edo visual culture - harvard universityfc84/archives/2005_spring...the devil-may-care attitude...
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Edo Visual Culture
FC 84 – TokyoMarch 7, 2005
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Edo Visual Culture
Not just mapsElaborate visual culture of ukiyo-e,
wood block prints
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• Endless fascination with portraying the city itself
• Scrolls, like Kidai Shōran• Hokusai manga (cartoons of daily life)• Sketch books of every variety
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HiroshigeNihonbashi1844
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Ukiyo-e
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Views of Edo
Most major artists did series of “views of Edo”
Hiroshige’s Hundred Views Hokusai’s Eight Views
Innumerable series on specific themes – the 8 xxx, the 33 xxx, the 88 xxx, the 100 xxx
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Print culture of Edo
• huge publishing industry• highly literate population• woodblock prints as disposable pin-ups
– Famous kabuki actors– Famous courtesans from Yoshiwara
• “gesaku” fiction – style of popular, often humorous and racy, fiction
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Travel on the Tôkaidô
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Sumo
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namazu-e – earthquakes
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Mt. Fuji
• Visual icon of the city
• Religious significance (Fuji pilgrimage cults)
• Mini-Fuji throughout Edo
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Mt. Fuji
• Mt. Fuji as deity (Shinto animism, nature imbued with devine powers)
• Religious traditions of N.E. Asia include notions of “vertical cosmology” (found in shaman traditions throughout N.E. Asia)
• T’aoist – mountain hermits, aescetics
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Hokusai -- Great Wave off Kanagawa
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“Red Fuji” Hiroshige
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Hiroshige – Fuji from Tsukudajima
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Iki & Tsu
Aesthetics of urban subjectivity
Aesthetic freedom within strict feudal controls
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Iki
The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care
attitude
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Iki
The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care
attitude
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Iki
The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care
attitude
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Iki
The bold dramaticgesture, the look,the devil-may-care
attitude(and the ability to keepit concealed as well . . .)
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Yoshiwara – the city of the night
Licensed brothel district
North of Edo, beyond Asakusa Kannon, up the Sumida River
Courtesans and geisha
Iki and Tsu
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