Portuguese

The Portuguese visitor was Kawakami's signature subject, drawn from the Nanban (Southern Barbarian) trade era of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries when Iberian traders and Jesuit missionaries first reached Japan. The figure typically wears the puffed pantaloons, ruff collar, and broad-brimmed hat that Edo-period Nanban screens used as shorthand for the European, and Kawakami inherits these conventions wholesale rather than attempting historical accuracy. The composition flattens the figure into a costume diagram rendered in a few bold color planes, with the carving lines doing most of the descriptive work. Self-carved and printed by the artist on [washi](/glossary/washi), the print rejects the polish of [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) in favor of a deliberately rough handling drawn from popular signboards and playing cards. Kawakami made dozens of variations on the Portuguese theme over his career, and the subject became so identified with him that the Kawakami Nanbanjin functions as a recognizable category within [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) collecting.