Eisen Ikeda Ukiyo-e
• Eisen subsequently specialized in bijinga and shunga (‘spring paintings’, erotic pictures).
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Eisen Ikeda
Born Died
1790 1848
Nationality
Japanese
Field
Ukiyo-e
Japanese painter and woodblock-print designer. Later in life, he turned increasingly to writing popular novelettes and other works. Eisen was also author of the Zoku ukiyoe ruiko (Compendium of ukiyoe , 2nd series), a re-editing of the major sources for the history of ukiyoe . Ukiyo-e means literally floating world picture - uki (floating) - yo (world) - e (picture). It is the general term for a genre of Japanese woodblock prints produced between the seventeenth and the twentieth century.ww
• Eisen’s style depicting women, which began to appear around 1821, is characterized by straight lines varying in thickness, sharp angular lines and fine details. • Eisen later returned to full-length figures. Works of the later 1820s also employed Western-style techniques, such as the use of fine parallel lines for shading. • Eisen began to design landscapes and courtesan prints using shades of blue, known as the aizurie (‘blue-printed pictures’). • In 1835, Eisen began the series Sixtynine Stations of the Kisokaido (Kisokaido rokujukyu tsugi ; late 1830s; London, BM), which was completed by ANDO HIROSHIGE. • Eisen was also a writer, producing both illustrations and text. In early books, the figure, animal and plant depictions reveal an indebtedness to KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI, which Eisen himself acknowledged.
Eisen Ikeda is famous for his images of beautiful courtesans, called bijin-ga. And while the women depicted by Kitagawa Utamaro look more like skinny fashion models on a perpetual yoghurt diet, the girls designed by Eisen are normal, even a bit sturdy, and clad in a lush, richly decorated kimono - unless the great master preferred to depict them without clothes. The main subjects of Eisen Ikeda prints and book illustrations are the so-called beautiful women pictures of prostitutes and shunga - sexually explicit images. The third speciality of the artist were landscapes prints. Art critics place some of his landscape prints next to Hokusai. One of the last landscape prints he worked on, was the series of the 69 Stations of the Kiso Highway, which was originally not meant as a collaboration work. But the artist had some dispute with the publisher and quit the job after having finished 24 prints. To rescue the series and the investment of the publisher, Ando Hiroshige was commissioned to finish the series. After about 1830 the artist created aizuri-e. These were ukiyo-e printed only in shades of blue. They were a kind of popular fashion in the 1830s and 1840s. Aizuri-e are coveted by today’s collectors and therefore expensive.
Eisen Ikeda was born in Edo (Tokyo) as the son of a calligrapher. His first art teacher was a lesser known artist named Hakkeisai. Later he became a student of the famous ukioyo-e artist Kikugawa Eizan. The main subjects of Eisen Ikeda prints are bijin-ga prints of beautiful women, prostitutes and sexually explicit shunga. He also produced prints of landscapes that are highly regarded. Eisen Ikeda was also active as author of a book titled Zoku ukiyo-e ruiko, a supplement to a compendium of the history of ukiyo-e. In this book Keisai Eisen describes himself as a hard-drinking and dissolved guy who was the owner of a brothel in the 1830s. The brothel later burned down. Many of the ukiyo-e artists were rather bohemian guys who bragged about their numerous love affairs and their macho-behavior like going on drinking binges. The later artist Toyohara Kunichika was another good example of this mentality.
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IKEDA EISEN (1790 - 1848): KAKEMONO - BIJIN WITH UMBRELLA
Ikeda EISEN. (Japan 1790–1848). Title: (Woman in blue kimono)
Eisen (1864 – 1905)
Late 19th century
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Ikeda Bunko, Vol.II, no.30
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SHUNGA PRINTS
KEDA EISEN (1790 - 1848): SHINOBAZU TEN
Designed by: Yolanda De La Torre