To leaf through albums of Japanese prints is truly to experience a new awakening, during which one is struck in particular by the splendour of Utamaro. His sumptuous plates seize the imagination through his love of women, whom he wraps so voluptuously in grand Japanese fabrics, in folds, contours, cascades and colours so finely chosen that the heart grows faint looking at them, imagining what exquisite thrills they represented for the artist. For women’s clothing reveals a nation’s concept of love, and this love itself is but a form of lofty thought crystallised around a source of joy. Utamaro, the painter of Japanese love, would moreover die from this love; for one must not forget that love for the Japanese is above all erotic. The shungas* of this great artist illustrate how interested he was in this subject. His delectable images of women fill hundreds of books and albums and are reminders, if any were needed, of the countless affinities between art and eroticism. Thus Utamaro’s teacher, the painter Toriyama Sekien, could say of the magnificent Picture Book: Selected Insects (Illustrations 1, 2, 3, 4): “Here are the first works done from the heart.” The heart of Utamaro shines forth in the quest for the beauty of animals through this effusion with which he depicts the women of the Yoshiwara*: the love of beauty in an artist is not real unless he has the sensuality for it. Love and sex are at the foundation of aesthetic feelings and become the best way to exteriorise art which, in truth, never renders life better than by schematisation, by stylisation.

      Among the artists of the Japanese movement of the “floating world” (Ukiyo), Utamaro is one of the best known in Europe; he has remained the painter of the “green houses”, as he was called by Edmond de Goncourt. We associate him at once with the colour prints (nishiki-e*) of his great willowy black-haired courtesans dressed in precious fabrics, a virtuoso performance by the printmaker.

      In addition to romantic scenes set in nature, he dealt with themes such as famous lovers together, portraits of courtesans or erotic visions of the Yoshiwara*. But it is Utamaro’s portrayals of women which are the most striking by their sensual beauty, at once lively and charming, so far removed from realism, and imbued with a highly-refined psychological sense. He offered a new ideal of femininity; thin, aloof, and with reserved manners. He has been criticised for having popularised the fashion of the long silhouette in women and giving these figures unrealistic proportions. He was, to be sure, one of the prominent representatives of this style, but his portraits of women, with their distorted proportions, remain works of an art which is marvellous and eminently Japanese. In truth, the Japanese value nobility in great beauty more highly than observation and cleverness. Subtly, the evocative approach brings beauty to full flower, offers its thousand facets to the eye, astonishes by a complexity of attitudes which are more apparent than real and takes absurd liberties with the truth, liberties which are nonetheless full of meaning.

      Little is known of the life of Utamaro. Ichitarō Kitagawa, his original name, is said to have been born in Edo around the middle of the eighteenth century, probably in 1753, certainly in Kawagoe in the province of Musashi. It is a time-honoured tradition of Japanese artists to abandon their family name and take artistic pseudonyms. The painter first took the familiar name of Yūsuke, then as a studio apprentice the name Murasaki, and finally, as a painter promoted out of the atelier and working in his own right, the name of Utamaro.

      Utamaro came to Edo at a young age. After a few years of wandering, he went to live at the home of Tsutaya Jūzaburō, a famous publisher of illustrated books of the time, whose mark representing an ivy leaf surmounted by the peak of Fujiyama, is visible on the most perfect of Utamaro’s printings. He lived a stone’s throw from the great gates leading to the Yoshiwara*. When Tsutaya Jūzaburō moved and set up shop in the centre of the city, Utamaro followed and stayed with him until the publisher’s death in 1797. Thereafter Utamaro lived successively on Kyūemon-chō St, Bakuro-chō St, then established himself, in the years “preceding” his death, near the Benkei Bridge.

      “Naniwaya Okita”, 1792–1793. Hosōban, nishiki-e (double-sided (back view shown)), 33.2 × 15.2 cm. Unknown Collection.

      “Naniwaya Okita”, 1792–1793. Hosōban, nishiki-e (double-sided (front view shown)), 33.2 × 15.2 cm. Unknown Collection.

      He first studied painting at the school of Kanō. Then, while still quite young, he became the pupil of Toriyama Sekien. Sekien taught him the art of printing and of Ukiyo-e* painting. In his early years, Utamaro published prints under the name of Utagawa Toyoaki. It was his prints of beautiful women (bijin-e) and of erotic subjects which would make him famous. The masters Sekien and Shunshō passed on to Utamaro the secrets learned from the great Kiyonaga and from the amiable and ingenious Harunobu (1752–1770). He became a sort of aristocrat of painting, not deigning to paint people of the theatre or even men. At the time, painters’ popularity depended on the popularity of their subject. And, in a country where all strata of the population adored theatre players, it was common for a painter to take advantage of their fame by integrating them into his work. Utamaro refused to draw actors, saying proudly: “I don’t want to be beholding to actors for my fame, I wish to found a school which owes nothing except to the talent of the painter.” When the actor Ichikawa Yaozō had an enormous success in the play of Ohan and Choyemon and his portrait, done by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769–1825), became famous, Utamaro, did indeed show the play, but represented it by elegant women, playing in imaginary scenes. It was his way of demonstrating that the artists of the popular school, who had replicated the subject in the manner of Toyokuni, were a troop swarming out of their studios, a troop which he compared to “ants coming out of rotten wood”. Women were his only interest, filling his art, and soon he became the wonderful artist we know. Amongst those who played an influential role for Utamaro at the time, Tsutaya Jūzaburō (1750–1797)

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