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Toyohara Kunichika (30 June 1835 – 1 July 1900) was a Japanese woodblock print artist. Talented as a child, at about thirteen he became a student of Tokyo's then-leading print maker, Utagawa Kunisada. His deep appreciation and knowledge of kabuki drama led to his production primarily of ukiyo-e actor-prints, which are woodblock prints of kabuki actors and scenes from popular plays of the time.<br/><br/> A drinker and womanizer, Kunichika also portrayed women deemed beautiful (<i>bijinga</i>), contemporary social life, and a few landscapes and historical scenes. He worked successfully in the Edo period, and carried those traditions into the Meiji period. To his contemporaries and now to some modern art historians, this has been seen as a significant achievement during a transitional period of great social and political change in Japan's history.
Utagawa Yoshitora (active 1850-1880) was a Japanese <i>ukiyo-e</i> artist and book illustrator. Though both his date of birth and death are unknown, what is known is that Yoshitora was born in Edo and that he eventually became Utagawa Kuniyoshi's oldest pupil.<br/><br/> Yoshitora soon showed excellence in his prints of <i>bijinga (beautiful women), <i>kabuki</i> actors and warriors, producing over 60 print series and illustrating more than 100 books. He was imprisoned and manacled for forty days by censors who interpreted one of his prints as a criticism of authority, which resulted in his expulsion from Kuniyoshi's studio, though he still continued to illustrate prolifically.<br/><br/> From the 1860s onwards, Yoshitora began to produce <i>Yokohama-e</i> prints of foreigners after Japan's rapid modernisations and opening up. He would collaborate on many landscape series and began working in newspapers in the Meiji Period. His last known work appeared in 1882.
Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-1889) was a 19th century Japanese artist described by some as 'perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting'. Born in Koga, Kyosai was the son of a samurai and was briefly tutored under Utagawa Kuniyoshi before settling in the Kano school.<br/><br/> Kyosai picked up a reputation for himself as a caricaturist, the first political caricaturist in Japan, after the revolution of 1867 that led to the Meiji Restoration. His caricatures resulted in multiple arrests and imprisonment by the shogunate authority. He was considereed by many as Hokusai's greatest successor, despite not studying under him.<br/><br/> In his personal life, Kyosai was wild and undisciplined, abandoning formal tradition for greater freedom. He loved to drink and was very exuberant, lacking the dignity, power and reticence of Hokusai and some other renowned Japanese painters of the time.
<i>Nishiki-e</i> were a type of multi-coloured woodblock prints from Japan. The technique was primarily used in <i>Ukiyo-e</i>, and was invented in the 1760s. Before, woodblock prints were usually in black-and-white and were coloured either by hand or with the addition of one or two colour ink blocks.<br/><br/><i>Nishiki-e</i> was credited to an engraver named Kinroku, but it was popularised and perfected by Suzuki Harunobu. <i>Nishiki-e</i> is sometimes also known as <i>Edo-e</i>, and became very popular during the Meiji Period, especially during the first Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), where over 3,000 prints were made in the 9-month period.