Eishi | Suma, Genji in Fashionable Modern Guise
鳥文斎栄之 Chobunsai Eishi (1756-1829)
风流源氏 须磨
Suma, from the series Genji in Fashionable Modern Guise
1787-88
木版画 | 纵绘大判 | 38.4cm x 25.6cm
Woodblock-print | tate-e | 38.4cm x 25.6cm
三枚续绘或双枚续绘的右联；非常早期的版次；颜色保存非常好；右下角有一处轻微的黄污
Right sheet of incomplete triptych or diptych; very early impression with fine color; one yellow stain on the lower right corner
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千年以来，《源氏物语》都是日本绘画的一个重要灵感来源，以其为母题的浮世绘，自江户时代起更是数不胜数。本作即取材于《源氏物语》中的第十二帖：须磨。在原书中，此帖主要描写了源氏因顾忌被政敌所攻击，自请远离京都，流放至位于今兵库县神户市须磨海边的一年时光。
奇松、沙滩、远处的白帆。画面中景内的源氏公子头戴乌帽子，神情放松，正立于檐下，在身旁扛刀女侍从的陪同下极目远眺须磨浦上。越过弧形的木拱桥，前景中，两名侍女已备好文台纸砚，莳绘文箱，随时等候着源氏公子前来阅览吟咏。日复一日，身处须磨的源氏公子都似这般过活，虽时常胸怀凄楚，但也还算从容闲适，度过了生命中较为安稳的一年。本作用色极具特点，充分体现了鸟文斋荣之独特的“红嫌”之法。他有意摒弃使用红色、粉色等易使人联想的“女性之色”，反以似水墨画中的“墨分五色”之法作图，仅在部分细节处点缀浅赭石色，意境高远，古朴雅致，更显往事如烟、浮世幻梦之感。
值得一提的是，本作或为一幅三联绘或双枚绘的右联，惜目前暂无发现完整画作，存世量可谓寥若晨星，足可见其珍罕之处。
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Chobunsai Eishi (1756-1829)
The women are beautiful, so very beautiful, and as the years went on they got taller and thinner and more elegant. Indeed, they hardly looked of this world.
They were the ever-lengthening visions of Chobunsai Eishi, seen by many as a rival to Utamaro and Kiyonaga. But truly, he was his own man, and his story is quite unusual in the annals of Ukiyoe lives.
Also known by the given name Hosoda, Eishi’s life and career took a circular journey. He was born in 1756 into a high-ranking samurai family — so high-ranking in fact, that he himself received an annual salary of 500 koku a year. (A koku was cost of rice for one man for one year, and was the main monatory measurement of Edo times.) This meant he was quite wealthy, at least by the standards of Japanese woodblock print designers; so many Ukiyoe artists, despite the fame granted them by posterity, were quite poor throughout their lives.
Eishi held a position in the Shogun Tokugawa Leheru’s palace, but gave it up to pursue painting in the Kano school. His first known prints date from 1785, and a few years later he left the Shogunate to pursue art full time. He became known for his prints of beautiful women — bijin — and was soon as equally renowned as his rivals, Utamaro and Kiyonaga. His first known designs featured courtersans, usually standing, and later he focused more on the daily routines of women, often seated, from other walks of life.
As the years progressed, his women became taller and thinner and always standing — more stereotypical examples of the ideal of female beauty than realistic depictions of it. (Edo people were actually somewhat short and compact.) As they grew upwards, the women’s necks lengthened and their heads got smaller and smaller, as least relative to their willowy bodies. They backgrounds tended to be spare, with a muted palette, quietly emphasizing the figures at the forefront of the designs.
Eishi eventually returned to his first love, painting, and by the end of his career focused on it. His paintings became sought after in the Shogun’s court. And so he once again returned to that storied world. In 1800 the Empress acquired one of his paintings, and from 1801 he dedicated himself to painting full-time.
As I said, full circle.
He died in 1829.