Okumura Masanobu

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Okumura Masanobu was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1686 and died in 1764 at the age of 78 for unknown reasons. Masanobu is a japanese artist who is mostly known for woodblock printing, painting women with long dresses, and also for discovering the art style "Habahiro- Hashira-e", which are just wide vertical prints. Masanobu was a self taught learner; he taught himself painting and print designs by studying the works of Torii Kyonobu, who was a major influence to Masanobu in his art work, which he was then called his imitator. Masanobu's work grew through monochrome prints which were drawn by expressive lines and bold black outlines. He has developed his work in various formats, from tall pillar prints to tryptics and experimented many …show more content…

Woodblock printing is the method of printing on textiles and then on paper. Masanobu has created many beautiful and as well as controversial pieces.There are two artworks that have been well known and even the first thing one might think of whenever they hear Masanobu's name if they're familiar with Japanese art. The first one is Yukihira and the Salt Maidens, which is based on an old poem by the poet Yukihira. The story is told in two different poems and is about the love affair he had with two sisters. Their names were Matsukaze and Murasame who were brought to the unfortunate Shores of Suma like Yukihira. Also how heartbroken the twins were over his departure from Shores of Suma. Yukihira left parting gifts for them. Masanobu interprets Yukihiro poem by drawing the pattern of one of the parting gifts on one of the sleeves that one of the characters in the painting was wearing, the color palette chosen was inspired by the "ink-painted" shores of Suma. Another famous piece is the Kitano Tenjin, an old Japanese legend whose spirit is said to have flown to China to learn Zen and pays for his Zen lessons with a little of a flowering plum this work incorporates woodblock

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