studied under Toyohiro of the Utagawa school of artists. Hiroshige's grandfather, Mitsuemon, was an archery instructor who worked under the name Sairyūken.

Wind Blown Grass Across the Moon – by Hiroshige

Wind Blown Grass Across the Moon – by Hiroshige

Hiroshige's father, Gen'emon, was adopted into the family of Andō Jūemon, whom he succeeded as fire warden for the Yayosu Quay area.

Hiroshige went through several name changes as a youth: Jūemon, Tokubē, and Tetsuzō.

Returning Sails