Fireflies at Ochanomizu

Artist	KOBAYASHI, Kiyochika　小林清親　1847-1915
Title	Fireflies at Ochanomizu
Date	1880
Material/ Technique	polychrome print
Size (cm)	24.5×35.7（sheet）

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KOBAYASHI, Kiyochika

	1847-1915
Biography	Ukiyo-e artist. Born in Edo (Tokyo). He is said to have studied oil painting from English artist Charles Wirgman, who lived in Yokohama. In 1876, he published landscape prints that utilized “kosen-ga” (light-ray pictures), which incorporated light and the shifting of light, through adopting expressions found in photography, painting and Japanese-style painting. This style brought a new perspective into the ukiyo-e world of the Meiji era (1868-1912). He then took interest in journalism, due to the rise of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. In 1881, he began to publish a series of ponchi-e, which consisted of satirical cartoons on society. He then studied copper-plate printmaking and lithography, which led to him becoming recognized as having created a path from the medium of ukiyo-e to the creative print, which adopted the idea of a work “self-drawn, self-carved, and self-printed” by a single artist, rather than incorporating the collaborative process undertaken by traditional ukiyo-e printmaking.

1847-1915

Biography

Ukiyo-e artist. Born in Edo (Tokyo). He is said to have studied oil painting from English artist Charles Wirgman, who lived in Yokohama. In 1876, he published landscape prints that utilized “kosen-ga” (light-ray pictures), which incorporated light and the shifting of light, through adopting expressions found in photography, painting and Japanese-style painting. This style brought a new perspective into the ukiyo-e world of the Meiji era (1868-1912). He then took interest in journalism, due to the rise of the Freedom and People's Rights Movement. In 1881, he began to publish a series of ponchi-e, which consisted of satirical cartoons on society. He then studied copper-plate printmaking and lithography, which led to him becoming recognized as having created a path from the medium of ukiyo-e to the creative print, which adopted the idea of a work “self-drawn, self-carved, and self-printed” by a single artist, rather than incorporating the collaborative process undertaken by traditional ukiyo-e printmaking.

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Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art

Fireflies at Ochanomizu