Synopses & Reviews
Gilbert Luber and his wife, Shirley, took their first trip to Japan in the early 1970s to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. While there, they fell in love with both antique and contemporary woodblock prints. Upon returning home, their interest quickly grew into an obsession, then a profession. Gilbert began an in-depth study of Japanese prints, and he and his wife returned to Japan the following year to purchase more. Annual trips to collect prints led to the opening in 1975 of the Luber Gallery in Philadelphia, the first gallery in the city to show the works of Japanese artists. Their annual purchasing trips continued for twenty years, and the Luber Gallery continued to flourish until Gilbert's death in 1999.This catalogue, produced in conjunction with an exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania's Arthur Ross Gallery, highlights masterworks from Luber's stellar collection of nineteenth-century actor prints and images by the Osaka artist Natori Shunsen (1886-1960), a master of the Shin Hanga, or new print. These prints were designed to appeal to the collector and, by using the most exquisite techniques in the medium, emphasized the dramatic expression achieved by kabuki's most celebrated practitioners. Dramatic Impressions is the first scholarly study that considers the ways these works were produced, appreciated, and collected, offering a new approach to the topic of actor prints.The three essays in the catalogue take up issues specific to the collection and relevant to the study of Japanese woodblock prints. They also make significant contributions to the fields of collecting, Osaka prints, Shin Hanga, and, as a group, they offer a new approach to the reception and history of the Japanese woodblock print. In reproducing in full color the works featured in the exhibition, Dramatic Impressions: Japanese Theatre Prints from the Gilbert Luber Collection offers the reader a handsome visual guide to the genre.
Synopsis
For the collector Gilbert Luber, Japanese woodblock prints showing actors in renowned roles transmitted the substance and nuance of the kabuki performer through a medium of perfected technique. This exhibition catalogue, produced in conjunction with an exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania's Arthur Ross Gallery, highlights 71 masterworks from Luber's stellar collection of nineteenth-century Osaka actor prints and images by the late master artist Natori Shunsen (1886-1960). These prints were, in their time, designed to appeal to the collector and, by using the most exquisite techniques in the medium, emphasized the dramatic expression achieved by kabuki's most celebrated practitioners. This catalogue is the first scholarly study that considers the ways these dramatic impressions were produced, appreciated, and collected, offering a new approach to the topic of actor prints.
Synopsis
Produced in conjunction with an exhibition at the University of Pennsylvania's Arthur Ross Gallery, this catalogue highlights 71 masterworks from Gilbert Luber's stellar collection of nineteenth-century actor prints and images by the master Osaka artist Natori Shunsen (1886-1960).
Synopsis
Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) was one of the most influential artists working in the genre of ukiyo-e, and#8220;pictures of the floating world,and#8221; in late eighteenth-century Japan, and was widely appreciated for his prints of beautiful women. In 1804, at the height of his success, Utamaro published a set of prints related to a banned historical novel. The prints, entitled Hideyoshi and his Five Concubines, depicted the military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshiand#8217;s wife and concubines, and, consequently, he was accused of insulting Hideyoshiand#8217;s dignity. He was sentenced to be handcuffed for 50 days, and was perhaps even briefly imprisoned. According to some sources, the experience crushed him emotionally and ended his career as an artist.
In this book, Julie Nelson Davis draws on a wide range of period sources, makes a close study of selected print sets, and reinterprets Utamaro in the context of his times. Reconstructing the place of the ukiyo-e artist within the commercial print market, she demonstrates how Utamaroand#8217;s images participated in a larger spectacle of beauty in the city of Edo (present-day Tokyo).
Synopsis
Kitagawa Utamaro (1753andndash;1806) was one of the most influential artists working in the genre of
ukiyo-e, or andldquo;pictures of the floating world,andrdquo; in late eighteenth-century Japan. In particular, he was widely appreciated for his prints of beautiful women. In this book, Julie Nelson Davis draws on a wide range of sources and her own sophisticated analysis of his works to reinterpret Utamaro within the context of his times.
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Reconstructing the place of the ukiyo-e artist within the commercial print market of eighteenth-century Japan, Davis situates Utamaroandrsquo;s oeuvre within the artistic culture that surrounded him, demonstrating how his images participated in a larger spectacle of beauty that characterized the city of Edo (present-day Tokyo). Walking the streets of Edo with Utamaro, she follows his life and output up until his arrest for insulting military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi (for depicting his wife and concubines), which would destroy his career just as it reached its pinnacle. Examining how Utamaro and other artists of his time engaged with the construction of gender, identity, sexuality, and celebrity, Davis makes a larger contribution to art history as a whole.and#160;
About the Author
Julie Nelson Davis is associate professor of East Asian art in the Department of Art History at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Dramatic Impressions: Japanese Theater Prints from the Gilbert Luber Collection.
Table of Contents
Introduction and#8211; Utamaro,
Ukiyo-e and the City of Prints
1. Constructing the Artist Known as Utamaro
2. and#8216;Pictures of Beautiesand#8217; and Other Social Physiognomies
3. Behind the Brocade and Other Yoshiwara Illusions
4. Utamaro and the Feminine Spectacle
5. Making History into the Pageant of the Floating World
References
Works Cited
Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Index