Utagawa Toyokuni: An Amazing Kabuki Print Designer

If you're looking to understand the rise of the Utagawa school, the most successful Japanese art school in history, you need to know about Utagawa Toyokuni, its second leader. Through his creativity, innovation, and prolific production, Toyokuni transformed kabuki theater prints into an art form and elevated his school to unprecedented heights.

Early Life and Training

The man who became Toyokuni was born in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in 1769. He was the son of a doll and puppet carver. At the age of 14, Toyokuni was apprenticed to the artist Toyoharu to study art.

Like most artists, Toyokuni studied the art of the leading masters of the day—artists like Chōki, Utamaro, and Eishi.

Here's a timeline of these artists so you can see when they lived.

Toyokuni learned their styles and later merged aspects of their techniques with his own sensibilities to create a distinctive style of his own.

In 1804, he and a few other artists, including Utamaro, were shackled and placed under house arrest for 50 days for violating the strict laws against depicting actual people and current events. Despite this setback, Toyokuni was his master's best student and took over the Utagawa school when Toyoharu died in 1814. In his lifetime, he designed over 2,500 print designs, illustrated 400 books, and worked with over 100 publishers.

Pictures of Beautiful Women

Toyokuni's first bijin-ga—pictures of beautiful women—showed the influence of Kiyonaga, Utamaro, and Eishi. This print is from Toyokuni's “Komachi Series”. Komachi refers to Ono no Komachi, a famous poetess of the 9th century. She was a legendary beauty and a popular subject for writers and artists. The series takes episodes from Komachi's life and reinterprets them using the fashion and social customs of the Edo period. Toyokuni designed several different series based on this theme.

In this print above called "Courting Komachi," a courtesan and her attendant are walking at night to visit a client. The sophisticated and elegant way he's portrayed these women is remarkable. There's a wealth of thin, delicate line work in the kimonos and the women's faces. The uneven texture of the woodblock printing on the background makes it look like a charcoal drawing. Where the light beam from the lantern hits objects like the kimonos, it changes the colors. In fact, across her black sash, the printer applied a transparent animal glue to give that section a brighter shine.

 

The print above is "Hinazura of Chojiya" from the series "Beauties as the Seven Komachi" (1793). In this print, Hinazura looks at a caged bird, symbolizing the play “The Parrot”. In this play, the Emperor Yozei sent Komachi a poem, and she responded to his poem by sending it back with only one syllable changed.

 

This is "The Courtesan Takikawa of Ogiya" from the series "Seven Beautiful Komachi". In this print, Takigawa gazes at a hanging scroll depicting Komachi as an old woman, in a scene from the play "The Gravestone".

 

Komachi's life was turned into seven Noh plays. The last period of her life is called "Grave-post Komachi" and it shows her as an old woman thinking about how beautiful she once was. 

 

This print brings to mind Yoshitoshi's print called "Gravemarker Moon" from the series “100 Aspects of the Moon” depicted below. Yoshitoshi's print was done in 1892—a full century after "The Courtesan Takikawa of Ogiya".

 

Prints like these made Toyokuni a very popular bijin-ga artist, and he went on to produce many series of prints of beautiful women. 

Kabuki Theater Prints

Toyokuni was mostly known for his prints related to the kabuki theater, particularly his yakusha-e, or portraits of actors.

This triptych depicts the interior of the Nakamura-za theatre in Edo. While the performance is on the stage, the real fascination lies in the variety of people and activities going on in the audience—people eating, waiters delivering food, people smoking, drinking, talking, elegant women, drunks, all manner of activities.

What's interesting about this triptych is that he designed several others that are identical except for the middle panel, as we can see here. The center panel has been changed to show a different performance.

Here's another version with a different kabuki play in the middle. It's a clever way to get extra mileage out of a print design.

 

Toyokuni was friends with many of the famous actors of the day and was invited backstage, giving him an intimate understanding of actors and plays. In 1794, Toyokuni published a series called "Kabuki Actors on the Stage". Here's actor Otani Oniji III as Ono Sadakuro from that very popular series.

The pose and simple composition, with the actor on a blank background, create a bold design with sharply characterized faces. It is said of Toyokuni's prints that they recreate exactly what one would see on stage - they show actors acting, not merely pictures of actors.

