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Utagawa
Toyokuni III (17861864)
Junitsuki no uchi (Twelve Months)
1854
Courtesy of the National Diet Library, Japan
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Japanese woodblock prints
1854
This
work is one of the nishikie or ukiyoeJapanese
woodblock prints depicting the lives of people
who lived in Edo (now Tokyo) in the mid-nineteenth
century. To make one such print, separate woodblocks
for each colour were needed. Japanese nishikie
were widely admired outside Japan, and influenced
many Impressionist painters, including Claude
Monet (18401926).
This
fine set of nishikie depicts beautiful
women participating in events symbolising Japanese
life at the time. Each event indicates a season,
from January to December. On display here is the
December picture. At the top left is the toshidama
in, the logo of the group to which the
artist, Utagawa Toyokuni III (17861864)
belonged. The picture's title is printed inside
the logo.
In
the Edo period, every well-to-do family greeted
the New Year by making its own rice cakes. Some
of the cakes were made into kagami-mochi
or 'mirror rice cakes', which were large, round,
hard cakes piled on top of each other, and offered
to deities at the New Year. They represented mirrors,
which from ancient times were regarded as sacred
objects in Japan.
Here,
we see a man pounding hot, steamed, glutinous
rice in a mortar, while a woman turns the dough
over. At the left, another woman shapes it into
rounds. A lady sitting beside her fans the rice
cakes to harden them, while in the arms of the
young woman in the middle a small child waves
a spray of mochibanalittle balls
of rice cake that look like flowers.
All
the women are wearing colourful kimonos featuring
various patterns of leaves and flowers. The stylised
Mt Fuji and ivy depicted on the chochin
(paper lantern) above right and on the man's jacket
is the logo of Tsutaya Kichizo, publisher of this
print.
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