Floating Along in the World of Japanese Prints

Hananuma Masakichi in the Cotswolds?

 

In 1885, at the age of 53, Hananuma Masakichi, an artist who worked in Yokohama, completed a life-size carved wooden figure of himself that was so lifelike that people who viewed the artist alongside his creation could not tell which was the man and which the copy (see close-up photos above and below). According to The Strand Magazine (1898):

The wooden figure seems to live and breathe. By many connoisseurs in art this is pronounced to be the most human and perfect image of a man ever created. It is the artist's own production of himself, reproducing every detail, even to the most minute scar, vein, and wrinkle.¹

The figure is made up of between 2,000 and 5,000 separate pieces of wood,² all of which were so skilfully dovetailed and joined together that even under a magnifying glass it is impossible to see any of the joins. Following construction, the figure was painted and lacquered to match it's creator's own skin tone perfectly, and Masakichi handcrafted glass eyeballs that are said to be so visually perfect that they baffle members of the optical profession.

Apparently, Masakichi created the figure after discovering that he was suffering from tuberculosis; it was to be his final project and it's said that he intended to leave it to the woman he loved. He used adjustable mirrors to view his own body from different angles, in order to exactly replicate every part of his anatomy. In his quest for perfection, Masakichi removed hairs from his own body and attached them to the wooden figure by means of tiny drilled holes which served as pores; each hair was attached in the exact position on the wooden figure that it had occupied on the artist's body. He then removed his own fingernails and toenails and attached them to the wooden figure. And if that weren't enough, he is said to have removed his own teeth and added those to the replica too. He finished the figure off with a pair of his glasses and his loincloth.

'For some months after its completion he posed on exhibition beside it to the utter confusion of the audience, who, even at close quarters, were quite unable to distinguish the artist from his counterfeit figure in wood.'³

Ripley Odditorium postcard from 1939. My personal collection.

Sadly, Hananuma Masakichi died in poverty ten years after the figure's completion, in the winter of 1895 at the age of 63. Following his death, the figure was owned by Ellis Bloch, who exhibited it at The House of Novelties and Curios, E. Block Mercantile Co., in San Francisco. It was also put on show at Chicago’s Century of Progress Fair in 1933. In the spring of 1934, the figure was purchased for $10 by Robert L. Ripley from the estate of the late E. Bloch; it went on show at the Ripley Odditorium in New York and was Ripley’s favourite and most treasured possession (see postcard above).

So, what's all of this got to do with the English Cotswolds, I hear you ask? Well, it is in the Cotswolds that you will find Snowshill Manor, which is located in the village of Snowshill, a mile (about five minutes by car) from Broadway. And it is in Snowshill Manor that you will find this remarkable fellow by Masakichi...

He's a carved wooden mask-maker and he's examining one of his little creations with a look of delight. At his feet are various tools used in wood carving and a larger wooden mask. The light wasn't very good in the room where he's located, but the images below give you some idea of the work that went into him and the great skill that Masakichi possessed. Just look at the veins in his temple, neck and chest! And, as with Masakichi's 'self-portrait', this fellow has real human hair.

The mask-maker was the favourite possession of Charles Wade, owner of Snowshill Manor before the National Trust took over. He is one of a set of figures, of which two are located at Snowshill, the other being the basket-pedlar bellow.

Wade collected all manner of handcrafted items and the house is full of fascinating objects; there are several sets of samurai armour and numerous other Japanese items, all handmade, in the rooms throughout the house. If you happen to be in the Cotswolds, it's very much worth a visit. The whole place is fascinating. Click here to see photos of the various rooms taken during my recent visit.

Details: Snowshill Manor, Snowshill, near Broadway, WR12 7JU. Click here to visit the web site.

^{1, 3} 'Curiosities' in The Strand Magazine, March 1898, p. 358.
² Records differ regarding the number of wooden strips used.

November 1910 ~ A Couple from the Kan'ei Era

 

Following on from my last blog post, I've just bought another calendar print. As I mentioned in my last post, elements from the series Hana Moyō (Patterns for Flowers), by Kobayashi Kiyochika, were adapted for use in a woodblock printed calendar that was published to advertise the Deer and Stag brand of the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama in 1910. The design I've just bought is that for the month of November.

You may remember that it was the main subject of The Tenpō Era triptych of 1896 that was adapted for the December calendar sheet of 1910. For the November sheet, elements of Kiyochika's triptych for The Kan'ei to Shōhō Era (see image below) have been adapted for the vertical calendar print, but this time two figures have been taken from the background of the triptych; the main subject of the original triptych has been ignored.

If you compare the figures pictured in the calendar print above with the couple shown in the original triptych below (see image right for detail), you can see that, whilst they remain essentially the same characters, a few changes were necessary in order to transform the figures from being a small part of the original large composition to being the sole focus of the smaller one of 1910.

According to the text alongside the title cartouche, the woman depicted in the above triptych is the courtesan Takao. Eleven separate women of the Miuraya, one of the most famous bordellos of the pleasure quarter, took the name Takao during the seventeenth to mid eighteenth centuries, and each one was famous for a different reason. Takao I is sometimes portrayed with a procession that includes a wet nurse and child,¹ so she seems to be the one referred to here.

The poem included alongside the title cartouche is from the poetry anthology Hyakunin isshu (One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets). It is by Mibu no Tadami and goes:

Koi su tefu Waga na wa madaki Tachi ni keri Hito shirezu koso Omoi someshi ga.

Yes, I am in love. They were talking about me Before daylight, Although I began to love Without knowing it.2

______________________

¹ Lindsey, William R. Lindsey, Fertility and Pleasure: Ritual and Sexual Values in Tokugawa Japan, 2007.
² This translation is by Kenneth Rexroth. One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, published in 1964.

December 1910 ~ A Courtesan of the Tenpō Era

 

In 1896 the series of triptychs entitled Hana Moyō (Patterns for Flowers), by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), was published. Each design featured a beautiful woman from a specific historical period set against a distant background scene. In 1910, elements of the designs from this series were adapted for use in a woodblock printed calendar that was published to advertise the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama. Specifically, it was published to advertise the Deer and Stag brand, which was the most highly praised of the Kawamata firm's fabrics. I recently received the design for December as a Christmas present, and here it is: 

The text at the bottom of the print tells us that Deer and Stag pure silk 'surpasses all others in its refining method, shows excellent lustre when dyed or printed,' and 'suffers no change, no matter how long it may be kept'. The firm, established by Kutsuna Korejiro in 1899, was highly thought of; following the Anglo-Japanese exhibition held in London in 1910, both English and French silk dealers were eager to buy it, but Kutsuna refused to sell.

The design from Hana Moyō which was adapted to form the subject for December in the Kawamata calendar was the triptych depicting a courtesan from The Tenpō Era (1830-1844), which can be seen below. 

The courtesan is shown before a background scene of men making their way along Naka-no-chō, the famous central boulevard of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. The courtesan's face and butterfly hairstyle, including that plethora of heavy pins, are the same in both the original triptych and the calendar sheet, but, as you can see, her outer robe and sash were adapted to fit the vertical format of the calendar print.