Original woodblock print – Tomioka Eisen (1864-1905) “-Unknown title -Meiji 28-39 period(1895-1906)

Description

Original woodblock print – Tomioka Eisen (1864-1905) “-Unknown title -Meiji 28-39 period(1895-1906)

A scene in which a woman from a townman is directly appealing to a samurai who was falconry is depicted.

The signature is  Eisen”  永洗

memo

At first, he taught himself painting, and while working as a drafting worker at the Army General Staff in his youth, he learned ukiyo-e from Kobayashi Eitaku(小林永濯) at the age of 18, and called him Eisen Asai(永洗 藻斎). Besides painting, he also illustrated magazines and gained a reputation for his gorgeous bijin-ga. His style of painting also influenced Kiyokata Kaburagi, who became a model of fashion at that time. He resigned from his post on the occasion of the death of his master, Eitaku. He began to devote himself to painting from 1890. He specializes in genre painting, and joined “Miyako Shinbun” to draw illustrations for serialized novels every day as an illustrator, but Eisen draws illustrations for “Miyako Shinbun”, which is a purchaser of downtown. It was so popular that the sales of newspapers were very different. Eisen’s bewitching beauty paintings are said to have been since Utamaro Kitagawa, but he was also known for drawing unique characters, whether historical or modern. In addition to “Miyako Shinbun”, he also drew illustrations for the magazine “Fuzoku Gaho”.

From the 20th year of the Meiji era (1887) to the 30th year of the Meiji era (1897), he was active in the beauty paintings of hand-drawn ukiyo-e, as well as illustrations for elementary school textbooks, frontispieces for the magazine “Bungei Club”, and spring paintings, which are rare for ukiyo-e artists in the Meiji era. And so on. He founded the Society of Japanese Style Painting with Kaede Matsumoto and Hanko Kajita, but later withdrew. He is also a special supporter of the Nihon Bijutsuin in Okakura Tenshin. Okakura treated Eisen, who was originally an illustrator, with no distinction, and Eisen, who was also a peaceful socialite, was in a position like a messenger connecting the art school and various fields. In 1898, at the Japan Painting Association-Japan Art Institute Union Painting Co-Promotion Society, “Ima-sama Bijin” received the first prize.

In his later years, he aspired to be a painter, and his many genre paintings and historical paintings were handwritten. However, in the heyday of his frontispiece in 1905, he died of tuberculosis at the age of 42.