Hishikawa Moronobu was a Japanese artist known for popularizing the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock prints and paintings in the late 17th century.
Early life and training
Moronobu was the son of a well-respected dyer and a gold and silver-thread brocade artisan in the village of Hodamura, Awa Province, near Edo Bay in present-day Kyonan, Chiba Prefecture. After moving to Edo, Moronobu, who had learned his father's craft, studied both Tosa and Kanō-style painting. He thus had a solid grounding in both decorative crafts and academic painting, which served him well when he then turned to ukiyo-e, which he studied with his mentor, the Kanbun Master.
Work
His first known signed and dated works were book illustrations from 1672, although earlier works may yet surface. By the mid-1670s Moronobu had already become the most important ukiyo-e printmaker, a position he maintained until his death. He produced more than 100 illustrated books, perhaps as many as 150, though it is difficult to attribute to him many unsigned examples. Very few of Moronobu's single-sheet prints have survived, and most, if not all, are unsigned. Among these single sheets are erotic album prints. Moronobu was not the "founder" of ukiyo-e, as some early scholars surmised. Instead, he made an assimilation of inchoate ukiyo-e designs by previous artists, a consolidation of genre and early ukiyo-e painting and prints. It was Moronobu who created the first truly mature form of ukiyo-e, in a style of great strength and presence that would set the standards for generations of artists who followed. Moronobu's mastery of line has often been cited in assessments of his oeuvre, as well as the interactive arrangement of figures, which seem always to serve a dramatic function not usually seen in the work of his predecessors. Some of Moronobu's prints are found with hand coloring, but this specimen is a sumizuri-e in its original, uncolored state. There is something almost elemental in Moronobu's line work and figure placements in black and white, which most often was diminished into more decorative effects when colors were applied by hand. The black and gray lines and solid areas contrast boldly with the white paper to produce a range of tonal values, with emphasis on the shape and movement of the lines and the "positive" values of the white spaces. As in many other designs by Moronobu, the artist was inventive in his use of curvilinear forms juxtaposed against straight diagonals. Groupings of 12 images had been common for centuries in court and genre paintings. Among the more famous surviving early specimens were the painted single sheets by the master Tosa Mitsunobu. Thus Moronobu's adoption of a grouping of 12 was conventional enough, particularly as such an arrangement afforded a context in which to alter the furnishings, clothing, and design patterns, matched more or less to the months of the year. However, it cannot be said that much shunga strictly adhered to seasonal progressions or 12-step narratives. Moronobu's print qualifies as an abuna-e, a non-explicit erotic design of a type often found as the frontispiece to shunga sets or occasionally interspersed among the explicit sheets. Moronobu's formalism is evident here, with curves and straight lines balanced in near perfect proportion. As for the amorous couple, the seduction has just begun with the loosening of the obi. Erotic signifiers enhance the scene. For example, the young beauty raises her right sleeve toward her mouth in a gesture of suppressed emotion. Water imagery evokes the woman's sexuality, with feminine or "yin" erotic symbols in the garden stream behind the lovers and in the waves on the robe of the young gallant, while the flowering ume on the standing screen serves as a metaphor for male or "yang" sexuality. Despite his popularity with ukiyo-e prints, his illustrations found in collaborations with other artists and in printed books are kicked off his career. In some cases Moronobu would take the images and subjects from other prints and illustrations made in Kyoto but would replace the images with his own illustrations to make it his own. A common subject Moronobu worked with was the depiction of women in their daily lives. He did this right up until the end of the 19th century, or in other words, the end of the Edo period. An example would be his contribution of illustrations for Hyankunin isshu zōsanshō. This publication produced an argument on whether is was designed for women or not. Moronobu's illustrations can also be found in The Pictorial Survey, drafted by Ochikochi Dōin. The images depicted include long military processions and travelers of all ages and stations. As he continued to do prints the subjects, scenes, colors, composition, and even his line work changed with adaptation of techniques and the audience that was interested in the current activities displayed. Moronobu's work is held in numerous museum collections around the world, and in the Library of Congress.
Works
More examples of Moronobu's work can be found at .
