Edutainment > Chikanobu Toyohara - 1838-1912

Japanese Prints - Home
Red Lion Dance
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Chikanobu Toyohara is an important Meiji artist. His prints are quite popular among collectors. Until 2006 there was no Chikanobu biography to be found and the little information available about his life is very limited. In 2006 Bruce A. Coats, Professor of Art History and the Humanities at Scripps College, and others wrote a book titled "Chikanobu - Modernity and Nostalgia in Japanese Prints" about this important printmaker. The book was published by Scripps College in Association with Hotei Publishing in Leiden, Netherlands.

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A Student of Toyohara Kunichika

Chikanobu was a student of Toyohara Kunichika and his original name was Hashimoto. He took both the last name and the second part chika of his master's first name - following an old tradition of the way an artist's name was inherited from master to student.

He signed his prints usually with Yoshu Chikanobu or Yoshu Chikanobu hitsu.

Chikanobu Prints

Final Battle at the Shore

Japanese Prints - Intro
Kumagai and Atsumori
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Favorite subjects of Chikanobu were historical and mythological legends and histories from Japan's past and genre scenes with women and children. The percentage of triptychs among the prints created by the artist is higher than by any other artist of the Meiji period.

His best known series are triptychs showing court life in and around the Chiyoda Palace. Like Chikanobu's contemporary, Yoshitoshi, his print themes concentrate on the history and traditional values of old Japan. These series must be seen against the background of an era when Japan was thriving to adopt Western technology and civilization without any criticism. The Japanese society then regarded their own traditional customs as something of low value that had to be replaced by Western values as soon as possible.

Here is an incomplete list of some of the Toyohara Chikanobu prints series.

• Shin Bijin - True Beauty
• Bijin Awase - Beautiful Women
• Jidai Kagami - Mirror of the Ages
• Meisho Bijin Awase - Comparison of Famous Places and Beauties
• Nijushiko Mitate Awase - Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety Parodied
• Gento Shashin Kurabe - Magic Lantern
• Chiyoda no O-oku - Noble Ladies from the Chiyoda Palace series
• Onko Azuma no hana - Revitalisation of the customs of Edo
• Chiyoda no on-omote mokuroku - Chronicle of the events at the outside the Chiyoda palace
• Azuma Nishiki Chuya Kurabe - Edo Embroidery Pictures, comparison of the day and the night
• Onko Azuma no Hana - The Cabinet at Edo
• Onna Reishiki no Zu - The Manners and the Ceremonies for Women
• Edo Fuzoku - The Customs and Manners of Edo
• Tokugawa Jidai Kifujin no Zu - The Pictures of the Noble Ladies in Tokugawa Era
• Setsu, Getsu, Ka - Snow, Moon and Flowers

Collecting Prints by Chikanobu Toyohara

Woodblock Print by Chikanobu Toyohara

Japanese Woodblock Prints - article
Heroes at the Battle of Yashima
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Chikanobu prints are an excellent buy. His early series are kept close in the tradition of his ukiyo-e masters and may not be too exciting. But they are good, solid works and show nice details. These series are mostly in the low price range starting at US$100-200. The later series, mainly his triptychs, are often very interesting in design and more appealing to the Western eyes. They can sometimes become quite expensive.

Dieter Wanczura
(May 2002, updated April 2009)

Literature about Chikanobu Toyohara

"Chikanobu - Modernity and Nostalgia in Japanese Prints", Author: Professor Bruce A. Coats, Hotei Publishing, Leiden, ISBN 9074822886.

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