YAMASHINA-E, OTSU-E − Pictures
from Yamashina and Otsu
山科絵 大津絵
最後には日本語もございます。貴重な資料です。
I first met Yamamoto san in October 2003 on a visit to the famous temple
Daigo-Ji in Kyoto. He was sitting in a small stall, sourrounded by the
most colorful and humorous pictures. Taking a good look, there was of
course Daruma san among the featured subjects. On this picture below you
can see his BENTEN, one of the seven deities of Good Luck, another frerquent
topic of his pictures.
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Yoshio Yamamoto, 63, makes it his life-work to revive Yamashina Paintings.
山本さんは山科絵を自分のライフ・ワークにしています。
What exactly are Yamashina Paintings?
During the Edo period, there were many travellers on the old Tokaido road,
from Kyoto to Edo and back to Kyoto. Each of the 53 postal towns on the
way had its own speciality, mostly some local food. Yamashina, but even
more so the nearby town of Otsu, were famous for some kind of funny paintings
of religious origin. Yamashina is now a modern suburb of Kyoto.
Best open my photo album in another window and look at themwhile you
read here:
これかれ読む文書につくアルバムの絵を別の画面でみてください。
http://tinyurl.com/yttee
Otsu Paintings (大津絵)
They have survived until today and we find these motives on postcards
or ceramics of all kinds.
On this LINK
http://www.otsu.or.jp/otsue/otsue.htm
you find the most common topics of Otsu paintings, the little Demon saying
his prayers in the cold (oni no kan nenbutsu) is probably the most famous
one.
Here is a little more about Otsu paintings.
Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807 - 1891)
Japanese folk painting known as otsu-e, so named for the town of Otsu
just to the east of Kyoto, along the Tokaido road, the principal route
linking Edo and Kyoto. Shops hawking cheap souvenirs included open-air
painting studios where block-printed folk subjects embellished with vivid
ink washes were offered in unmounted hanging scroll format, or as simple
sheets of paper, each with a single subject.
http://www.clevelandart.org/educef/asianodyssey/html/1982_9.html
http://www.clevelandart.org/educef/asianodyssey/html/index.html
http://shop.store.yahoo.net/artsmia-museum-shop/gensym-28.html
There is also a special museum for Otsu paintings in the Town of Otsu.
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http://www.lbm.go.jp/kenhaku/shoukai/06.html
In the following extensive gallery, you can learn a lot about Otsu paintings
(if you read Japanese). But just to have a look at all their pictures
is a MUST, while we are at this subject.
The most common topics are Demons 鬼、Buddhist Deities 仏画、beautiful
ladies 美人画、famous warriors 武者絵 and others. Just click on any.
http://www.otsue.jp/main_g.html
Here are the humorous others, which are maybe closest to Haiga:
http://www.otsue.jp/main_g.html
A Lady Komuso (wandering monk with his head covered under a big straw
head)
http://www.otsue.jp/images/gallery/komusou.jpg
The feroucious Deity Fudo Myoo (one of my favorite deities which I will
take up in other stories)
http://www.otsue.jp/images/gallery/fudo.jpg
Throwing beans to ward off evil. Here it is upside down, the demon is
throwing beans and the God of Good Luck, Daikoku, is running away.
http://www.otsue.jp/images/gallery/fuku.jpg
Explanations in Japanese
http://www.otsue.jp/intro_his.html
http://www.mingeikan.or.jp/Pages/otue.html
http://village.infoweb.ne.jp/~ryoshi/otue.htm
Concluding remark about Otsu-e:
They remind me a lot of HAIGA, I must say.
Maybe there is a link between them both after all? Being painted by sort-of
laypeople for common folk, not ment to be high art, but entertaining or
used as presents from heart to heart.
The BIG BROTHER of Otsu paintings is still very much alive, but Yamashina
paintings have been almost lost in our modern times.
Mr. Yamamoto, who lives in Yamashina, is trying to revive them in his
own humorous style. He has done so after a lot of personal research and
is now selling his paintings in various temples, since about 1998.
Many topics of these paintings concerned the gods of good luck and other deities of Shintoism and Buddhism, the same as we met above in the Otsu Paintings. They are painted with black ink and some watercolors, the faces of the gods are usually taken from the living men and women of his neighbourhood.
During the Edo period, these cheap paintings of the deities were all a poor traveler could afford during his trip, so Yamamoto san keeps his prices down too. After buying some of his postcards, he gave me a few more and later even sent me a long letter in beautiful calligraphy with a Daruma and some water goblins (kappa, picture 07 in my album). He wrote if Yamashina paintings would be made known outside Japan, that would be a great honour to him.
