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A ferry boat crossing the Sumida River from Mukojima
Summary
Kiyonaga is considered one of the great masters of the full-color nishiki-e print and of bijin-ga, images of courtesans and other beautiful women. Like most ukiyo-e artists, however, he also produced a number of prints and paintings depicting Kabuki actors and related subjects, many of them promotional materials for the theaters. He also produced a number of shunga, or erotic images.
Kiyonaga’s works broke the mold of many previous artists. A great proportion of Kiyonaga's work is in diptych or triptych form, making the work seem larger and more impressive overall. Due to the large size of his prints, many of his works with beautiful women also feature a scenic background illustrated with the Western concept of perspective. The women in Kiyonaga's prints are often described as exceptionally tall, seeming fuller, and more mature than those of his predecessor Harunobu. Kiyonaga's Kabuki prints, depicting scenes on stage and the like, show great attention to detail and seek to depict real Kabuki scenes, rather than idealized versions.
Charles Stewart Smith (1832-1909) was an art collector and businessman. As a businessman, Smith was a president, and director of the Associates Land Company, vice president and director of the City and Suburban Homes Company, treasurer and director of the Woodlawn Cemetery, trustee of Barnard College and director of the Fifth Avenue Bank, German Alliance Insurance Company, Greenwich Savings Bank, and Fourth National Bank. He was a member of the Union League, Lawyers, Players, Century, and Merchants Club. As an art collector, Smith was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vice President of the Society of Art Collectors (558 Fifth Avenue, New York). In 1892, while traveling in Japan on his honeymoon with his third wife, he purchased several thousand Japanese prints, ceramics, and paintings from the British military man, journalist, author and collector Captain Frank Brinkley (1841-1912). In 1901 Smith donated 1,763 Japanese woodcut prints to the New York Public Library and the rest to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among these color woodcuts is a celebrated group of prints by Kitagawa Utamaro, as well as examples of the work of Harunobu, Koryusai, Sharaku, and Hokusai.
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