Kyosai's Animal Circus

RA Kyosai_01_Prelims_v08.indd 4

01/02/2022 13:39

CONTENTS

K YŌSAI ’ S FANTA STIC BE A STS AND WHERE THE Y COME FROM 9

RA Kyosai_01_Prelims_v08.indd 5

1

KYŌSAI ’ S SI G NATU RE AN I MAL S: CROWS AN D FROG S 15

LIST OF ILLUSTR ATIONS WITH NOTES ON SELEC TED WORK S 111

2

FAM I LIAR CREATU RES 39

FURTHER RE ADING 115

3

FORTU N EB RI N G ERS AN D D IVI N E B E ASTS 65

PHOTO GR APHIC ACKNOWLED GEMENTS 115

4

TRI CK STERS , M I SCH I EVOUS AN I MAL S AN D MON STERS 81

5

VI SITORS FROM AB ROAD AN D AESOP ’ S AN I MAL S 95

AUTHOR ’ S ACKNOWLED GEMENTS 115

26/01/2022 13:13

RA Kyosai_02_Essay _v08.indd 8

11/02/2022 13:06

KYŌSAI’S FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE THEY COME FROM

Portrait photograph of Kyōsai.

Kawanabe Kyōsai Memorial Museum, Warabi

RA Kyosai_02_Essay _v08.indd 9

9

Triumphant frogs surround a glum-looking snake, making merry on the long body of their would-be predator (p.8). The frogs show off acrobatic tricks, balancing on top of each other, hanging from a rope and poised on a trapeze suspended from the snake’s body.

One provides a rhythmic accompaniment, energetically beating a lotus-pod drum – evidence of their aquatic life. The unfortunate snake is tied between two bare tree trunks, its tail stretched out by three frogs beneath. The picture is filled with the movement, hubbub and excitement of these animated creatures.

The artist who designed this woodblock print is Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889), one of the most celebrated painters of late nineteenth-century Japan. Having been fully trained as an academic painter in the Kano school, the Tokugawa government’s official school for painters, Kyōsai would have been aware of the Chinese tradition in which artists depicted creatures subject to the laws of nature – the weak falling prey to the strong – as a commentary on human society. In his ‘comic pictures’ (kyōga) and in many others, Kyōsai delighted in reversing such power relationships, frequently doing so to give an unexpected twist to the conventions of traditional imagery. He seems to have particularly enjoyed giving smaller animals a chance to get their own back on their predators, as in Rats’ Revenge (p. 43) and Rabbits Leading off a Tiger (pp. 108–9).

Animal imagery has long occupied a significant place in traditional Japanese art and literature. Each animal possesses its own symbolic value derived from its special abilities or characteristics, and some are associated with deities, religious narratives, particular events or seasons of the year. Agile rabbits, for instance, sometimes feature in armour decoration. A Buddhist

26/01/2022 13:14

10

Kyōsai’s copy of Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans, 25 November 1875. Handscroll: ink on paper, 31.9 x 1,165 cm.

National Diet Library (Digital Collection), Tokyo

RA Kyosai_02_Essay _v08.indd 10

tale gives rabbits a strong association with the moon, and thus they can be seen as auspicious in terms of the lunar calendar. Puppies were depicted not only for their cute appearance but also because they symbolise fertility and safe birth and thus prosperity for a family. Some animals’ symbolic meanings are shared across East Asian cultures, not least those of the twelve animals of the Chinese calendrical cycle. Bats, for example, are viewed as felicitous because their Chinese name, fú, is pronounced in the same way as the Chinese word for ‘happiness’. All these animals adorned paintings, prints, textiles, ceramics, netsuke (carved toggles), sword fittings and other daily and celebratory objects in Japan.

‘Humanised’ creatures often appear in Japanese illustrated tales and social satire – ‘humanised’ rather than ‘anthropomorphised’ as the animals retain their autonomy as beasts rather than appearing as metaphorical depictions of

26/01/2022 13:14

11

humans. Maintaining their wildness and unpredictability, they thus might at times appear unsettling. The canonical example of such animal representations in Japanese art is the twelfth-century set of handscroll paintings known as Frolicking Animals and Humans (Chōjū jinbutsu giga), showing frogs, rabbits, monkeys and other animals behaving like humans – a work that Kyōsai copied in order to study. The following centuries witnessed the flourishing of illustrated popular tales in handscroll and album paintings with a variety of animal protagonists. Aesop’s Fables were brought to Japan by Jesuit missionaries and first translated into Japanese at the end of the sixteenth century. With the development of woodblock-printing technology in the seventeenth century, illustrated stories like these found a wide audience.

