Editing Utamaro (section)

==Historiography==

The only surviving official record of Utamaro is a [[stele]] at Senkō-ji Temple, which gives his death date as the 20th day of the 9th month of the year [[Bunka]], which equates to 31 October 1806.  The record states he was 54 by [[East Asian age reckoning]], by which age begins at 1 rather than 0.  From this a birth year of {{circa|1753}} is deduced.{{sfn|Collia-Suzuki|2008|p=10}}{{sfn|Collia-Suzuki|2008|p=10}}

Utamaro has gained general acceptance as one of the form's greatest masters.{{sfn|Bell|2004|pp=17–18}}  The earliest document of ukiyo-e artists, ''[[Ukiyo-e Ruikō]]'', was first compiled while Utamaro was active.  The work was not printed, but exists in various manuscripts that different writers altered and expanded.  The earliest surviving copy, the ''Ukiyo-e Kōshō'', wrote of Utamaro:{{sfn|Davis|2004|p=120}}

: Kitagawa Utamaro, personal name Yūsuke
: At the start entered the studio of Toriyama Sekien and studied pictures in the Kanō school.  Later drew pictures of the styles and manners of men and women and resided temporarily with ''ezōshiya'' Tsutaya Jūzaburō.  Now lives in {{ill|Benkeibashi|ja|弁慶橋}}.  Many ''nishiki-e''.{{sfn|Davis|2004|p=120}}

The earliest comprehensive historical and critical works on ukiyo-e came from the West,{{sfn|Bell|2004|pp=3–5}} and often denied Utamaro a place in the ukiyo-e canon.{{sfn|Bell|2004|pp=17–18}} [[Ernest Fenollosa]]'s ''Masters of {{not a typo|Ukioye}}'' of 1896 was the first such overview of ukiyo-e.  The book posited ukiyo-e as having evolved towards a late-18th-century golden age that began to decline with the advent of Utamaro,{{sfn|Bell|2004|pp=3–5}} which he condemned for his "gradual elongation of the figure, and an adoption of violent emotion and extravagant attitudes".  Fenollosa had harsher criticism for Utamaro's pupils, who he considered to have "carried the extravagances of their teacher to a point of ugliness".{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=7}}  In his ''Chats on Japanese Prints'' of 1915, [[Arthur Davison Ficke]] concurred that with Utamaro ukiyo-e entered a period of exaggerated, manneristic decadence.{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=11}}

[[Laurence Binyon]], the Keeper of Oriental Prints and Drawings at the [[British Museum]], wrote an account in ''Painting in the Far East'' in 1908 that was similar to Fenollosa's, considering the 1790s a period of decline, but placing Utamaro amongst the masters.{{sfn|Bell|2004|pp=8–10}}  He called Utamaro "one of the world's artists for the intrinsic qualities of his genius" and "the greatest of all the figure-designers" in ukiyo-e, with a "far greater resource of composition" than his peers and an "endless" capacity for "unexpected invention".{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=10}} [[James A. Michener]] re-evaluated the development of ukiyo-e in ''The Floating World'' of 1954, in which he places the 1790s as "the culminating years of ukiyo-e", when "Utamaro brought the grace of [[Nishikawa Sukenobu|Sukenobu]] to its apex".{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=10}}  {{Interlanguage link|Seiichirō Takahashi|ja|3=高橋誠一郎}}'s ''Traditional Woodblock Prints of Japan'' of 1964 set the golden age of ukiyo-e at the period of Kiyonaga, Utamaro, and [[Sharaku]], followed by a period of decline with the declaration beginning in the 1790s of strict [[sumptuary law]]s that dictated what could be depicted in artworks.{{sfn|Bell|2004|pp=14–15}}

The French art critic [[Edmond de Goncourt]] published ''Outamaro'', the first monograph on Utamaro, in 1891,{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=18}} with help from the Japanese art dealer [[Tadamasa Hayashi]].{{sfn|Pasler|1986|p=275}}  British ukiyo-e scholar [[Jack Hillier (art historian)|Jack Hillier]] had the monograph ''Utamaro: Colour Prints and Paintings'' published in 1961.{{sfn|Bell|2004|p=308}}