Utagawa Yoshiiku (歌川芳幾 - 1833-1904) (artist )
Ochiai (family name - 落合)Ikkeisai (gō - 一恵斎)
Ikujirō (nickname - 幾次郎)
Chōkarō (gō - 朝霞楼)
Keiami (gō - 蕙阿弥)
Keisai (gō - 蕙斎)
Sairakusai (gō - 洒落斎)
Links
Biography:
Yoshiiku had the misfortune of being a talented artist born in interesting times when things were changing both artistically, politically and socially. Of course, this is true of numerable other individuals when they were forced to either adapt and survive or settle for something much less than they would have desired. Pedro Bassoe in his 2018 doctoral thesis at the University of California, 2018 on page 15: "As with all aspects of society, the Meiji Restoration of 1868 heralded major changes in the configuration of literary and visual culture in Japan. With the emperor reinstalled as acting head of state, the country began to look outwards for new technologies that might help it transition from its position as an isolated nation to a new role as a competitive global leader. In the years immediately following the restoration, it appeared as though fiction would have no role in the new political order. The Meiji government officially discouraged “frivolous” writing and promoted the creation of didactic texts as a means to elevate the general public’s level of literacy. In April of 1872, the Ministry of Education issued the Three Directives on Teaching (Sanjō no kyōken), which enjoined writers and leaders of education to spread patriotic ideals to the general populace. In practice, the government financially supported gesaku writers who turned away from writing fiction and towards more obviously useful pursuits, such as the production of textbooks and works of history. Gesaku writers enthusiastically took up new positions as journalists and officially-sponsored educators. Kanagaki Robun, for one, wrote a geography textbook, Roads to the World’s Capitals: With Headnotes and Illustrations (Sekai miyakoji: shusho eiri, 1872), and a cookbook, Guide to Western Cuisine (Seiyō ryōri tsū, 1872), in the same year the edict was issued. Jōno Denpei (1832-1902), formerly a gesaku writer known as Sansantei Arindo, cofounded Tokyo’s first daily newspaper, the Tōkyō Nichi Nichi Shinbun, along with ukiyo-e artist Ochiai Yoshiiku (1833-1904) and book-lending clerk Nishida Densuke (1838-1910). It was only the first of many papers to be founded by figures previously involved in the production of kusazōshi. While such periodicals were initially devoid of illustration, they soon began to include images in the early modern style, as the visual culture of the Edo period experienced a resurgence in the modern era." [The choice of bold type is our own.]
"Illustrated fiction reappeared in the mid-1870’s, after the tumult of the Meiji Restoration
began to give way to a normalized social situation. Yoshiiku, having cofounded Tokyo’s first
daily periodical, also helped to establish its first illustrated newspaper, the Hiragana eiri
shinbun, along with gesaku writer Takabatake Ransen (1838-1885) in 1875. The Hiragana helped to popularize the new literary form of the tsuzukimono, or “serial story,” which began as extended news articles that were broken up over consecutive issues of the daily paper. Tsuzukimono often focused on sensational accounts of murder, adultery, and suicide, which were enthusiastically received by the reading public. As authors recognized the popularity of such stories, they began to incorporate more illustration into their work, until the tsuzukimono began to resemble premodern fiction more than modern news. Tsuzukimono in turn paved the way for a revival of kusazōshi, as popular news stories were expanded in length and converted into fully illustrated gōkan." (Ibid., pp. 15-16)
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"Ukiyo-e printmaker, illustrator. Born in Edo, son of the proprietor of a teahouse in the Yoshiwara. Apprenticed to the owner of a pawnshop; soon left to become a pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi. After the Meiji Restoration became a popular and well-known newspaper illustrator, working in 1874 for the Tōkyō Nichi-nichi Shimbun as an illustrator and, in 1875, for the Tōkyō Eiri Shimbun as a cartoonist. His subjects included actors and bijin and, particularly, ghostly scenes, done in the exaggerated manner and harsh colors of the mid-19th century. Also, illustrated numerous books."
Quoted from: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists... by Laurance P. Roberts, p. 193.
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Sarah E. Thompson noted in Undercurrents in the Floating World: Censorship and Japanese Prints on page 88 that Yoshiiku was a "...cofounder of the Tokyo Nichinichi Shimbun (Tokyo Daily News, the predecessor of the Mainichi Shimbun, [and that he] designed a series of color prints by the same title. The first in teh series dated October 1874, shows "the murder of the chaste woman Sen by the lascivious priest Keizan"..."
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He died on February 6, 1904.