Esteemed Towns and Villages
About This Series
Miyagawa Shuntei's Esteemed Towns and Villages (Yukashiki sato or a closely related title) belongs to the Meiji-era genre survey through which the artist applied his bijin-ga and children's-print sensibility to the regional life of late-nineteenth-century Japan. Miyagawa Shuntei (1873-1914) had been formed in the workshop of Tomioka Eisen in the 1890s and had emerged by the close of the decade as one of the most accomplished of the late-Meiji ukiyo-e designers, distinguished for his cycles of bijin-ga (Bijin junikagetsu) and his sustained engagement with the iconography of childhood (Yukino kodomo, Kodomo asobi). The Esteemed Towns and Villages cycle, generally dated to the late 1890s and early 1900s and issued by Akiyama Buemon and his circle, extends Shuntei's documentary impulse from the metropolitan settings of his bijin work to the towns and country districts of the regional landscape, presenting figures at characteristic seasonal occupations and local festivals against carefully observed architectural and topographical settings. The compositions read as a survey of the visible folk culture of Meiji Japan, registering the practices of agriculture, fishing, and craft production alongside the seasonal celebrations of regional shrine and temple, and the figures are drawn in the elegant elongated proportions characteristic of Shuntei's mature hand. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format with the production values of the late-Meiji deluxe print, employing graduated color, fine textile patterning, and occasional metallic registration. The series belongs to the broader Meiji project of consolidating a visual archive of regional Japan for an audience whose mobility was being transformed by the new rail network, and Shuntei's contribution is among the more pictorially refined of these surveys. Impressions are catalogued among the Shuntei holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum, where the series figures in the standard literature on his late production.
Prints in This Series (2)
Frequently Asked Questions
Miyagawa Shuntei's Esteemed Towns and Villages (Yukashiki sato or a closely related title) belongs to the Meiji-era genre survey through which the artist applied his bijin-ga and children's-print sensibility to the regional life of late-nineteenth-century Japan. Miyagawa Shuntei (1873-1914) had been formed in the workshop of Tomioka Eisen in the 1890s and had emerged by the close of the decade as one of the most accomplished of the late-Meiji ukiyo-e designers, distinguished for his cycles of bijin-ga (Bijin junikagetsu) and his sustained engagement with the iconography of childhood (Yukino kodomo, Kodomo asobi). The Esteemed Towns and Villages cycle, generally dated to the late 1890s and early 1900s and issued by Akiyama Buemon and his circle, extends Shuntei's documentary impulse from the metropolitan settings of his bijin work to the towns and country districts of the regional landscape, presenting figures at characteristic seasonal occupations and local festivals against carefully observed architectural and topographical settings. The compositions read as a survey of the visible folk culture of Meiji Japan, registering the practices of agriculture, fishing, and craft production alongside the seasonal celebrations of regional shrine and temple, and the figures are drawn in the elegant elongated proportions characteristic of Shuntei's mature hand. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format with the production values of the late-Meiji deluxe print, employing graduated color, fine textile patterning, and occasional metallic registration. The series belongs to the broader Meiji project of consolidating a visual archive of regional Japan for an audience whose mobility was being transformed by the new rail network, and Shuntei's contribution is among the more pictorially refined of these surveys. Impressions are catalogued among the Shuntei holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum, where the series figures in the standard literature on his late production.
The Esteemed Towns and Villages series contains 1 prints, created by Miyagawa Shuntei.
The Esteemed Towns and Villages series was created by Miyagawa Shuntei (宮川春汀).
We currently have 2 of 1 known prints from the Esteemed Towns and Villages series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
Want to rate prints from Esteemed Towns and Villages?
Sign up to start rating