Actors, Courtesans, and Famous Vistas: Japanese Art From Columbia Collections

Actors, Courtesans, and Famous Vistas presents Japanese wood-block prints depicting actors, courtesans, and scenic views, remarkable for their purity of color and excellent condition. All 66 items, among them examples by Hiroshige and Hokusai and two six-panel early 17th-century screens, are from Columbia's collections and are being shown publicly at the University for the first time.

Gathered from the collections of the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library and the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, the works on view range from the 17th to the mid-19th century and include prints of actors by Kiyonaga, Toyokuni and Kunisada, courtesans by Utamaro and Utamaro II, Eishi and Eisen, and scenes from "The Tale of Genji" by Toyokuni III, Kunisada II, Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige.

Unusually well preserved, the prints have retained the subtlety of their original colors, said Professor of Art History Miyeko Murase, who with her graduate students curated the exhibition. "What is rare about these prints is the condition," she said. "It is quite good." Purples, "very fugitive colors," the grays of the kimonos in an Eishi print of courtesans, and the Prussian blue used in the monochromatic triptych by Eisen are particularly notable, she said.

Of special interest are two triptychs by Kunisada, examples of a process called chirimen-e (the word also denotes an expensive silk crepe) in which the prints shrink to half their original size, and are crinkled between bevelled boards until they resemble crepe. Appreciated as a kind of curio or craft, they were popular export items in the 1840s and later, said Professor Murase.

The 53 stations on the Tokaido, the ancient East Sea road from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto, were favorite subjects of print makers Hiroshige and Hokusai in early 19th-century Japan and became an important influence on Western art. Nearly two dozen prints from the famous series by Hiroshige are on view, and a number of them are shown in conjunction with depictions of the same station by Hokusai, providing an opportunity to compare the differing styles of the two artists. "Hokusai emphasized human activities, and Hiroshige was more interested in mood and the topographic character of the landscape," said Professor Murase.