Recently, Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo are all holding Ukiyo-e exhibitions. They are the National Art Museum of China, "Early Paintings in Different Lands—Exhibition of Japanese Ukiyo-e and Qing Dynasty Woodcut New Year Paintings Collected by the National Art Museum of China", and "Menghui" in Shanghai. Edo-Ukiyo-e Art Exhibition" and Tokyo's "Japan's Three Ukiyo-e Collection Exhibition".

　　Ukiyo-e has spanned more than 260 years in the history of Japanese art. Looking at this oriental art pearl from today's perspective, I believe everyone has their own perspective.

　　It cannot be ignored that the beautiful Ukiyo-e has an indissoluble bond with Chinese Ming and Qing prints.

　　■Reporter Chen Junjun

　　Visual training from the Gusu version

　　Ukiyo-e is a popular folk painting during the Edo period in Japan, and to a large extent it is also a symbol of Japanese culture.

The Edo period coincided with the Ming and Qing Dynasties in my country.

The development and evolution of Ukiyo-e was deeply influenced by Chinese Ming and Qing prints.

　　In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were more than 50 painting shops in Gusu City, with an annual output of more than one million prints, which were exported to all parts of China, Japan and Southeast Asian countries.

The genre paintings and figure paintings reflecting the prosperous streets of Gusu and the figures and ladies abound in Gusu City are called "Gusu Edition".

Compared with the folk prints in other parts of China, the "Gusu version" has a big feature, that is, it is deeply influenced by Western paintings, with obvious shadows and perspective techniques of Western copper prints.

Copper engraving is characterized by the use of sharp and fine lines to express the light and dark changes in the picture. Chinese folk painters transplanted this feature to wood engraving, using shading to express the image, and hand-colored and painted. Some paintings also have a special title "Imitate Taixi" "Stroke meaning" means imitating Western painting techniques.

　　During the Edo period of Japan, the Shogunate regime closed the country and only established Nagasaki as a port, maintaining trade with the Netherlands and China.

From the second half of the 17th century to the first half of the 18th century, a group of Suzhou people living in Japan lived in Nagasaki. They retained the customs of the New Year in their hometown and their love for local art.

Therefore, Gusu prints were introduced to Japan through Suzhou people living in Nagasaki.

At the same time, with the exchange of trade, more woodblock prints from China flowed into Japan, and they were well received by the local people.

The shadow and perspective techniques in Gusu's prints unintentionally carried out "visual training" to Japanese Ukiyo painters, and carried out a second dissemination of the perspective methods and techniques of Western painting, and combined with Japanese art to form A unique perspective.

　　Ancient Chinese landscape painting pays attention to scattered perspective, while Japanese painting's perspective is mainly plane.

In order to express the sense of space, many ukiyo-e painters adopt a kind of overhead perspective, like a bird, to show the ground scenery through the way of overlooking.

　　The well-known Ukiyo painter Hiroshige Utagawa adopted the vertical composition in his most important series of works "Hundred Views of Famous Places in Edo".

Professor Pan Li, an expert in Japanese art history and Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, told reporters that unlike the banner composition commonly used in landscape paintings in the past, if the artist applies the principle of perspective to the vertical composition, the sky will take up half of the picture. It will bring many difficulties to the performance of the scenery.

Utagawa Hiroshige used a bird's-eye view method to control the spatial position, deliberately lowering the horizon, and the large area of ​​blank space contrasted with the scenery, making the composition very interesting.

He also extremely closes the foreground objects, and the subject is cut off by the edges of the picture, making the picture more spatial and deeper.

　　Inadvertently accepted Qiu Ying's style

　　The Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty to the beginning of the Qing Dynasty was the heyday of Chinese woodcut prints.

The development of woodcut print technology is firstly inseparable from social demand. After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, people's demand for books has greatly increased, and there are a large number of illustrations in opera and novels. "The West Chamber", "Water Margin", and "Journey to the West" are popular among readers.

"Ten Zhuzhai Painting and Calligraphy" and "Ten Zhuzhai Jianpu" became classics at that time, and their techniques became a direct reference in the development of Ukiyo-e in Japan.

　　Another main reason for the development of engravings in the Ming Dynasty was that many great painters painted for engravings, which was rare in the past.

Although the painting level of Song Dynasty painters was very high and there were many famous artists in the two Song Dynasty painting academies, few people involved in printmaking.

In the Ming Dynasty, the great painters Tang Yin, Qiu Ying, and Chen Hongshou at the end of the Ming Dynasty all drew illustrations for engraving printing.

In addition, many famous artists painted high-level paintings for various versions, which almost became a social fashion at the time.

　　The maturity of prints in the Ming Dynasty predates the rise of Ukiyo-e in Japan by more than a century. When these prints with rounded lines and exquisite knife skills appeared in Nagasaki Port along with commercial goods, it opened the eyes of Japanese painters.

Among these painters is Harunobu Suzuki.

As a pivotal painter in the history of Ukiyo-e, unlike the beauty paintings with oiran as the protagonist, the beauties in his brushes are permeated with unique charm. They are light and delicate hands and feet, conveying a romantic and sentimental atmosphere.

