Eizan was the most prolific of the late followers of Utamaro. He was not an actual pupil of Utamaro, but studied originally with his father, Kikukawa Eiji, a Kano style painter, and later with the Shijo artist Suzuki Nanrei and the Hokusai pupil Hokkei. As Eizan reached artistic maturity, he began to develop his own figural style, still focused for the most part on prints of beautiful women. Eizan's work retains the sensitivities and lyricism that marks the Utamaro style, however, not following the earthier realism and more overt sensuality of Kunisada and Eisen. Eizan, like Toyokuni I in actor prints, is the last manifestation of the classical ukiyo-e style in bijin work, with harmonious colors and graceful lines and subjects. After him, one senses the introduction of a different aesthetic, with harsher colors, angular lines and less ethereal material, more of an emphasis, in sum, on the material weight of earthly life, rather than its transformation into something of elegance. With Eizan, the alchemy of elegance is still alive, and in his best work, properly produced, he can cast a magic glow over the forms of the world and create lightness and grace. He seems to have retired from printmaking in the late 1820s, though he did contribute illustrations for books even quite late in his life. |