写真の説明
Picture 01:
Daruma san meets Sokrates, what a surprising combination of "East
meets West". Yamamoto san was a schoolteacher before becoming a painter
and a philosopher too.
だるまさんとソクラテス、なんと組むあわせ。西と東が仲良く話し合う。
Picture 02:
Two water goblins (kappa) hoisting a kite of Daruma in the air. Kappa
is another speciality of his Yamashina paintings, but to explain about
kappa here would get us too far off the subject. Just think of him as
some kind of human-frog.
河童とだるま。河童は山科絵の特徴のひとつです。
Picture 03:
This shows a Kappa looking at a Daruma doll which has tumbled over. The
surprized face of the little Kappa is quite fascinating.
河童と起き上がりのだるま。
Picture 04:
Four naughty Kappa boys trying to tumble a Daruma, who in turn tries to
hold steadfast, keeping his balance. The individual versus society, as
Yamamoto smiles wisely.
4 匹の河童はだるまを倒そうとし、だるまはビックともしない。
Picture 05:
Two postcards, each using a Chinese character associated whith a virtue
of Daruma in a funny distortion. NINtai 忍耐, or steadfastness and koDOKU
孤独, to be alone.
漢字にだるまを書きました。忍耐、孤独 のだるま
Picture 06:
Yamamoto san also gave me a larger square picture with the seven gods
of good luck in the treasure-boat, together with a Daruma in their midst.
Since these seven are used in pictures for the New Year just as Daruma,
he figured they might as well all sit in the same boat!
お正月に使う七福神にだるまも乗せ、なんと縁起のよい組み合わせ！
Picture 07:
All my treasures of Yamashina paintings mounted on the wall of the Daruma
Museum. On the top line his letter with a sample of his individualistic
calligraphy. Here Daruma is sourrounded by dancing water goblins.
だるま資料館に収まった山科絵のコーナー。
References:
Choken-Ji and the Benten Picture:
http://homepage2.nifty.com/otsuri/english/eng_picture/photo/eng_chokenji.htm
The second from the bottom shows the small stall of Yamamoto san.
http://homepage2.nifty.com/otsuri/pictures/photo/chokenji/chok_sakura.htm
An abstract from a newpaper article about Yamamoto san in 2003.
京都新聞、2003年：
京都市山科区椥辻東浦町の画家、山本義雄さん(63)が江戸時代まで山科の旧東海道の街道沿いで売られていた「山科絵」を現代風に復活させた。同じルーツを持つ「大津絵」を参考に、京都の風景や山科ゆかりの人物などを描いており、「山科の名物にできれば」とはりきっている。
山科絵は、江戸時代の前−中期に生まれたとされ、半紙に神仏などの絵を描いて東海道を行き交う旅人に売られていた。東海道沿いでは、山科絵のほかに地元の名を付けた「大津絵」や「追分絵」「大谷絵」があったが、交通 の手段が徒歩から鉄路などに変わり、今では大津絵だけが残っている。
古い文献などで山科絵の存在を知った山本さんが、「地元の歴史を見直したい」と考え、山科絵と同様に仏画から生まれたとされる大津絵の技法を学び、独自の要素を入れて４年前に山科絵を興した。
山本さんの山科絵は、墨と顔料で描く大津絵を参考に、金閣寺や醍醐寺などの京都の社寺、小野小町など山科ゆかりの人物などを、現代の絵具も使って色彩 豊かに描いている。
「山科絵がどんなものだったかは残っていないので、大津より都に近い分、華やかさを取り入れるようにした」と山本さん。「街道沿いで売られた絵は、貧しい人たちの信仰の対象として生まれ、そこに庶民の遊び心が入ってきた経緯がある。復活させた山科絵も、人の心をなぐさめるような絵にして、昔のように山科の名物にしていきたい」としている。
Kyoto Shimbun 2003.04.15 News
Thank you so much, Yamamoto san, for giving us the pleasure to look at
these humorous pictures, making us smile with your art. I hope to meet
you again in Yamashina next year.
Presented by Gabi Greve, GokuRakuAn, August 2004
To the Daruma Forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Darumasan-Japan/
To the Daruma Museum
http://www.amie.or.jp/daruma/daruma-new1.html
To Musings about Happiness, a Haiku Forum
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/happyhaiku/
To the Daruma Photo Album
http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/gabigreve2000/my_photos
gokuraku@po.harenet.ne.jp
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