1859 Kunisada II / Hiroshige Buddhist Ukiyo-e, The Miracles of Kannon

A bright, colorful c. 1859 ukiyo-e woodblock, produced by Kunisada II and Hiroshige II, for the series of Buddhist prints The Miracles of Kannon.

A Closer Look

This text on the sheet, by Ōga Mantei (万亭応賀, 1809-1890), tells the story of Zen Master Ōdana (大棚禅師), who secluded himself in a cave as he desired solitude to study the sutras. While there he encounters a local farmer's wife who was transformed into a night demon due to jealousy and spends her days praying at the Kannon shrine that the Zen master has occupied. The woman (perhaps a manifestation of Kannon herself) instructs the master to construct a temple at the site, which provides an origin story for the Otanayama Shinpukuji Temple (大棚山真福寺) in present-day Chichibu City, one of the most important Kannon shrines in Japan.

The Miracles of Kannon

The Miracles of Kannon is a nishiki-e series that introduces the origin myths of temples in various places related to Kannon's miraculous experience. The prints also depict scenery of famous historical sites and temples. The text describing the origin myths is drawn from the writings of playwright Ōga Mantei. The prints in the series were popular with Kannon worshipers, the intended audience and consumers of such works, who would travel on pilgrimages to the most important Kannon sites. Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, was originally known in Sanskrit as Avalokiteshvara, and has historically been an especially important deity for women in East Asia.

Nishiki-e (錦繪)

Nishiki-e (literally 'brocade picture', also known as Edo-e 江戸繪 because it began in the Tokugawa capital of Edo) is a style of woodblock printing that developed in the 1760s and revolutionized the medium. Instead of producing a black and white print which was then hand-colored, or perhaps with one or two color blocks added, as had been done previously, nishiki-e prints allowed for the combination of many blocks, each adding one color to a complete image, which were fitted together perfectly. The result was that vibrantly-colored prints could be produced in greater numbers in far less time, allowing for popular distribution of woodblock prints, especially ukiyo-e prints. Nishiki-e remained the dominant mode of woodblock printing through Meiji era and was critical to the distribution of prints that carried depictions of new technologies and ideas throughout Japan in the mid-late 19th century. But by the Taisho era, lithographic machine printing had advanced to the point that woodblock prints could not compete, and the tradition continued as a niche art rather than a means of mass media.

Publication History and Census

This work was produced in 1859 (Ansei 6)and is attributed to both Kunisada II (who signs it here) and Hiroshige II, who both worked in collaboration with Toyokuni III (also known as Kunisada, the teacher of Kunisada II) to produce the series The Miracles of Kannon. It is cataloged among the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, the National Diet Library, and Bukkyo University.