Viewing Osaka through the series 100 Views of Naniwa (Osaka) is an amazing experience. It is a well executed repetition over a format by Hiroshige. Some add a "Famous" to the title.
This series is by three artists, Utagawa Yoshitaki, Utagawa Kunikazu and Nansuitei Yoshiyuki.
Hiroshige I created his revolutionary series 100 Famous Views of Edo over three years, 1856-1859.
This led to the publishing of copy series 100 Views of Naniwa (Osaka) by other artists. The book here is based mainly on prints in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Osaka Municipal Museum collections.
Hiroshige I had done his own series Famous Views of Naniwa (Osaka), 10 prints, as early as 1834, but it was his 100 Famous Views of Edo that caused the significant copy production.
Copying ideas and prints was quite normal in the Edo Period Japan print business.
Utagawa Yoshitaki
Utagawa Yoshitaki (歌川 芳滝, April 13, 1841 - June 28, 1899), was is also known as Ichiyōsai Yoshitaki (一養斎 芳滝). Yoshitaki was a Japanese designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints who was active in both Edo (Tokyo) and Osaka. He was also a painter and newspaper illustrator. His father was a paste merchant, and Yoshitaki became a student of Utagawa Yoshiume (1819-1879). Yoshitaki was the most prolific designer of woodblock prints in Osaka from the 1860s to the 1880s, producing more than 1,200 different prints, almost all of kabuki actors. Judging from archives of sold prints since 2001, most of Kunikazu's output were actor and kabuki theater subjects. But he also made a few landscape series. One is titled Hundred Views of Naniwa - Naniwa Hyakkei published by Wataki. Naniwa is another name for Osaka. After the success of Hiroshige Ando (Hiroshige I) in the landscape genre, these Views of ... series had gained some popularity among the Japanese print buying public.
His earliest prints were published when he had barely entered his teens. In 1855 he left Yoshiume to be an independent artist. For a period of twenty years, Yoshitaki was the most prolific of Osaka print artists, producing more than 1,200 designs, nearly all yakusha-e (actor pictures.) In addition to creating woodblock prints of actors and of landscapes1, Yoshitaki, using the artist names Sasaki Yoshitaki 笹木芳瀧 (starting in 1875) and Nakai Yoshitaki 中井芳瀧, created (wrote and illustrated) specialized woodblock prints called nishki-e shinbun for several Osaka newspapers including the Osaka nishikiga shinbun, Osaka nishikie shinwa, Kanzen choaku nishikiga shinbun, and Shinbun zue. Yoshitaki also remained active as a painter, exhibiting both in Japan and internationally, winning bronze medals at the first two Naikoku Kaiga Kyoshin Kai (National Paintings Fair) in 1882 and 1884 and a meritorious mention at the fourth Naikoku Kangyo Hakurankai (National Expo for the Promotion of Industry.) As with many woodblock artists he also worked as a commerical artist, creating theater billboards and illustrations for a sake company.In 1880, he moved to Kyoto and in 1885 he moved to Sakai where he died in 1889. He is buried at Nanshuji on Ryukozan in Sakai.
