Chikanobu Hashimoto

Toyohara Chikanobu (豊原周延, 1838–1912), better known to his contemporaries as Yōshū Chikanobu (楊洲周延), was a Japanese painter and printmaker who was widely regarded as a prolific woodblock artist during the Meiji epoch.

Though trained in Kano school painting from an early age, Chikanobu shifted his attention to ukiyo-e around 1852. Chikanobu began his woodblock printmaking career under the tutelage of Utagawa School masters Kuniyoshi, Kunisada and Kunichika. Like many of his contemporaries, Chikanobu Toyohara worked as a newspaper illustrator as well as a print artist. By 1871, he had established himself as a leading print artist. He designed across all genres, from kabuki actors and beauties to military exploits of past and present. During the 1870s, Chikanobu captured Meiji Japan’s rapid modernization through kaika-e, or “enlightenment pictures.” Attuned to current events and public taste, he produced designs of both the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion, an ill-fated insurrection against the Meiji government, and well as the 1882 Imo Incident in Korea. Chikanobu’s reflected his changing world not only through his subject matter, but also in his materials. Incorporating the purples and reds of imported aniline dyes, he achieved an element of subtlety and sophistication rarely seen in his era. By the 1880s, a wave of national nostalgia for a Japan past prompted designs exploring traditional Japanese culture, values, and heroes. - Ronin Gallery