Suzuki Harunobu

Japanese: 鈴木春信 - すずき・はるのぶ

Year of death: June 15, 1770 (July 7, 1770)
Year of birth: Kyoho 10? (1725)
An ukiyo-e artist from the mid-Edo period. His real surname was Hozumi, or Suzuki, and he was commonly known as Jirobei or Jibei. His other names were Sikojin and Choeiken. He is said to have studied painting under Nishimura Shigenaga or Nishikawa Sukenobu, and made his debut in the ukiyo-e world as early as 1760 (10th year of the Horeki era). Little is known about his life before that. From the late Horeki era (1751-1764), when he first entered the art world, through 1764 (1st year of the Meiwa era), he produced a series of red-printed woodblock prints of thin-format actors, historical tales, and beauties of all genres. However, all of his works during this period followed the styles of other ukiyo-e artists who had gained popularity during the Horeki era, and there is a strong sense that he was literally in a state of dormancy. It was the Egoyomi Exchange Society, which became lively among enthusiasts in 1762, that turned this stagnant situation around and propelled artist Harunobu to stardom in the ukiyo-e world. During the Edo period, when the lunar calendar was in use, calendars were used to know the length and length of the months of each year, but the illustrated calendars that intellectuals competed to create during this time dramatically advanced the then immature techniques of woodblock printing into more advanced, multi-plate, multi-color printing. Among the ukiyo-e artists who were responsible for the illustrations of these illustrated calendars, Harunobu played an active and leading role, exploring the possibilities of color expression that accompanied improvements in woodblock engraving techniques, and thereafter, as a representative contemporary artist of beauties during the Meiwa period (1764-1772), he also worked hard to create dazzling nishiki-e prints, sending one after another out into the world as Azuma nishiki-e prints. Harunobu's style of painting beautiful women was rapidly organized and established through his illustrations for the illustrated calendars mass-produced in the second year of the Meiwa era and his illustrations for the newly created nishiki-e prints, which could be seen as a by-product of the creative enthusiasm of this time. He mainly exhibited his own works in medium-sized nishiki-e prints, but the men and women who appear in his unique, lyrical portraits of beautiful women all have innocent, childlike expressions like young boys and girls, and are completely androgynous and self-contained as beings living in a dreamlike space. In these nishiki-e prints, which create a kind of fantastical world, most of the men and women and other figures depicted were actually borrowed from the prints of older artists such as Nishikawa Sukenobu, but Harunobu transformed and revived them, so to speak, into paintings of a different dimension using his own unique style, and they took the world by storm. It should be noted that while he captured the popular Edo girls of the past such as Kasamori Osen, Harunobu's nishiki-e prints, which produced masterpieces such as "Eight Views of the House" and "Fuzoku Shiki Kasen," also contain many mitate-e paintings that replace the classics with the customs of the time. In the five years leading up to his death, he left behind over 1,000 works, making him a darling of the ukiyo-e world who loudly proclaimed the beginning of the Nishiki-e era.

(Masato Naito)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：明和7.6.15(1770.7.7)
生年：享保10?(1725)
江戸中期の浮世絵師。本姓穂積,あるいは鈴木氏,通称次郎兵衛,または次兵衛。別号に思古人,長栄軒がある。絵は西村重長,あるいは西川祐信に師事したと伝え,遅くとも宝暦10(1760)年にはすでに浮世絵画壇にデビューしている。それ以前の伝歴はほとんどわかっていない。画壇に出た宝暦(1751～64)後期から続く明和1(1764)年にかけては,細判役者絵や故事説話画,美人風俗画などの紅摺絵版画を発表したが,この間の作品は,いずれも宝暦年間に人気を得た他の浮世絵師たちの作風に追随しており,文字どおり雌伏期といった感が強い。こうした閉塞状況を一変させ,絵師春信を一躍浮世絵界のスターダムにのしあげたのが,明和2年に好事家たちのサークルで活況を呈した絵暦交換会であった。太陰暦の使われた江戸時代では,おのおのの年毎に月々の大小を知る暦が使われたが,この年文化人たちが競ってつくった絵暦は,それまでの未熟な木版画の技術をさらに高度な多版多色摺へと劇的に進歩させた。これら絵暦の作画を担当した浮世絵師のなかで,春信は版画の彫摺技術の向上に伴う色彩表現の可能性を探るなど積極的に主導的役割を果たし,以降は明和期(1764～72)を代表する当世美人絵師として,きらびやかな錦絵の創製にも尽力,吾妻錦絵として次々と世に送り出していった。春信の美人画様式は,この明和2年に量産された絵暦への作画と,このときの制作熱の副産物ともいえる誕生したばかりの錦絵への作画とによっていきおい整理され,確立をみた。もっぱら中判錦絵を自らの作品発表の場としたが,春信独特の抒情性豊かな美人画に登場する男女は,いずれも少年少女のように無垢であどけない表情をみせ,あくまでも中性的,夢幻的な空間に生きる存在として自己完結している。一種幻想的な世界が構築されたこれら錦絵において,描かれる男女その他の図様は,実はそのほとんどが西川祐信ら先輩絵師の版本類から借用されたものであったが,春信はいわばそれらを独自の画風によって別次元の絵画に転化,再生し,一世を風靡したのである。なお,笠森おせんなど往時人気の江戸の評判娘をとらえる一方で,「座敷八景」「風俗四季歌仙」などの傑作を生んだ春信錦絵には,古典を時世風俗に置き換えて描く見立絵が多く含まれる点が特筆される。没年までの5年ほどの間に,駆け足で1000点あまりの作例を遺したが,まさに錦絵時代の開幕を高らかに宣言した浮世絵界の寵児といえよう。

(内藤正人)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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