Toyokuni II (Toyoshige) (1777 - 1835 )
Born in Hongo in Edo, Toyokuni II began his career as a pottery dealer. He was a pupil and son-in-law of Toyokuni I and assumed his teacher's name after Toyokuni I's death in 1825. As other pupils vied for the name "Toyokuni II," Toyokuni II began to sign his prints Toyoshige, but after a year used the go Toyokuni or Gosotei Toyokuni, becoming the Hongo Toyokuni. In later years he returned to the go Toyoshige. Toyokuni II's woodblock prints largely portrayed actors and bijin (beautiful women), but he also designed landscape prints and book illustrations.
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.