Juxtaposing Brushes: Painting Collaborations in Early Modern Japan

Abstract

This dissertation centers on a group of eighteenth-century collaborative paintings from Japan that juxtapose deities and immortal figures with Japanese maidens. The paintings – Kume the Immortal by Kano Terunobu and Nishikawa Sukenobu, Fukurokuju with Courtesan and Geisha by Kitao Shigemasa, Isoda Koryūsai, and Tanshukusai Shūboku, and Enma and His Mirror by Kō Sūkoku and Katsukawa Shunshō – feature combinations of distinct painting modes, brushed by painters of different ateliers. Produced on silk with rich colors, they were time and labor intensive works that required complex logistical coordination and high material costs. These collective endeavors and others like them raise issues of patronage, artistic lineages, as well as painting practices.

In the three main chapters, I unravel each of these collaborative paintings, analyzing how the various layers of juxtaposition within them functioned, and what they meant to their audiences. I show that modern classifications of the paintings as ukiyo-e (“pictures of the floating world”) and mitate-e (“parody pictures”) fail to address the essential aspect of multiple authorship and its implications. These works, I argue, engage both juxtaposition and collaboration, so it is necessary to examine them under both rubrics to broaden our comprehension of painting production and consumption in early modern Japan.

My study compares the paintings to literary illustrations and printed works of the same subjects to investigate the significance of the collaborative process. I employ detailed formal analyses to gain a deeper understanding of painting modes and their relevance to the formation of lineages and artistic reputations. Through a close reading of contemporary sources such as Nishikawa Sukenobu’s 1748 “Painting and Color Application Methods (Gahō saishiki hō 畫法彩色法),” and Segawa Tomisaburō’s 1818 published directory, The Edo Compass (Edo hōkaku wake 江戸方角分), I contextualize how painters self-identified and also how they were perceived by others. I consult, too, other primary materials such as diaries kept by painters and daimyo to explore the interactions between painter and patron. I end with a discussion of subsequent painting collaborations in the nineteenth century.