Everybody has an old fart in their life who goes on and on about the "good old days" and how much better things were when they were young, and as I, slowly and none-too-gracefully, enter my declining years, I don't agree with the "good old days" rant per se (maybe I'm not old enough), but I do in some way understand that feeling, because for most people, as you get older it gets harder and harder to find things that excite you the way things did when you were young. My personal theory about this phenomenon is that when you are in your late teens and early twenties, it can feel like you're being bombarded with cool stuff because everything is new to you: it's the first time you watch CHINATOWN or APOCALYPSE NOW or TOUCH OF EVIL or M; the first time you listen to "Kind of Blue" or "London Calling" or "Blood on the Tracks"; the first time you read Tropic of Cancer or The Basketball Diaries or Watchmen - it's an embarrassment of riches! But as you get older those moments of discovery get further and further apart, and eventually you begin to rail about the kids today and how they don't know about good "music/books/movies/whateverelseyoucanthinkof", and before you know it, you're the old fart who isn't interested in new things anymore. But if you're a pop culture junkie like me (and you have loads of free time), you haven't given up yet and you're always on the hunt for the next fix, the next thing to get your juices flowing, be it something brand new or something very, very old.
I just found my next fix. I read the name Utagawa Kuniyoshi for the first time a little over 24 hours ago in a monograph of his prints that was made for an exhibit of his work at the Royal Academy of Art in England this past spring, and he has instantly become my favourite Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the 19th century. Most people know Hosukai and Hiroge, and I love their landscape prints, very serene and lyrical, but I've always been more interested in the more turbulent, violent aspects of ancient Japan, the samurais, the mythical monsters, the warlords battling for supremacy, that kind of stuff. And there are loads of samurai and monster images from that era out there, but there never seemed to be a particular artist, that I knew of anyway, who made that stuff his stock-in-trade.
Until I stumbled on Kuniyoshi. This guy is the Jack Kirby of ukiyo-e art: men fighting crocodiles, samurais wielding giant rifles, soldiers being shoved face first into exploding landmines - it's awesome!!! It's easy to see why he's often referred to as the godfather of manga; his work has the same kinetic, visceral kick of the best Japanese action comics. I don't think I've seen any art from any country in any era that looks as contemporary as his work; this stuff could easily be right out of a modern comic book. And not just his subject matter is modern, but his style too, his line and his colours seem in some cases almost like some psychedelic "pop art" painting. He does other images, landscapes, geishas, they're just as accomplished, but for me the warrior prints just leap right off the page. I would have killed to see the exhibit in England, these things are eye-popping on a computer screen, can't even imagine what they'd look like up close and personal. And this may sound strange, but it's also a real thrill to discover that there is a specific name - be it an artist or a genre or whatever - that perfectly sums all the things you like about an artform (sorta like when I couldn't understand for the longest time why I was indifferent to country music but still liked banjos and fiddles until I found out the stuff I liked was called "bluegrass"). Now whenever someone asks who my favourite ukiyo-e artist is - because this comes up all the time when I'm gettin' hammered with my friends - I can say "Kuniyoshi" and they'll know exactly what I mean. Or they'll shrug indifferently, whatever, their loss!
I always suspected there was some samurai artist stomping some serious ass in 19th century Japanese art ... and his name is Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
You can see a whole lot more of his work here.
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