Tamikuni (fl.1823 - 1828 )
A member of the Osaka school, Tamikuni Toyokawa designed actor prints. Little is known about his life, though some have suggested that Tamikuni is an early name of another Osaka artist.
Kyoto, Osaka and Edo were the major centers of Japan during the 17th through 19th centuries. Osaka’s population was around 400,000. As Edo had the Yoshiwara, Osaka also possessed a legalized prostitution district, the Shinmachi, but the scale was much smaller. Thus, there are far fewer designs, printed in smaller editions. Osaka-e stand as a distinct genre in ukiyo-e. They also can be referred to as Kansai prints (the area around Osaka) or Kamigata prints (name for the Kansai region). Osaka prints focus primarily on kabuki scenes and actor portraits, though bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women) were also produced. Beyond single-sheet prints, the Osaka’s artists produced images for kaomise, the seasonal “face showing” of the actors set to perform for a particular theater season. Towards the end of the 18th century, advertisement extended to the production of banzuke (playbills).
Japanese Woodblock Prints (1800 - 1868)
By the 19th century, Japanese woodblock prints achieved extraordinary popularity. While the shogunate issued a battery of censorship reforms throughout the 1800s, artists ignored and evaded restrictions with images of indulgent beauties and vibrant kabuki actors. As constraints tightened in the 1840s, bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women) became earthier in prints by Eizan and Eisen, while kabuki actors persevered in the work of Kunisada (aka Toyokuni III). During this period, ukiyo-e artists also added landscapes, warriors, ghosts and scenes of everyday life to their oeuvre. Artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige indulged a national wanderlust through Meisho-e or “famous place pictures,” while Kuniyoshi championed musha-e, a genre of warrior and legendary pictures.
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Tamikuni
Arashi Kitsuzaburo as Sumo Wrestler Horikoma Chokichi
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