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Introduction

Edo Culture as Reflected in Japanese Woodblock Prints

September 22 - December 15, 1994

With the founding of the Tokugawa shogunate in the early seventeenth century, the city of Edo (modern Tokyo) expanded from a garrison town to become the capital of Japan. The prolonged period of peace introduced by the family of hereditary new military rulers (shoguns) appointed by the emperor and the mandatory residence of his feudal lords (daimyo) and their families there on a rotating basis encouraged expenditures that in turn fostered the development of a merchant class and a commercial economy. The response to these altered demands eventually led to profound social and economic changes as well. By the mid-eighteenth century, Edo had become a vital urban environment in which different parts of society patronized a variety of cultural traditions.

The subject of this exhibition is the life of that city and its townspeople (chonin). They were the chief audience for the numerous woodblock prints published throughout the Edo period and dictated the character of one cultural tradition. The streets that they populated and the shops that they frequented, the kabuki theater that they patronized, the seasonal and festival observances that marked their annual calendar, and their religious and folk beliefs and practices are all represented here. The "pleasure quarters" of the Yoshiwara, the brothel district which offered entertainment and govemment­regulated prostitution, will be the focus for part II of this installation. Together these two exhibitions provide us with a vivid record of life in the Tokugawa capital in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Selected Objects

Katsukawa Shunzan

The actors Osagawa Tsuneyo II as a woman and Matsumoto Koshiro IV as a samurai (nidai Osagawa Tsuneyo; yondai Matsumoto Koshiro), ca. 1789

Ishikawa Toyonobu

Ishikawa Danjuro III (Sandaime Ishikawa Danjuro), 1740's

Torii Kiyonaga

Tango (5th day of the 5th month; the Boy's Festival) (Tango), ca. 1794

Utagawa Kuniteru II

Pilgrims ascending Mount Fuji (Fujisan shonin sankei no zu), 1865.6

Torii Kiyonaga

New Year, ca. 1794

Katsushika Hokusai

The Mitsui shop, Suruga Edo (Edo suruga-chō Mitsui-mise ryakuzu), ca. 1830-1831

Katsukawa Shunzan

Figures at a temple gate (Nio mon), ca. 1790

Utagawa Hiroshige

Enjoying the Evening Cool with Fireworks, Ryogoku Bridge (Ryogoku noryo ohanabi), 1847-1852

Torii Kiyonaga

Choyo (9th day of the 9th month; Chrysanthemum Festival), ca. 1794

Utagawa Toyoharu

The Seven Gods of Good Fortune in Their Treasure Ship (Shichifukujin takarabune), 1770s

Suzuki Harunobu

The Kagura Month [11th month] (Kagurazuki), ca. 1767

Utagawa Hiroshige

Rain shower, Nihonbashi (Nihonbashi no hakuu), ca. 1832-1838

Okumura Masanobu

Scene from the jōruri play Momochidori musume Dōjōji at Nakamura-za theater, ca. 1744

More objects +

RISD Museum

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