This style is called "chunxin style", which represents the popular style of painting at that time and also influenced the painting style of a generation of painters.

　　Some scholars pointed out that Suzuki Harunobu's character modeling, linework, and slightly sentimental style may have been influenced by the Ming Dynasty painter Qiu Ying.

Professor Pan Li believes that as a city painter in the Edo period, Haruno Suzuki will have access to Qiu Ying's paintings.

It is more likely that because Qiu Ying himself made print illustrations, the Ming and Qing prints were generally influenced by Qiu Ying's style.

The Ming and Qing prints flowed into Japan in large quantities along with the trade and trade between China and Japan, so Haruno Suzuki may have inadvertently accepted Qiu Ying's style while imitating Ming and Qing prints.

　　The attitude of life behind the picture

　　The Gusu prints in China are deeply rooted in Suzhou, a city with prosperous citizen culture.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Suzhou was prosperous and prosperous. The subject matter of the prints involved not only the urban landscape, but also many ordinary ladies.

　　The Edo period was also a period in Japanese history when the living standards and economic standards of the common people were relatively high.

Edo painters not only got in touch with the chiaroscuro and perspective of Western paintings from the Gusu printmaking, but also felt the strong civic atmosphere and penetrated their painting themes into all aspects of life.

Their paintings of beauty, yakuza, and landscapes show the customs, preferences, tastes and thoughts of ordinary citizens one by one, and constitute an autobiography of common people in the Edo period.

As Ukiyo-e master Katsushika Hokusai said, everything can be painted.

　　However, Japanese Ukiyo-e and Chinese Ming and Qing prints are still very different in terms of social functions and artistic traditions, and the aesthetic tastes embodied by the two are also different.

Chinese woodcut prints mostly choose themes that people like to hear, reflecting a kind of optimistic, open-minded and open-minded national character; while Japanese Ukiyo-e is slightly sentimental, showing the delicate and sensitive character and attitude of the Japanese nation to life.

"Ukiyo" and "worry about the world" in Japanese are homophonic. For the citizens of Edo who advocated the spirit of the world, the term "floating world" was very close to the most popular outlook on life at that time.

Japanese writer Yuri Asai once said: Even if you are facing poverty, you don't need to care, don't be depressed, as long as you float with the waves, this is the "floating world."

Ukiyo-e’s attitude of the people at the bottom striving to live and cherish and enjoy the limited life in this life is one of the reasons why Ukiyo-e is still moving.

　　In addition, the status and destiny of the painters of the two countries at the time were completely different.

Although Ukiyo-e is beautiful, historically, the publication of Ukiyo-e has been restricted by the shogunate, and many subjects have been banned. Many people, including a generation of Ukiyo-e master Kitagawa Utame, have been detained and punished by the authorities, leading to Ukiyo-e painting The teacher dared not sign his real name on the screen.

In that era, the job was not glorious.

Most of the painters have a hard life. Even Katsushika Hokusai, the author of "Kanagawa Surfing", who later became a symbol of Ukiyo-e art, ended his life in poverty.

However, after the hardships of the floating world, they could not think of it anyway. After many years, those paintings that were almost reduced to waste paper and porcelain wrapping paper traveled across the ocean to Europe and became the detonator of European new art.

　　Further reading

　　Ukiyo-e's global "fan club"

　　Lu Xun studied in Japan in his youth, came into contact with Western painting and became fascinated by Japanese Ukiyo-e.

Lu Xun once mentioned Ukiyo-e in the middle of an essay.

He collected many Ukiyo-e drawing books and many representative works of Japanese Ukiyo-e masters throughout his life.

He once said: "As for Ukiyo-e in Japan, when I was young, I liked Hokusai, and now I like Hiroshige, followed by the characters of Gamaki... In my opinion, Hokusai is probably the one that fits the general Chinese perspective. "

　　Van Gogh, from 1860 to around 1910, Japanese art, mainly Ukiyo-e, had a huge influence on European art.

In 1867, the Edo Shogunate participated in the Paris World Expo, and many exhibits including ukiyo-e, kimono, and ceramics were sold out.

Especially the ukiyo-e works, more than one hundred additional works were sold at the request of the organizer.

This World Expo became the beginning of Ukiyo-e's popularity in Europe.

Van Gogh is a crazy ukiyo-e lover. His paintings were darker during his early years in the Netherlands.

After he came into contact with Ukiyo-e, his style of painting has undergone a fundamental change, and his paintings have become sunny and vivid.

　　In Monet's later years, Monet flattened the crumpled ceramic wrapping paper from Japan one by one, then set it in a mirror frame and hung it on the wall. More than two hundred ukiyo-e works were the love of his life.

He also built a Japanese-style garden with a Japanese-style bridge across the pond. He spent the rest of his life in this garden depicting his favorite water lily.

　　In addition to Van Gogh and Monet, a group of Impressionist painters such as Degas and Manet were deeply influenced by Ukiyo-e.

They depict real life. They no longer paint the shadows so smoothly and excessively that the lines are not visible as in the classical painting skills. Instead, they emphasize flat coloring without shadows, retaining the lines, and using bold and colorful colors.

These are consistent with the characteristics of Ukiyo-e.