The canonic Chinese theme Pictures of Agriculture and Sericulture 耕織圖 (Chinese: gengzhitu, Japanese: kōshokuzu) was transmitted to Japanese painting circles from the fifteenth- through the nineteenth- centuries. Paintings with agrarian motifs decorated the palaces of the Ashikaga shoguns and the abbots quarters in the Daisenin temple, and were reproduced many times by masters and disciples of the Kano school throughout the Edo period (1603-1868). From the
eighteenth century on, agrarian vignettes also appeared in woodblock prints of various types:
from the encyclopedic guidebook to the erotic color print.
My dissertation focuses on this theme as a case study of painterly transmission. The first chapter compares the wall-paintings in the Daisenin with earlier Chinese paintings, and
demonstrates that Japanese painters consciously altered the original figures in order to change their Confucian messages. Thus, I propose that the transmission of k!shokuzu exemplifies that painters and patrons consciously appropriated this theme to convey varied messages in changing ideological discourses.
In the second chapter I argue that the Japanization of Chinese farming figures and motifs reveals that Kano painters used printed painting manuals imported from China to a much greater extent than has hitherto been suggested. Additionally, I link the rise of proto-nationalistic schools of thought to the Japanization of the portrayed landscape. In the third chapter, I concentrate on the print artist Tachibana Morikuni (1679-1749) and argue that his popular painting manuals cannot be the source through which Kano secret models were leaked to ukiyo-e artists. Rather, his work was part of a growing trend in the Japanese market of using printed books as painting manuals. Later print artists, such as Harunobu (fl. 1765-1770), acknowledged their transmission of Morikunis models by parodying his books. The fourth chapter surveys the history of Pictures of Sericulture. I link the lack of sericultural images and the inattention to their study to their association with a female audience. I also detail how weaving women in ukiyo-e served as parodies of Neo-Confucianism and in later Meiji-period prints as propaganda for imperial technology.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-08172010-151848 |
| Date | 28 September 2010 |
| Creators | Bejarano, Shalmit |
| Contributors | Karen Gerhart, Anne Weis, Kathryn Linduff, Evelyn Rawski |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-08172010-151848/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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