Humanised animals thrived in comic pictures published as colour woodblock prints in the nineteenth century, particularly those designed by the ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798–1861), who is particularly renowned for his love of cats. The popular art of ukiyo-e (‘pictures of the floating world’) focused on fashionable contemporary subjects. Kuniyoshi was Kyōsai’s first drawing teacher and, though he taught his young apprentice for just two years, his influence was profound.

Animal imagery was vital to Kyōsai’s success in establishing himself as an artist and connected his art both to the traditions of the past and to the present. After finishing his nine-year training in the academic Kano studio, where he learned traditional painting methods in ink and complex colours as well as classical Japanese and Chinese subjects, he made a great effort to establish his own style, studying, among others, the style of Toba Sōjō (Kakuyū, 1053–1140), the medieval monk-painter to whom the humorous handscrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans are traditionally attributed. Kyōsai also started to design ukiyo-e prints and became renowned for his comic pictures, following in Kuniyoshi’s footsteps. Kyōsai thus combined his academic training and classical studies with the world of popular art, in which he explored topical subjects and sometimes

RA Kyosai_02_Essay _v08.indd 11

26/01/2022 13:14

RA Kyosai_03_Signature animals_v11.indd 36

26/01/2022 13:40

RA Kyosai_03_Signature animals_v11.indd 37

26/01/2022 13:40

46

RA Kyosai_04_Familiar creatures_v07.indd 46

04/02/2022 09:17

47

RA Kyosai_04_Familiar creatures_v07.indd 47

04/02/2022 09:19

50

RA Kyosai_04_Familiar creatures_v07.indd 50

26/01/2022 13:17

51

RA Kyosai_04_Familiar creatures_v07.indd 51

26/01/2022 13:17

RA Kyosai_06_Tricksters and Monsters_v08.indd 80

26/01/2022 13:30

TRICKSTERS, MISCHIEVOUS ANIMALS AND MONSTERS

81

Foxes and raccoon dogs (tanuki) are the two most famous trickster animals in Japan. Shapeshifters who can disguise themselves as humans, they have appeared in legend and folklore since medieval times. Their conduct ranges from playful mischief to more serious interventions, sometimes even leading to the death of their victims.

Stories of bewitching foxes appear to have originated in China. In these tales, foxes often transform themselves into beautiful women (or occasionally men) to seduce people. Kyōsai exploited this rich traditional fox imagery. His paintings of a fox pretending to be a Shintō priest riding a horse might refer to the Japanese phrase describing someone being unreliable and untrustworthy: ‘Like giving a fox a ride on one’s horse’ (pp. 82–3). The image of a white fox riding a horse in the popular folk art known as Ōtsu-e (‘pictures from Ōtsu’) might have been another inspiration. Kyōsai also painted a raccoon dog disguised as a Buddhist monk (p. 85), based on the legend of the priest Shukaku at Morin-ji temple, who was discovered to be a raccoon dog.

Phantom cats with the tips of their tails split in two are called Nekomata (p. 92). By the seventeenth century, they had established their presence in literature and reference works. Non-supernatural cats also inspired irreverent images. In Kyōsai’s time, images of cats were sometimes used to represent geisha (female entertainers) and courtesans because the three-stringed, banjo-like musical instrument called a shamisen that they played had catskin stretched across the soundbox. Kyōsai often depicted such cats together with catfish, which signified officials of the new Meiji government (1868–1912) with their long moustaches (pp. 86–91), but also referred to the belief that a giant catfish living under Japan caused earthquakes, implying that bureaucrats were destabilising the country. These officials frequented restaurants and pleasure quarters for ‘back-room political dealings’ over drinks, accompanied by geisha. In these satirical images, the cats are usually in full control of the catfish.

RA Kyosai_06_Tricksters and Monsters_v08.indd 81

26/01/2022 13:30

92

RA Kyosai_06_Tricksters and Monsters_v08.indd 92

08/02/2022 10:11

RA Kyosai_06_Tricksters and Monsters_v08.indd 93

08/02/2022 10:24

104

RA Kyosai_07_Visitors & Aesop's Fables _v08.indd 104

04/02/2022 10:30

RA Kyosai_07_Visitors & Aesop's Fables _v08.indd 105

26/01/2022 13:53

108

RA Kyosai_07_Visitors & Aesop's Fables _v08.indd 108

26/01/2022 13:53

109

RA Kyosai_07_Visitors & Aesop's Fables _v08.indd 109

26/01/2022 13:53

RA Kyosai_08_List of Illustrations _v08.indd 117

26/01/2022 13:28