Funky folk art from Japan

“You cannot study Japanese art without becoming more cheerful and happy.”- Vincent van Gogh

HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED what future generations will consider the best of today’s popular culture? Edo period pop art and illustrations in Japan might provide a few hints. Some of this work from the 17th and 18th centuries comes close to being manga, but the originals are now hanging in such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Try Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Utamaro. You may not know their names off the top of your head, but you definitely know their pictures, as a quick click on the links will reveal.

For sheer funkiness, however, a lesser-known class of pictures called otsu-e (Otsu pictures) can’t be beat. The pictures are named for the city of Otsu, just east of Kyoto, which was located on the Tokaido road. This was the primary road between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto during the Edo period. Shops in Otsu sold souvenirs, among them these prints that were produced rapidly and in quantity at the shop. They were usually done as hanging scrolls or simply on sheets of paper. They were so cheap anyone could afford them.

The subjects combined Buddhist themes, auspicious symbols, and a sense of humor with bold colors. They became so popular that the subject matter expanded over the centuries to include non-religious subjects. In fact, by the 18th century, the artists frequently incorporated pictures of such irreligious rascals as goblins, such as in the work shown here, called “Goblin Playing the Shamisen”. The little devil’s drunk and whaling away on his musical instrument, showing that the more things change, the more things don’t change at all.

The Japanese themselves tend to consider them caricatures. Other titles include “The Goblin Nembutsu” (Buddhist Prayer) or “Trying to Hold Down a Catfish with a Gourd.”

For more information, try this page at the Mingeikan (Japanese Folk Art Museum) in Tokyo describing their exhibit of a couple of years ago. (The link to the museum’s home page is on the right sidebar.) It also contains an article on the exhibit that appeared in the Japan Times.

Once you get started, you might not be able to stop. Here’s another page at the Cleveland Museum of Art, this is a self-portrait of the artist Kuniyoshi making otsu-e, and here’s a New York Times review of a 1994 New York exhibit, with an explanation of the sociopolitical aspects of the work’s original popularity.

And if you’re in Japan and want to buy some otsu-e or take lessons, here’s the Otsu-e Shop in the city that gave the art its name.