Description

Viewing Osaka through the series 100 Famous Views of Naniwa (Osaka) is an amazing experience. It is a well executed repetition over a format by Hiroshige.

This series is by Utagawa Kunikazu and Utagawa Yoshitaki.

Hiroshige I created his revolutionary series 100 Famous Views of Edo over three years, 1856-1859.

This led to the publishing of a copy series 100 Famous Views of Naniwa (Osaka) by other artists. The book here is based mainly on prints in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston online collection.

Hiroshige I had done his own series Famous Views of Naniwa (Osaka), 10 prints, as early as 1834, but it was his 100 Famous Views of Edo that caused the significant copy production.

Copying ideas and prints was quite normal in the Edo Period Japan.

One of the three artists is

Utagawa Yoshitaki (歌川芳滝, April 13, 1841 - June 28, 1899), who is also known as Ichiyōsai Yoshitaki (一養斎芳滝), was a Japanese designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints who was active in both Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka. He was also a painter and newspaper illustrator. His father was a paste merchant, and Yoshitaki became a student of Utagawa Yoshiume (1819-1879). Yoshitaki was the most prolific designer of woodblock prints in Osaka from the 1860s to the 1880s, producing more than 1,200 different prints, almost all of kabuki actors.

Landscape Series

Judging from our archive of sold prints since our foundation in 2001, most of Kunikazu's output were actor and kabuki theater subjects. But he made also a few landscape series. One is titled Hundred Views of Naniwa - Naniwa Hyakkei. Naniwa is another name for Osaka.