Gin sekai 銀世界

FSC-GR-780.318

Commentary by Julie Nelson Davis

Posted September 30, 2015

The poems and illustrations in Gin sekai focus on the snow and how it transforms all that is seen into a World in Silver, as the title may be translated. It was one of three titles published by Tsutaya and designed by Utamaro on the “snow, moon, and flowers” (setsugekka 雪月花). (One of these, on the theme of the moon, is included in the Pulverer collection [see FSC-GR-780.322]; an example of the third album, about flowers [Fugen zō (普賢像)], is in the British Museum.) Gin sekai presents seventy-eight poems on snow, with a preface by poet Yadoya no Meshimori 宿屋飯盛 and with contributions by Shikatsube no Magao 鹿津部真顔, Asakusa no Ichihito 浅草市人, and Tsuburi no Hikaru つふり光, whose poems appear in other Tsutaya-Utamaro collaborations.

Comprised of ten sheets of paper joined at each end in album format, this book features five illustrations by Utamaro that display his accomplishment in appreciated styles of the period. As the student of Kano-trained artist Toriyama Sekien, Utamaro would have been educated as a painter and expected to master not only the Kano style but also to be adept in a range of other period styles. The designs he selected for this and other albums reveal his sincere appreciation of these artistic modes. They also underscore his facility as a painter and demonstrate the high skill of the carvers and printers.

This album opens with a scene from classical Japanese literature. Depicted in a style associated with the Tosa school, Lady Sei Shōnagon pulls up a blind to reveal a garden covered in snow. This is followed by a view of boatmen in straw raincoats, traveling down the Sumida River and passing the well-known site of the Mimeguri Shrine. The scene is rendered in the abbreviated and allusive style of the painter Hanabusa Itchō. In the third image related to the ukiyo-e style, figures at a Yoshiwara party are silhouetted against a shōji screen, their shadows printed in two shades of gray, while a maid slides open the veranda door so a courtesan may look out at the falling snow. Next, a view of a boat being pulled upriver by two figures on shore is described in the manner of an ink study, which shows the remarkable skill of the carvers and printers to translate a painting into print. The final illustration is meant to imitate the style of the Chinese court, as indicated in the costumes, hairstyles, and architecture. Here, children in the scene fight in the drift, make a lion snow sculpture, and roll a massive snowball.

By comparing the Pulverer copy to other impressions, it has been determined that this is a later printing. Earlier printings are decorated with thick applications of brass filings in the clouds in the first and final images—this effect may be seen in FSC-GR-780.322—while later copies include sprinklings of metal in these areas. Some of the color choices for costumes in the first, third, and fifth illustrations are somewhat altered from earlier printings.

For other impressions of this title, see the online collection websites of the British Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. For a facsimile version of this text, see Utamaro by Cholley et al. cited below.

Selected readings:

Asano Shūgō and Timothy Clark, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbun; London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1995).

Jean Cholley, Dominique Morcelon, Junko Miura, and Elisabeth Lemirre, Utamaro: Paysages de neige, La lune folle, A marée basse (Arles: Éditions Philippe Picquier, 2006).

Suzuki Toshiyuki 鈴木俊幸, Tsutaya Jūzaburō 『蔦屋重三郎』 , vol. 9 of Kinsei bungaku kenkyū sōsho 近世文学研究叢書 (Tokyo: Wakakusa shobō, 1998).

Copies in other collections:

British Museum, London

Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba

Edo-Tokyo Museum, Tokyo

Hiraki Ukiyo-e Collection

Donald and Mary Hyde Collection

Keiō Gijuku University, Tokyo

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, Berlin

Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Amsterdam