Download Japan Intro 2C - ArvesenJapaneseLit

Samurai, Shogun,
Zen Monks, and
Puppeteers:
Life in Medieval and
Tokugawa Japan
Part Three
Hiroshige- 100 Views of Famous Places in Edo- The street Suruga-cho and Mount Fuji
The
Floating
World
Tearoom from 36 Views of Mt. Fuji
by Hokusai, 1823
• Chonin, like any city-dwellers, wanted to go out and enjoy art, entertainment, and nightlife.
• New entertainment districts grew in the city, filled with performers and artists. These became
known as the “Floating World.”
• Merchants loved to hang out with the actors, sumo wrestlers, geisha, and other entertainers.
• Soon artists were selling color prints showing scenes of the Floating World.
• The Floating World gave us the geisha, two new kinds of theatre, and a new style of art.
Geisha
• Japanese wives were not allowed to
socialize or attend parties in public with
their husbands.
• Geisha—”hostesses”—arose to
provide female companionship to
wealthy men.
• Geisha were entertainers. They had to
be accomplished dancers and
musicians, have impeccable manners,
be skilled at witty conversation, and
constantly attentive to the needs of
men.
• Geisha lived together in special houses
and would entertain there or at
teahouses in the district.
• Geisha could not marry, but would
often take a wealthy man as a patron,
working exclusively for him in return for
financial support.
Kabuki
• Kabuki is one of the two types of theatre
created during the early Tokugawa
period.
• The earliest Kabuki performers were
women and they danced the stories.
• The plays quickly became very popular,
because the stories were racy and the
dancers were beautiful.
• However, some dancers were also prostitutes,
so the Shogun decreed in 1829 that only men
could act in Kabuki.
• The plays remained popular. Kabuki is filled
with spectacle: dramatic singing and dancing,
stage fights, special effects, elaborate sets
and costumes, revolving stages, and
outlandish makeup (the rock band Kiss wears
Kabuki makeup).
• Kabuki stories usually involve ghosts and
violent action, with heightened emotions—like
Italian opera.
Bunraku
• The second type of theatre to emerge in
this period was Bunraku.
• Bunraku is serious puppet theatre.
• The puppets are 3-4 feet tall and very
lifelike. It takes three puppeteers to control
each puppet: one handling the head and
right arm, another the left arm, and the third
moving the legs and feet.
• The puppeteers do not speak the lines.
There is a chanter who tells the story,
acting the different voices.
• The chanter is accompanied by a musician
playing the shamisen, an instrument like a
cross between banjo and guitar.
• The greatest playwright in Japanese
literature, Chikamatsu, wrote nearly all of
his plays for Bunraku. The stories are
usually about historical events or the daily
lives and loves of city people.
Puppeteer Kanjuro Kiritake the 3rd photo by Tony McNicol, tonymcnicol.com
Woodblock
Prints
• The increasing city population also
demanded books to read. Printing became
big business. Artists were hired to illustrate
many of these books.
• Around 1670, Hishikawa Moronobu
developed a new technique using
woodblocks to print illustrations in color.
Before this, the outline had been printed
and colors were painted by hand.
• This made art affordable to all.
• Artists began to produce series of images
to sell as a set or singly.
Two greatest masters of this style:
• Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849)
• Utagawa Hiroshige (1797 –1858)
• Big influence on French Impressionists and
modern European art.
Amida Waterfall on the Kiso Road from Journey to the Waterfalls in All the Provinces,
by Hokusai, circa 1832
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa from 36 Views of Mount Fuji by Hokusai. 1823
Sources
Books
• Basho On Love and Barley—Haiku of Basho Penguin
Classics: New York 1985
• Delay, Nelly Art and Culture of Japan Abrams: New York
1999
• Hamill, Sam and Seaton, JP, eds. The Poetry of Zen
Shambhala: Berkeley, CA 2007
• Murphy, Rhoads East Asia 4th Edition Longman 2006
• Time-Life Books What Life Was Like Among Samurai and
Shoguns Time-Life Books: Alexandria, VA 1999
Web
• Floating World of the Ukiyo-e: Shadow, Dreams, and
Substance
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/ukiyo-e/realia.html
• Drama in Medieval and 19th Century Japan
http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/japan/DanceDrama/Japa
nese_Drama_Noh.html
• An Introduction to Bunraku
http://www2.ntj.jac.go.jp/unesco/bunraku/en/
Video
• The Lover’s Exile: Bunraku Play by Chikamatsu
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0973000945/ref=cm_cr_asin_lnk
Utagawa Hiroshige.”Yotsuya: the New Station at Naito” from the series A Hundred
Views of Famous Places in Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei: Yotsuya, Naitô Shinjuku), 1857