Utagawa, Kuniyoshi
1798 - 1861
First name: Kuniyoshi, Last name: Utagawa
Popular Utagawa print master. Trained first in the family craft of dyer, then was probably a pupil of Katsukawa Shun'ei, later of Toyokuni. Studied Tosa, Kano, and Maruyama school of painting, and was influenced as well by Kuninao. Then founded his own style, one so popular that it is said the young men of his time often asked him to tattoo his designs on their bodies. Famous for his prints of actors and animals; also specialized, with invention and verve, in illustrations of heroic episodes in Japanese history; the best of his few landscapes equal those of Hiroshige. Specialized in illustrations of heroic episodes in Japanese history. Had a taste for the bizarre, the fantastic, the ghoulish.
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