An Alternative View:
Ukiyo-e at the University of Chicago
Standard sources such as Yoshida Teruji’s three volume Dictionary of Ukiyo-e (Ukiyo-e Jiten) ( Ryokuen shobo, Tokyo: 1965-1971) recognize two basic views on this art – one seeing it as essentially prints and tracing its origins back to Hishikawa Moronobu (fl. 1618- 94) and the other recognizing its contribution in other media such as painting and finding its origins in Iwasa Katsumochi Matabei (1578-1650). The first accorded well with the Japanese government policy of old versus export arts that was adopted in the late 19th c. and which is discussed by Mimi Yiengpruksawan in her recent state of the field of Japanese art history (“Japanese Art History, 2001: The State and Stakes of Research,” Art Bulletin LXXXIII, No. 1, March, 2001).
Old arts consisted of ink paintings (suibokuga) and hand scrolls (Yamato-e). The former is identified with Japan’s warrior class, just as the latter is with the Imperial Court. Thus, in the period before WWII when military men took control of Japan in the name of the Emperor, the “old arts” were naturally seen as indispensable elements of the nation’s cultural patrimony and so protected from sale abroad. The opposite, of course, was true of the “export arts,” which included prints, such as those of Ukiyo-e.
This paper considers the two views of Ukiyo-e noted in Ukiyo-e jiten in context of the paradigm of ‘old” versus “export arts.” The second view challenged that paradigm. In seeing the origins of Ukiyo-e in Matabei, it linked Ukiyo-e with Yamato-e for Matabei claimed to be the “Last Tosa,” the Tosa being the school most identified with Yamato-e. Conversely, the first view supported the paradigm of “old” versus “export arts.” By seeing Ukiyo-e as essentially prints, this view could present Ukiyo-e as unique and unprecedented in its focus on this media, reducing thereby the importance of its links to Yamato-e.
For reasons having to do with currents in Art History in this country, the first view was adopted here and is now generally accepted. Father, however, followed the second view. He taught that Ukiyo-e emerged out of Yamato-e. Similarly, Donald Jenkins was one of the first to work on the relationship between prints and painting in Ukiyo-e. Donald introduced me to the study of Matabei.
The tradition of study of Ukiyo-e that Father founded at the University of Chicago, moreover, is particularly importance today because the second view of this art triumphed in Japan after the war. Developments in Art in this country have also added to its relevance.
This paper examines these two views of Ukiyo-e, considering how they create different models of the history of this art’s development that, in turn, change our view of 19th c. Ukiyo-e, of Ukiyo-e’s relationship to modern Japanese prints, and of the relationship of between the two most important schools of modern Japanese prints: Shin hanga and Sosaku hanga.