Les 47 Rōnin. Hiroshige and the Utagawa School

Description

The project organized by Moira Luraschi (MUSEC) highlights both the similarities and differences between the aesthetic languages and styles of the three artists, representatives of the Utagawa school, the most important and prolific in 19th-century Japan. The prints share a common subject: the Chūshingura ("The Loyal Retainers"), a famous kabuki drama that recounts the revenge orchestrated by a group of forty-seven masterless samurai, the "rōnin," against those who killed their lord and dishonored him. The Chūshingura has been performed without interruption for nearly three hundred years, preserving the memory of a historical event. While the main subject is the key scenes from the different acts of the drama, Hiroshige also gives significant space to landscapes, of which he was considered the undisputed master. The landscape is never an idyllic or neutral backdrop but rather echoes the feelings that animate the characters and amplifies them. His prints are graphically clear and convey the expressive power typical of kabuki. Hiroshige's lesson is evident in the work of Shigenobu, his student and son-in-law, and for a brief period, director of the Utagawa school. He also condenses the energy and emotions of an act into a main scene, although he does not reach the master's excellence in landscape treatment.
Kuniteru, on the other hand, adopts a different aesthetic approach, depicting several scenes from the same act on different visual planes within a single sheet. His prints are concise, full of characters and events, but they lose the expressive charge of kabuki in favor of a perhaps more didactic representation. The works of Hiroshige and Shigenobu come from the Perino collection. Kuniteru's works belong to the Marco Fagioli archives. Conversely, the walls display reproductions of some rōnin, taken from prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) from the MUSEC collections. Note: This text was translated by an automatic translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.

Highlights

• Exhibition of engravings by Hiroshige, Shigenobu, and Kuniteru
• Theme of Chūshingura, an iconic kabuki drama
• Presentation of landscapes and emotions in art

General Information

The 'Les 47 Rōnin' exhibition is held at Villa Malpensata in Lugano. It highlights the works of three artists from the Utagawa school, exploring themes of revenge and honor through woodblock prints.

Location

Riva Antonio Caccia 5, 6900 Lugano, Switzerland

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