Kyōsai manga shohen

Commentary by Oikawa Shigeru

Posted December 5, 2016

Original unedited text in Japanese follows

The year 1881 (Meiji 14) saw the publication of a number of Kyōsai’s illustrated books (ehon), and Kyōsai manga shohen (Kyōsai’s manga, part one) represents the best of these. [1] Similar to the usage of the term manga (漫画) in Katsushika Hokusai’s Hokusai manga (FSC-GR-780.233.1-14), in this work it also refers to “pictures drawn in a free, unfettered manner.” The cream-colored cover is embossed with cherry blossom motifs, and scattered above these are Kyōsai’s regularly recurring seals: Shōjō (惺々), Shuchūgaki (酒仲画鬼), Hippō no Nihon (筆峰之日本), and Gaki (画鬼). The inside front cover shows a figure of a demon (oni) printed in brown ink on red paper.

The preface, signed Bakakusai (馬角斎) (Horse’s Horn Cloister/Reeks of Idiocy), is by the well-known Hokkaido explorer Matsuura Hiroshi (Matsuura Takeshirō; 1818–1888). It provides a humorous description of Kyōsai’s drinking habits and of his exceptional talents as an artist. Kyōsai had produced the illustrations for Takeshirō’s book Hatsuun yokyō (Discovering the cloud to see the treasure left behind; 2 vols.), as well as the work A Picture of Takeshirō Achieving Nirvana (Takeshirō nehan zu) in which Kyōsai depicts the explorer in the nirvana (nehan) pose typically used to depict the death of the historical Buddha. [2] Takeshirō also frequently appears in Kyōsai’s illustrated diary (e-nikki), thus attesting to the close relationship between the two men.

The twenty-four two-page openings and the two single-page illustrations in Kyōsai manga shohen are elegantly rendered in light colors and include a variety of animals and mountainous landscapes: “Sacred Festival at Mount Atago,” “Sanja Festival at Mount Kinryū,” “Festival of Ōji,” “The Seven Deities of Good Fortune of Civilization and Enlightenment,” “Shōki with Demons,” “Figures of Blind People,” “The Daily Life of Skeletons,” “Yamanba and Kintarō,” “Catfish of Fujikoshi,” and “The Lifestyle of Frogs.” While the Seven Deities of Good Fortune are rendered in a comic manner, figures such as Lu Zhishen (魯智深) and Yamanba (山姥) are done in the more formal orthodox style of the Kano school. Such a combination of stylistic approaches reveals that for Kyōsai the boundary between caricature and a finished painting (honga 本画) was not always clear.

Of note is the fact that around 1863 (Bunkyū 3), several harimaze-e 貼り交ぜ絵 (pasted pictures), largely vertical woodblock-printed sheets with a number of independent images, appeared under the name of Kyōsai manga 狂斎漫画. However, these are single-sheet prints and are different from the illustrated book in the Pulverer collection.

[1] Only the first part was ever published.

[2] A Picture of Takeshirō Achieving Nirvana is housed in the Matsuura Takeshiro Memorial Museum (Matsuura Takeshiro Kinenkan) in Matsusaka, Mie Prefecture.

書名暁斎漫画

執筆者　及川茂　

明治14年、多数の暁斎絵本が出版されたが、その中でも最良の絵本である。「漫画」は『北斎漫画』と同じく「漫然と自由に描いた絵」という意味である。表紙はクリーム色で桜の花が空摺りされ、その上に「惺々Shōjō」「酒仲画鬼Shuchūgaki」「筆峰之日本Hippō no Nihon」「画鬼」の暁斎の良く使う印が赤色で散りばめられている。表紙裏の見返しには赤い紙の上に鬼が茶色で摺られている。序文は「馬角斎Bakakusaiのあるじ松浦弘」で、暁斎の酒癖と絵師としての超越的な技術について戯文調で賛辞を述べている。松浦弘とは北海道の探検家として知られる松浦武四郎（1818–1888）のことで、暁斎はその『撥雲余興』Hatsuun yokyō（初篇、2篇）の挿絵を描き、また武四郎をブッダに喩えた「武四郎涅槃図」を描いている。暁斎の『絵日記』には武四郎が頻繁に登場し、両者の深い交流が見られる。

本書の内容は、いずれも淡彩を施した上品な版画で、「愛宕山Atagoyamaの神事」「金龍山Kinryūsanの三社祭Sanjamatsuri」「王子の祭礼」「文明開化の七福神」「鐘馗と鬼」「盲人の姿態」「骸骨の日常」「山姥Yamanbaと金太郎」「富士越Fujikoshiの鯰」「蛙の生活」などで、間に様々な動物や山岳風景などが描かれている。七福神たちが滑稽に描かれる一方で、魯智深や山姥が真面目な狩野派の様式で描かれ、暁斎にとって戯画と本画との境界がほとんど無いことを物語っている。

なお文久3年頃に「狂斎漫画」という数点の貼り交ぜ絵の錦絵が出されているが、それらは一枚絵で本書とは別作品である。

Selected readings

Louise Norton Brown, Block Printing and Book Illustration in Japan (London: George Routledge and Sons: E. P. Dutton, 1924), 196.

Dessins, estampes, livres illustrés du JaponT. Hayashi (Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1902), 279.

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers, 1987), see esp. vol. 2, 938.

Shigeru Oikawa 及川茂, ed., Comic Genius, Kawanabe Kyōsai/Kyōsai no giga kyōga 『暁斎の戯画・狂画』(Tokyo: Tokyo Shinbun, 1996), 152.

Yoshida Susugu 吉田漱, Makino Keiichi 牧野圭一, C. H. Mitchell チャールズー・H・ミッチエル, Kyōsai suiga 『暁斎漫画』 (repr., Warabi City: Kyōsai Memorial Museum, 1985).

Copies in other collections

British Museum, London

Kawanabe Kyōsai Memorial Museum, Warabi City