Eisen | Uki-e of Nihonbashi Market
溪齋英泉 Keisai Eisen（1790-1848）
新版浮绘江户日本桥市中之图
Uki-e of Nihonbashi Market
Early 19C
木版画 | 横绘大判 | 26cm x 38cm
Woodblock-print | Oban-yoke-e | 26cm x 38cm
早期版本和版次；颜色鲜艳；整体品相完好，正面边缘和背面有轻微脏痕；非常罕见
Fine edition, impression and color; minor soiling, mostly margins, front and verso, otherwise good condition. Very Rare.
$4,000
Nihonbashi was not and is not the largest bridge in Edo-Tokyo, but in many ways it was the center of all things. This was a thriving market area in Edo times, featuring rows of fishmonger stands that were the precursor of today’s Tsukiji fish market, and Japan’s first department store, Mitsukoshi.
It was also the starting point of the Tokaido and Kiso Kido highways, and the point by which all distances to Edo were measured. Still is. So it’s no surprise that it was a favorite of Ukiyoe artists like Hokusai, Hiroshige and, here, Eisen.
The bridge and the surrounding riverbanks were alive with energy and excitement. Throngs pressed to get across the elegantly curved wooden span. Shoppers haggled with merchants. The cries of vendors filled the air. Giving us a bird’s-eye view, Eisen and his contemporaries allowed us to see beyond this roiling beehive of activity to the rooftops and fire towers of Edo, the Imperial Palace and, off in the distance, Mount Fuji. It’s so full of life that all those little Edo-ites seem ready to jump off the paper.
This early design by Eisen has remarkably strong yellows, reds and greens and pre-dates some of Hokusai and Hiroshige’s views. “Uki-e” means “perspective print” and It provides a fascinating example of a Japanese print designer wrestling with Western perspective. We can see it in the diminishing size of the buildings. This genre took hold relatively early in the history of Japanese woodblock prints. Interestingly, scholars believe Japanese artists were copying Chinese experiments with perspective drawing.
Today Nihonbashi is a stone bridge built at the beginning of the 20th Century, one which, remarkably, survived the firebombing of Tokyo in 1945. Hasui continued the woodblock print tradition of depicting it. But it feels a bit forlorn. It is under an elevated highway. No view of Fuji here.
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Keisai Eisen (1790–1848)
Keisai Eisen was born in Edo into the Ikeda family, the son of a noted calligrapher. He was apprenticed to Kanō Hakkeisai, from whom he took the name Keisai, and after the death of his father he studied under Kikugawa Eizan. His initial works reflected the influence of his mentor, but he soon developed his own style.
He produced a number of surimono (prints that were privately issued), erotic prints, and landscapes, including The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kiso Kaidō, which he started and which was completed by Hiroshige. Eisen is most renowned for his bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women) which portrayed the subjects as more worldly than those depicted by earlier artists, replacing their grace and elegance with a less studied sensuality. He produced many portraits and full-length studies depicting the fashions of the time.