Who Was Japanese Artist Utagawa Yoshiiku?

Welcome, today we are continuing our series on famous Japanese woodblock print artists by highlighting a lesser known but, as you’ll see, an important and very talented artist by the name of Utagawa Yoshiiku. As usual we’ll start with some bio information and then we’ll dive into some of his prints and print series. Let’s go.

Utagawa Yoshiiku also known as Ochiai Yoshiiku was born in 1833 as the son of the owner of a teahouse. When he was a teenager, Yoshiiku became a student of the famous artist Kuniyoshi (Whom we just did a video on the other week). At the same time Tsukioka Yoshitoshi was also a student of Kuniyoshi and it’s reported that they were rivals, in fact that Yoshiiku bullied Yoshitoshi who was 6 years younger. Kuniyoshi once compared the two students by saying

“Yoshitoshi is awkward, but enthusiastic, and while Yoshiiku’s technique is better, he lacks the same enthusiasm.” 

 

(Above diagram shows Kuniyoshi - the teacher, at the top, Yoshiiku on bottom left, and Yoshitoshi on bottom right.)

Despite their initial conflicts both Yoshiiku and Yoshitoshi collaborated in later years on a groundbreaking series of prints that I’ll show you. They also used the same writers and publishers and I’m sure they had respect for each other’s work. Life’s too short for conflicts, right?

Ok, Let’s dig into the prints - I’m going to go somewhat chronologically.

Like most students who are starting their careers, Yoshiiku assisted his master Kuniyoshi in several series like this one below from 1852 “Celebrated Treasures of Mountains and Seas” where Yoshiiku did the background landscape and Kuniyoshi the foreground.

In 1859 He created this triptych that shows Minamoto no Yorimoto crossing the Uji river to defeat his enemy. We can already see what an expert he’s become in working with the conventions of the Utagawa school.

In 1861 Kuniyoshi died and Yoshiiku designed this memorial  portrait of him (below). After Kuniyoshi’s death, Yoshiiku was considered to be his best student, until about 10 years later when Yoshitoshi began to outshine him.

In the 1860’s Yokohama-e or pictures of foreigners were trending because The port of Yokohama was opened to foreigners and the Japanese were naturally curious about them. Ukiyo-e artists like Yoshiiku produced many prints called Yokohama-e or Yokohama pictures to help the Japanese understand how foreigners from different countries looked and dressed.

Like Kuniyoshi, Yoshiiku was also fond of humorous prints like this one. The title in the fishing net in the upper right reads:, “A Parody of Goldfish with Actor’s Expressions.”

And here’s a print titled "The Story of Otomi and Yosaburo" with actors as cats. 

In 1867 Yoshiiku designed a series of warrior prints called Heroes of Taiheiki. These designs are very similar to Kuniyoshi’s style, in fact it’s a bit difficult to tell them apart. Here’s one from Yoshiiku on the left and Kuniyoshi’s series on the right so you can see what I mean.

Also in 1867 we have this much more innovative series of 36 actor silhouttes called “Portraits as True Likenesses in the Moonlight “ These prints were Inspired by popular shadow performances, where actors performed behind a sliding door with a bright light behind them. These profiles are very lifelike and unusual for the time.

1867 was a busy year because it also brings us “Twenty-eight famous murders with verse" a collaborative series with his former rival Yoshitoshi. Each artist did 14 prints for this series. These types of images were called muzan-e or “cruel pictures” because they depicted bloody and gruesome acts of murder or torture based on historical events or scenes in Kabuki plays. 

This is also thought to be the first known example of ero guro or the erotic grotesque in Japanese culture, that has influenced modern day art formats such as Manga and films. 

Quick visual palette cleanse here for this famous triptych titled "Competition of slender white hips in the willow bathhouse" from the series Annual Customs of the Present Day. Many artists did similar bath house scenes but I think Yoshiiku’s is the most well-known. 

Anyone that knows me knows I love restaurant prints, and in 1869 he designed this series (below) called "Colors of Spring at Thirty-six Restaurants". It depicts famous restaurants of the day and the geishas or entertainers that were associated with them. It’s a decent series, quite pretty, but I prefer Kunichika and Yoshitoshi’s restaurant prints. 

I was surprised to find this next print series. When I first saw it I thought, wow they look a bit like photographs and then I found out that was the goal. These are kabuki actors from the 1870 series (Mirror of Photographs of Actors). I think he was the first artist to imitate photographs in this manner with woodblock prints. 

 

Now we come to a big piece of the Yoshiiku story because starting in 1874 he worked for about 10 years on various newspaper and magazine projects. This was before photography so ukiyo-e artists were hired to add exciting images to newspapers. At the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun (or daily news) Yoshiiku designed many color newspaper inserts with sensational news stories. Here are a few from this series. We have "Swallowed by a Wani" a story about how sailors were eaten by a shark.

The headline on this one below is "Chushingura actor shot" where an actor was shot during the performance of a play because the gun was accidentally loaded with real bullets. 

Later Yoshiiku founded the Hiragana e Iri shinbun which is an illustrated newspaper written in a simpler reading style without so much emphasis on the complex chinese kanji. These types of publications were very popular with the lower class of society that wanted entertainment and serialized stories. 

Now lets see some ghosts. In 1890 he produced a series called  “One Hundred Tales”. Here we have "Ameonna" (rain woman) is a Japanese yōkai thought to call forth rain. In modern Japan, "ameonna" (or for “men, ameotoko") refers to an unlucky person that always seems to be walking under a cloud of rain.

And here (below) we have Specter frightening a young woman. which pulls it’s ghost character directly from Hokusai’s famous print. Even though these prints are heavily modeled after other artists work, I can’t get enough of these types of images. 

 

I’ll end with this 1895 print series called a  Comical Record of Japanese History, which illustrates the Japanese military victory against China in 1894 and is also a parody of the (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons). There are nine prints that you can match up to show a complete story.

Yoshiiku struggled during his last years, producing his last print in 1903. He had ten children with his second wife, but only one of survived childhood. Yoshiiku died at age 71 in 1904 in Honjo. He was buried at a temple in Asakusa Yoshiiku’s prints can be found in all the major art museums. I think his work is an artistic and interesting addition to any woodblock print collection. I hope you’ve enjoyed this profile of Utagawa Yoshiiku.

You can watch this video on our YouTube Channel.