User:Haya main Ka/sandbox

The Utagawa school of Ukiyo-e was one of the main schools of ukiyo-e,founded by Utagawa Toyoharu. It was the largest ukiyo-e school that adopted bijin-ga and uki-e (perspective picture) doing so from the end of the Edo period through the Meiji era. His pupil, Toyokuni I, took over after Toyoharu's death and led the group to become the most famous and powerful woodblock print school for the remainder of the 19th century.

Family
According to the encyclopedia of Ukiyo-e in the late 1980s, the Utagawa school had 151 students,147 workers from Kuniyoshi, and 173 people from Kuniyoshi. Students who studied at the Utagawa school would gain the chance to receive the Utagawa name if their skill is approved. The masterwould give out the Utagawa surname, and the use of “Toshinomaru”, which is Utagawa's own family crest that is only found within the Utagawa family to the best students. The “Yearball”, rounded design, was the symbol of the Utagawa family. This symbol was easy too recognize, so the people who ware the Utagawa crested kimono did not need the ticket to the Edo theater at that time. The “Tatsunori no Maru”, crest of the same shape with added a line, was used only by the master of Muneya and his workers. The next master was decided at a convention of the very large Utagawa Ichimon family. The master was mainly decided by personality and their Ukiyo-e skills. However the higher the rank the better chance that they would be chosen. There were gifts such as crests from the shogunate in the house using this family crest. Utagawa Kazumon did not only pay attention to the aesthetic of the picture, but also tried to maintain a close relationship with the masses, calling himself “painter”.

Shita-e
Shita-e drawings are still used in the present time, with rough sketches and more refined brush paintings, on different kinds of paper with and without corrections, depending on the artist. Moreover, since the final drawing will be carved away, the drawings that would remain would be either sketches or copies of the final shita-e. It is still uncertain who produced the final shita-e, however the clues that remain are the series of sketches and corrections in red ink. More research remains to be done in this area, yet one reason for the vast success of the Utagawa School and its ability to support so many artists was the studio setup of printmaking in the nineteenth century. Paradoxically, the focus on a limited number of great printmakers of the day actually increased their standing and sales, and so supported the pupils beneath them.