Lit. "Utagawa school." The most prolific school of *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 artists in the late Edo period. The founder of the school, Utagawa Toyoharu 歌川豊春 (1735-1814) produced prints of beautiful women *bijinga 美人画 and actor portraits *yakusha-e 役者絵, but he became particularly famous for landscapes depicted in the western perspective *uki-e 浮絵. The prosperity of the Utagawa school was established by his followers Toyokuni 豊国 (1769-1825) and Toyohiro 豊広 (1765?-1829). The great painter Toyokuni caught the atmosphere of the time and successfully created a new, eclectic style of prints of beautiful women and actors, in which balance and harmony were important.
Although the Utagawa school is not highly regarded by modern scholars, the Utagawa style boomed among its contemporaries. The school was so popular that it attracted many disciples. Among Toyokuni's followers, Kunisada 国貞 (Toyokuni 3 三代豊国, 1786-1865), who was known as a painter of actor portraits, and Kuniyoshi 国芳 (1797-1861), known as a painter of *musha-e 武者絵 (warrior prints) were the most successful. Kuniyoshi was also popular as a caricaturist. Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川広重 (also known as Andō 安藤 Hiroshige, 1797-1858) was a disciple of Toyohiro. Hiroshige was best known for landscape prints, as represented by *Tōkaidō gojūsantsugi 東海道五十三次 (Fifty-three Stations on the Tōkaidō, 1833), and his gentle, intimate style, which was a marked contrast to the dramatic, structural paintings of his rival, Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849). Thus, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and Hiroshige (especially after Hokusai's death) monopolized actor prints, warrior prints, and landscape prints respectively, and the Utagawa school enjoyed its heyday in the world of ukiyo-e in the first half of 19th century.
Around the mid-19th century, during the bakumatsu 幕末 period, the Utagawa school artists worked on prints of contemporary townscapes, which were considered to be the forerunner of illustrations for newspapers. Being well-versed in western painting techniques, Kuniyoshi and his followers created a new genre called *Yokohama-e 横浜絵, prints depicting the scenery of Yokohama in which western objects and fashion figured heavily, these having become popular after the opening of its port in 1859. Among the followers of Kuniyoshi, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 月岡芳年 (1839-92) and Kawanabe Kyōsai 河鍋暁斎 (1831-89) are well-known. The lineage of the Utagawa school continues in the present, and Yoshitoshi's followers include Kaburagi Kiyokata 鏑木清方 (1878-1972) and Itō Shinsui 伊東深水 (1898-1972).
Lineage of the Utagawa school.
Utagawa Toyoharu 歌川豊春 ---Toyohiro 豊広 --- Hiroshige 広重 --Toyokuni 豊国 --- Toyoshige 豊重(Toyokuni 2) -- Kunisada 国貞 (Toyokuni 3) -- Kunimasa 国政 -- Kuniyasu 国安 -- Kuniyoshi 国芳 --- Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 月岡芳年 - Kunitora 国虎 - Kawanabe Kyōsai 河鍋暁斎 --- Mizuno Toshikata 水野年方 --- Kaburagi Kiyokata 鏑木清方 --- Itō Shinsui 伊東深水.