SoraNews24 —Japan News—

Bringing you yesterday's news from Japan and Asia, today.

RocketNews24 Japanese

Featured

These 19th-century Japanese miniature landscapes show that size isn’t everything

The Tōkaidō is perhaps the most important road in Japan’s history. Built in the 17th century, it connected the country’s two powerhouses: it runs from Kyoto, the imperial capital, to Edo (now Tokyo), the seat of the Shogunate. As well as being an important political and trade route, depictions of the Tōkaidō in art in literature were abundant and popular.

The best-known of these is Utagawa Hiroshiges’s series of ukiyo-e woodcut prints, The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō. Ukiyo-e woodblock printing like this continued to flourish in Japan until the 19th century.

Less famous than Hiroshige is the relatively unknown ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Yoshishige, who produced his own prints of the 53 stations along the Tōkaido – by depicting each station in the form of a potted landscape.

Utagawa Yoshishige’s illustrations, which are dated 1848, appear to be based on actual miniature landscape models*,* made by the artist’s father. These bonkei (盆景) or “tray landscapes” are miniature three-dimensional depictions of landscapes in miniature. Unlike bonsai, bonkei landscapes don’t typically include living plants, but are mostly made up of dry materials like rock and paper mache.

Here we bring you a selection of our favourites, in a collection we’ll be calling “Fifty-three Ten Stations of the Tōkaidō as Potted Landscapes”.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

Sources: The Public Domain Review, Japaaan, US National Agricultural Library
Featured image: US National Agricultural Library, edited by RocketNews24
All images: via US National Agricultural Library

Like this:

Like Loading…

Related Stories

Trackbacks

  1. There are no trackbacks yet.
  2. Trackback URL

Trending Today

  1. Pokémon card game’s expansion features art from Fist of the North Star creator
  2. Amazing Japanese yogurt spoon scoops up every last drop of dairy effortlessly
  3. Japanese hoodie for cat-loving gamers will keep you and your feline friend warm and fuzzy [Pics]
  4. Kenshi Yonezu’s Lemon hits 1 billion views on YouTube and he’s still not quite sure why
  5. New Era celebrates three decades of Pokémon with new 30th anniversary cap line [Photos]
  6. Two Tokyo neighborhoods to gather on bridge and shift their recognized border through tug-of-war
  7. Starbucks Japan unveils new winter drinkware collection with limited-edition Stanley cups
  8. Pachinko parlor operator arrested for not obscuring the act of gambling well enough
  9. Katsuya takes perhaps a little too much liberty with its take on a Niigata soul food
  10. Family Mart releases 47 convenience store socks and stickers, one for every prefecture in Japan

© SoraNews24 —Japan News— / SOCIO CORPORATION

Powered by WordPress VIP

%d