Watanabe NANGAKU
(Japan 1767–1813)
- Title
- (Portraits of six poetesses)
- Other titles:
- Portraits of six women
- Place of origin
-
Japan
- Period
- Edo (Tokugawa) period 1615 - 1868 → Japan
- Year
- 18th century-19th century
- Media category
- Painting
- Materials used
- hanging scroll; ink, colours and gold on silk
- Dimensions
-
44.3 x 66.0cm image; 155.5 x 84.3 x 96.7cm scroll [height x width x rod]
- Signature & date
- Signed c.l., in Japanese [inscribed in ink] "Nangaku [artist's seal]". Not dated.
- Credit
- Purchased 1980
- Accession number
- 121.1980
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
Watanabe Nangaku was one of Okyo's ten most noted pupils. Okyo and his large studio fulfilled many commissions for 'bijin-ga' (paintings of beautiful women), professional-style paintings that were the Kyoto equivalent of Edo 'ukiyo-e' paintings and would have been commissioned by the Kyoto equivalent of the Edo townspeople. Nangaku was also significant for initiating Edo artists into the Kyoto-based Maruyama school while on a three-year sojourn there.
Compositions of six female portraits are uncommon, and while an Edo artist may have done it as a 'mitate' (parody) on the classical theme of the Six Immortal Poets ('Rokkasen'), Nangaku has treated his work as a group portrait. The women are believed to include two courtesans from Shimabara, Kyoto's entertainment district, the mother of painter Ike Taiga (lower left), and a peasant from the Ohara village, which provided Kyoto with brushwood for winter fires.
The Asian Collections, AGNSW, 2003, pg.253.
- Bibliography (4)
-
Jackie Menzies (Australia) (Author), The Floating World: Japan's world of transient pleasures, Sydney, 1994, not paginated. cat.no. L13
Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), Three years on: a selection of acquisitions 1978-1981, Sydney, 1981, 85 (colour illus.), 98. cat.no. 26
'Japanese Figure Painting: From the Public to the Personal' by Jackie Menzies, pg. 114-119., Orientations Sep 2000, Sep 2000, 117 (colour illus.). fig.5
'The Floating World', The Asian Collections Art Gallery of New South Wales 2003, 2003, 253 (colour illus.).
- Exhibition history (2)
-
The Floating World: Japan's World of transient pleasures, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 25 May 1994–17 Jul 1994.
Beauty and Desire in Edo period Japan, National Gallery of Australia, 06 Jun 1998–09 Aug 1998.
