「暁斎楽画」 「第四」
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Image courtesy of
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
Description
The fourth installment of Kyōsai's Rakuga series, continuing the numbered sequence of satirical woodblock prints published in the early Meiji period. Having established a strong visual and thematic identity in earlier numbers — including the celebrated Bakebake Gakkō school-of-monsters sheet — this fourth sheet would have been received within the context of the series' accumulating satirical thrust. Kyōsai's Rakuga prints are distinguished from conventional ukiyo-e by their rejection of idealized figural beauty in favor of expressive distortion and comic incongruity. Whether this sheet features supernatural beings, historical parody, or social observation, it would share the series' characteristic direct line quality and its artist's willingness to use woodblock print as a medium for pointed, sometimes dangerous, commentary.
More Prints by Kawanabe Kyosai
Tenpôzan in Osaka: Viewing Children's Sumo (Naniwa Tenpôzan kodomo sumô shôran), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô
1863
Woodblock print
Kyosai, Royal Academy, London, FREE DOMESTIC SHIPPING
2022
Original Museum Lithographic Exhibition Poster
from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)
Woodblock print
Gontazaka, from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi
Woodblock print
Frequently Asked Questions
「暁斎楽画」 「第四」 was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).