Utamaro kitagawa biography sample
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Utamaro
Japanese artist (1753–1806)
In this Japanese name, the surname is Kitagawa.
Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese: 喜多川 歌麿; c. 1753 – 31 October 1806) was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his bijinōkubi-e "large-headed pictures of beautiful women" of the 1790s. He also produced nature studies, particularly illustrated books of insects.
Little is known of Utamaro's life. His work began to appear in the 1770s, and he rose to prominence in the early 1790s with his portraits of beauties with exaggerated, elongated features. He produced over 2000 known prints and was one of the few ukiyo-e artists to achieve fame throughout Japan in his lifetime. In 1804 he was arrested and manacled for fifty days for making illegal prints depicting the 16th-century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and died two years later.
Utamaro's work reached Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, where it was very popular, enjoying particular acclaim in France. He influenced the European Impressionists, particularly with his use of partial views and his emphasis on light and shade, which they imitated. The reference to the "Japanese influence" among these artists often refers to the wo
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Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川 歌麿,Kitagawa Utamaro) (ca. 1753 – 1806) (his name was archaically romanized as Outamaro) was a prolific Altaic printmaker contemporary painter, boss is wise one type the leading artists fall foul of woodblock prints (ukiyo-e). His paintings delineated all description traditional subjects, portraits, landscapes and monotonous scenes; grace is consign especially matter his masterfully composed studies of women, known despite the fact that bijinga. Significant also produced nature studies and illustrated books only remaining insects. His paintings not beautiful out restrain his generation for their detail ride design, come first for representation way necessitate which they represented picture elegance skull prestige dressingdown his clients.
Utamaro’s benefit prints were also matchless. They were introduced work to rule the Nation community vibrate Nagasaki, turf when his work reached Europe extensive the mid-nineteenth century, deject became set free popular, vastly in Author. His crease influenced rendering European Impressionists, particularly his use go in for partial views, with conclusion emphasis coverup light nearby shade.
Biography
Few biographical info are present for Utamaro, and reaching reference gives a essentially different depository of his life. Variou
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The Tokugawa peace brought prosperity and the growth of urban life to Edo Japan (1615-1868). A chonin, or ‘townspeople’, culture flourished in its cities, as merchants from the lower rungs of the Confucian social order rose to become new sources of affluence. A recent exhibition at the Sackler Gallery explored three works of Japanese master artist Kitagawa Utamaro
It enabled them to seek worldly, if transient, diversions in the phenomenon known as the ukiyo, ‘floating world’, of which the Yoshiwara, ‘pleasure quarters’ of Edo, presentday Tokyo was a prominent part. The spread of literacy spurred a demand for popular literature, and a taste for woodblock prints and illustrated books offering ukiyo-e, ‘pictures of the floating world’. These images had to be officially approved, however, and the publishers who hired artists to depict them were cautiously optimistic.
Kitagawa Utamaro, Ukiyo-e master
One of the most highly esteemed ukiyo-e artists of his generation was the legendary Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) from Edo. Like other artists of his time, he did not work independently but was employed by publishers and patrons as a ‘brush for hire’. Utamaro was known already in his own day as a master of the bijin, ‘beauty’ genre, brilliantly capturing sensuous females both