Isoda Koryūsai

The field of work recorded is erotic art. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are bijin-ga, hashira-e, abuna-e and Bird-and-flower painting of Japan. Places of work recorded in the authority are Tokyo and Yagenbori. Work by Isoda Koryūsai is recorded in the collections of Art Institute of Chicago, Auckland Art Gallery, National Museum of World Cultures, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Vanderbilt Museum of Art.

Koryūsai was born in 1735 and worked as a samurai in the service of the Tsuchiya clan. He was born Isoda Masakatsu. He became a masterless rōnin after the death of the head of the clan and moved to Edo (modern Tokyo) where he settled near Ryōgoku Bridge in the Yagenbori area. He became a print designer there under the art name Haruhiro in 1769, at first making samurai-themed designs. The ukiyo-e print master Harunobu died in 1770, and about that time Koryūsai began making prints in a similar style of life in the pleasure districts. Koryūsai was a prolific designer of individual prints and print series, most of which appeared between 1769 and 1881. In 1782, Koryūsai applied for and received the Buddhist honour hokkyō ("Bridge of the Law") from the imperial court and thereafter used the title as part of his signature. His output slowed from this time, though he continued to design prints until his death in 1790.

Koryūsai created a total of 2,500 known designs, or an average of four a week. According to art historian Allen Hockley, "Koryūsai may... have been the most productive artist of the eighteenth century". The series Models for Fashion: New Designs as Fresh Young Leaves (Hinagata wakana no hatsumoyō, 1776–1781) ran for 140 prints, the longest known ukiyo-e print series of beauties. He designed at least 350 hashira-e pillar prints, numerous kachō-e bird-and-flower prints, a great number of shunga erotic prints, and others. Ninety of his nikuhitsu-ga paintings are known, making him one of the most productive painters of the period. Koryūsai's hashira-e pillar prints are considered among the finest ever produced in that format: to offset the insistent verticality of the tall, narrow hashira shape, he devised compositions that emphasised the curves of women's lower garments, echoing them with the furisode sleeve and reinforcing the resulting diagonals with a lattice pattern on the outer robe. His series Hinagata wakana no hatsumoyō, published in ōban format by Nishimura Yohachi (Eijudō), included eleven designs contributed by Torii Kiyonaga. • Illustration — Isoda Koryusai: New designs as fresh as young leaves (1778)