Shunman | Mishima, The Six Jewel Rivers
窪俊満 Kubo Shunman (1757-1820)
六玉川 三岛之玉川
Mishima, from the series of The Six Jewel Rivers
1785-89
木版画 | 纵绘大判 | 38.5cm x 24.5m
Woodblock-print | Oban Tate-e | 38.5cm x 24.5m
第二版本；早期版次；颜色保存完好；整体品相完好；非常轻微的托底；轻微黄化
Second edition; early impression color; very slight backing, slight toning, otherwise in good condition
六玉川，歌枕名，原意为在和歌中经常被提及的六条同名不同地的玉川。江户时代，随着市民文化的兴盛，六玉川也成一众浮世绘画家创作的对象，并逐渐演变为浮世绘的一个母题。本作画题中的“三岛之玉川”，即指流经原摄津国三岛郡，今大阪府高槻市的玉川。
三岛的这条玉川，自古以来便因流传的曲曲和歌而有着“捣衣之玉川”“砧之玉川”的别名。松风红叶，秋水潺湲，无需捣衣声声入耳，就已觉画中秋意浓。两位刚刚在捣衣砧前辛勤劳作了许久的姑娘，此刻终于可以稍作歇息，站立起身，拭去颔边的汗水，舒展紧张的手臂，在金风中尽情享受着秋日凉爽。身旁两位席地而坐的同伴已经“换班”就绪，正手持捣衣杵接替击打着白布。
俊满通过巧妙运用“红嫌”之法，摒弃了女性衣装上的所有鲜艳之色，反以似水墨画中的“墨分五色”之法涂抹勾勒，在墨彩笔意加持下，四位健康美丽的劳动女子衣袂素净、风姿绰约，倒像是身处雅集，有着一如中国古代文人名士的浪漫潇洒。全画满而不乱，流畅且富有韵律感，笔情墨趣，一时尽收眼底。
Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.
Kubo Shunman (1757-1820)
Kubo Shunman, if the works he left behind are any indication, was a painter first, and a printmaker second. After his death in 1820, he left us 70 paintings, making him the most prolific artist of the Kitao school. His prints, on the other hand, were few and far between, but they had an elegance befitting a man who had been a student of the great Torii Kiyonaga.
Shunman studied with the painters Kitao Shigemasa and Kaatori Uohiko. But he also studied with the poet Katori Nahiko, for this young talent was also a poet of note.
His prints often featured beautiful women, always slender, well-coiffed and sumptuously dressed. The scholar Andres Marks notes that these women were often set in landscapes, such as in Shunman’s most famous woodblock print, a five-sheet work entitled “Six Jewel Rivers.” These works stand along as single sheets – such as this one – but can naturally be combined.
He embraced a quiet palette. In fact, he was part of the beni-girai or “red-hating” school, meaning that he eschewed this particular pigment, finding it garish. The phrase directly translates as “dislike of red.”
Later in life, he combined his poetry and his printmaking in designs that featured verse. Like many other Ukiyoe artists, he was also known to produce erotic prints, shunga, to make ends meet.
Unlike many Ukiyoe artists, he also was adept at still life. These were often featured in his small surimono private prints. In fact, Marks notes, Shunman’s earliest known work was a copy of a votive plaque by Nahiko in 1774. Interestingly, but likely little more than a coincidence, at this exact same time on the other side of the planet in France, Jean Siméon Chardin, perhaps history’s greatest still life painter, was at the height of his powers.
Small world. But then again, isn’t that what still life paintings are all about?