Katsushika Ōi

Katsushika Ōi (葛飾 応為)

Katsushika Ōi in the middle of the 1840s.
Born c. 1800 (exact date unknown)
Edo (present-day Tokyo), Japan
Died c. 1866 (exact date unknown)
Nationality Japanese
Known for Ukiyo-e
Nightscene in the Yoshiwara (吉原格子先之図) by Katsushika Oi
Kinuta or Beauty Fulling Cloth in the Moonlight by Katsushika Oi
Kinuta or Beauty Fulling Cloth in the Moonlight (19th century Edo period) by Katsushika Oi

Katsushika Ōi (葛飾 応為, c. 1800 – c. 1866), also known as Ei[1] (栄), was a Japanese Ukiyo-e artist of the late 19th century Edo period. Her mother was the second wife of Hokusai. Not only did Ōi work as a production assistant to her father, but she was also an accomplished painter in her own right.[2][3] There are multiple theories as to the origin of her name, including Ei (her given name), Ei-jo ("jo" meaning "woman" or "daughter" in Japanese), O-i ("loyal to itsu"), and O-Ei (お栄, with O as an honorary prefix for women's names in Edo Japan).

Biography

Ōi's birth and death dates are not known. She was a daughter of the ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760—1849).[4] Hokusai was married twice; the first marriage[lower-alpha 1] produced a son and two daughters, and the second, to a woman named Koto (こと), resulted in a son and one or two daughters.[5] It is said that Ōi was born in Hokusai's 37th year:[4] Kansei 12 (c. 1800). [5]

Ōi married the artist Minamisawa Tōmei[lower-alpha 2] in c. 1824. They did not get along,[5] and she found him a comically poor artist.[4] They divorced about 1827;[5] she returned to her father's home and never remarried.[4] Ōi thereafter assisted Hokusai in his artwork and took to producing her own. Of her bijin-ga portraits of beauties Hokusai is said to have told people, "The bijin-ga I paint myself are no match for Oei's."[lower-alpha 3] Ōi's mother died in c. 1828.[5] Ōi's whereabouts and status become unknown within a few years of her father's death in 1849.[4]

Of the testimony that remains about Ōi, Tsuyuki Iitsu, a pupil of Hokusai's in the master's later years, described her as having an eccentric personality like her father and a charitable disposition—she had ambitions to become a female xian sage.[4]

Works

Ōi is known to have excelled at handwriting and in bijin-ga paintings of beautiful women. The following is a selected list of her works.

She has also been credited as an illustrator for the following books.

Legacy

Few of Ōi's works are known: amongst them, a few nikuhitsu-ga paintings, the illustrations to the book Onna Chōhō-ki (女重宝記, 1847) by Takai Ranzan (高井 蘭山), and no prints.[4]

Canadian novelist Katherine Govier wrote a first-person novel about Ōi titled The Ghost Brush (2010,[8] also titled The Printmaker’s Daughter).[9]

The story of Ōi was adapted to comics as Miss Hokusai (1983–87), which had an animated movie adaptation in 2015. The story tells of the outspoken O-Ei, daughter of the famed artist Tetsuzō, for whom she sometimes paints uncredited. The film won numerous awards.[10]

Notes

  1. ↑ It is not known whether Hokusai divorced his first wife or outlived her.[5]
  2. ↑ 南澤 等明 Minamisawa Tōmei
  3. ↑ (in Japanese) 「自分が描く美人画は阿栄にはかなわない」 "Jibun ga kaku bijin-ga ha O-Ei in wa kanawanai."[4]

References

  1. ↑ "葛飾, 応為 カツシカ, オウイ" (in Japanese). CiNii. Retrieved May 22, 2017.
  2. 1 2 Ōi, Katsushika (1829). Senzai Hyakunin isshu yamato-kotobuki 千歳百人 一首倭寿.
  3. ↑ Machotka, Ewa (2009). Visual Genesis of Japanese National Identity: Hokusai's Hyakunin Isshu. Peter Lang. ISBN 978-90-5201-482-1.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kamiya 2006, p. 116.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Suzuki 2016, p. 188.
  6. ↑ ""Courtesans Showing Themselves to the Strollers through the Grille" by Katsushika Oi". Ota Memorial Museum of Art. February 2014. Retrieved 8 November 2014.
  7. ↑ Kobayashi Tadashi and Julie Nelson Davis. "The Floating World in Light and Shadow: Ukiyo-e Paintings by Hokusai's Daughter Oi". in Carpenter, J. T. et al (eds). Hokusai and his age: Ukiyo-e painting, printmaking and book illustration in late Edo Japan. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing. 2005.
  8. ↑ Hanrahan 2010.
  9. ↑ Tanabe 2011.
  10. ↑ "Director Keiichi Hara Wins Asiagraph 2015 Tsumugi Prize for Miss Hokusai Film". Anime News Network. August 11, 2015. Archived from the original on October 20, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2015.

Works cited

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