The print above is  from the series: “The Actor Iwai Hanshiro IV as Katanaya Ohana”. Note the wonderful curve of the body, the subtle colors, the clean, crisp lines, and the wonderful facial expressions.

Here are a few more prints from that series.

In the book “Biographies of the Utagawa School of Ukiyo-e Masters” it was written that

 "Kabuki made Toyokuni, and Toyokuni made Kabuki".

Toyokuni also popularized prints that showed two actors from the same performance, like the star and co-star.

At the bottom of this print are some wonderful roosters that echo the actors' expressions and the mood of the scene. The white chicken is almost entirely embossed into the paper.

Another format he made popular, shown below, is of the two-actor print where the actors are cropped at the waist so they become much larger, more dynamic, and bold.

Here's another example with actors Ichikawa Yaozo III and Iwai Kiyotaro. Beautiful clean lines and expressive faces impart the emotions of the actors.

Death Portraits and Technical Innovation

It wasn't only in life that he captured actors. Toyokuni is also credited with creating shini-e - memorial pictures. In Japanese, the verb shinu means "to die", so shini-e means death or memorial pictures. They were popular with the fans of actors who wanted something to remember the actor by. This is a memorial portrait of the actor Sawamura Sojuro IV from 1812.

 

In 1817, Toyokuni published a how-to-draw book called "Quick Instructions in Actor Likenesses" where he provided numerous tips and guidelines on how to draw actor expressions, hairstyles, costumes, and their poses on stage. The drawing styles in this book were closely followed by his students and other later artists.

 

Big Head Portraits

Ōkubi-e, or "big head" portraits, represent one of the most striking genres of woodblock prints. Katsukawa Shunko is usually credited with creating the first ōkubi-e with his print of kabuki actor Matsumoto Kōshirō IV. This style of print started to become popular in the late 18th century.

Following in his footsteps, Toyokuni created some impressive and expressive ōkubi prints. Below shows Nakamura Nakazo II as Matsuo-maru (1796). Notice the bold and mountainous brushstrokes in the kimono, leading up to the dramatic face on the left with the unusual dark black streak of a mouth. Only four of these prints are known, and it's regarded as one of Toyokuni's best designs.

Below is the actor Sawamura Sojuro III. His head nearly fills the whole width of the print, yet there is a great economy of line, and the expressions are so relatable.

And finally, this print of actor Nakayama Tomisaburo dressed as a woman wearing a towel on her head from 1795. It's fascinating how the actor conveys both masculine and feminine qualities - a testament to the art of kabuki's onnagata performers.

These ōkubi prints naturally invite comparison with the artist Sharaku, who was working at almost exactly the same time.

While some sources suggest that many of Toyokuni's actor prints were done a few months before Sharaku's prints, museum records often show dates that are later than Sharaku's. The question of who influenced whom remains intriguing.

Here are some comparisons of the same actors—with Sharaku's print on the left and Toyokuni's print on the right.

While the question of chronological precedence remains unresolved, comparing the two artists' interpretations of these actors reveals fascinating differences in approach. In the end, since Sharaku's designs were more exaggerated and less flattering, they were less popular than Toyokuni's prints at that time. However, looking back now, Sharaku is judged to be the greater artist in this ōkubi genre.

Additional Accomplishments

Toyokuni also popularized the diptych and triptych formats for prints. This diptych below shows two actors wrestling with a giant carp.

Below is a wonderfully detailed triptych print of women travelers fording the River Oi.

Legacy

Toyokuni died in Edo in 1825, surrounded by many of his pupils, including Toyoshige, Kunisada, and Kuniyoshi. After he died, his son-in-law, Toyoshige, became known as Toyokuni II. After that, it was handed down to Kunisada, who was known as Toyokuni III, which can be a bit confusing if you don't know the connection.

There are criticisms in the art world that the quality of Toyokuni's later work declined. This is partially due to the high demand for his prints and the fact that the Japanese populace was not as discerning as they once were. Toyokuni himself is quoted as saying:

"My pictures—they are merely something that I draw, and nothing more than that!"

Despite these critiques, Toyokuni elevated the Utagawa school to a position of fame and power. Through his innovations in kabuki portraiture, his popularization of new print formats, and his prolific output, he stands as one of the great masters of ukiyo-e - an artist who not only captured the theater of his time but helped define how it would be remembered for centuries to come.