Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) The 69 Stations of the Kisokaido Road # 22: Odai. 1852. Oban.
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The Kisokaidô Road was an inland route connecting Edo (present day Tokyo) with Kyoto. (The coastal route between Edo and Kyoto was the Tokaido Road.) There were sixty-nine rest stops along the Kisokaido Road. In this series, Kuniyoshi designed one print for each of the sixty-nine rest stops plus prints for Edo and Kyoto, as well as a title page. The main design of each print portrays a historical, legendary or fictional scene associated with the location. A small panel in each print shows a view of the station. This series of prints of the Kisokaido was a response to the increased demand for mitate, or puzzle pictures based around travel. Censorship that forbade all actor portraits and proscribed many historical figures did not apply to the types of travel picture made popular by Hiroshige in the 1830’s. Kunisada started a craze for these travel pictures that happened also to feature actors or other subjects (usually unnamed). Kuniyoshi was much less of a theatre artist than Kunisada and his ‘travel’ series tend more to play to his strengths as an illustrator of myth and legend, as is apparent in this print.
Here is a great mystery in some respects… an elaborate series of hoaxes and insults are being played out in a nod to the delicately titled kabuki drama, Banzui Chobei’s Vegetarian Chopping Block. The figure in the magnificent robes lavishly decorated with skulls is Teranishi Kanshin. The figure in the contorted pose at his feet is his follower, Dotesuke. Dotesuke has been injured by the grocer Chobei’s son. The wealthy Kansin creates an elaborate insult by dressing the hapless Dotesuke as a giant carp and presenting him at a memorial feast for Chobei’s family… a feast that is strictly vegetarian. In a harsh response to this subtle elaborate hoax, Chobei puts his own son on a chopping block and sends him to Kanshin with the instruction to do with him as he pleases. Kanshin is so moved that the two become firm friends… no, I do not understand the ‘insult’ either!
But… we are left with a stunning design to commemorate the exchange. Skulls litter the design, in the shape of the landscape in the cartouche, on every surface on the robe of Kanshin, and forming the frame of the title block in the upper right. The scene is outside of Chobei’s store and Kuniyoshi has decorated the sake barrels with his own trademark studio motif in black. The whole surface of the design is a mash-up of skulls, designs, motifs and pattern.
A copy of the print is in the British Museum, London.
Colour and impression are excellent; overall the condition is fine, but there is surface wear to the lower edges and corners, and the print is trimmed to the margin.
24 x 35 cm.