Konishi Hirosada
Encyclopedia
Ukiyo-e
' is a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the 17th and the 20th centuries, featuring motifs of landscapes, tales from history, the theatre, and pleasure quarters...
Japanese woodblock prints
Woodblock printing in Japan
Woodblock printing in Japan is a technique best known for its use in the ukiyo-e artistic genre; however, it was also used very widely for printing books in the same period. Woodblock printing had been used in China for centuries to print books, long before the advent of movable type, but was only...
in Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
. His artist name was originally Sadahiro (貞廣), but he changed the sequence of syllables in 1847. One theory suggests he did this to evade censorship, but it was not unheard of for Japanese artists to change their art names for more whimsical reasons.
Hirosada was a member of the Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
school of artists, which specialized in prints of actors. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, he was the leading figure in the Osaka school. For unknown reasons, Hirosada ceased designing prints in 1853 and gave the his name to his protégé, who is now known as Hirosada II
Hirosada II
Hirosada II, also known as Sadahiro II, was a designer of ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints in Osaka. He was a student of Konishi Hirosada, and assumed the name “Hirosada” in 1853, when his teacher ceased designing prints...
.