Cats in Ukiyo-e

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Ken Johnson, YouTube Darlings Have Long History in Japan's Art. New York Times, Mar 13, 2015
www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/arts/ ... ation-in-japan.html

Note:
(1) This is an art review on
Life of Cats; Selections from the Hiraki ukiyo-e collection. Japan Society, Mar 13-June 7, 2015.
www.japansociety.org/event/life- ... -ukiyo-e-collection
(“Visit our Gallery page for more information”)

(2) "It [exhibition] presents 86 drawings, paintings, woodblock prints and decorative objects dating from the 17th to the early 20th century. It was organized by Miwako Tezuka 手塚 美和子, director of Japan Society, who selected its contents mainly from the Hiraki Ukiyo-e Foundation 平木浮世絵財団 collection of Tokyo."
(a) 平木浮世絵美術館  Ukiyo-e Tokyo
www.ukiyoe-tokyo.or.jp/
(b) ja.wikipedia.org: 東京都江東区豊洲; リッカーミシン創業者である平木信二の浮世絵コレクション; 日本初の浮世絵専門の美術館である [the first museum in Japan dedicated exclusively to 浮世絵]; 開館  2006年)

translation for リッカーミシン創業者である 平木信二の浮世絵コレクション:
Ukiyo-e collection コレクション of Shinji HIRAKI [1910-1971] who founded Riccar リッカー Machine ミシン

Riccar (standard transliteration: rikkaa, where the double "a" means a long vowel of "a;" リッカー株式会社; 1939-1994 acquired; in 1943 changed name to 理化学工業, where 理化 is pronounced rika, and made "soft fiberboard" used in construction; in 1949 changed name again to リッカーミシン and made sewing machines)  ja.wikipedia/org

(3) Japanese English dictionary (in the order the word appears in the NYT review):
* rika-gaku  理化学 【りかがく】 (n): "physics and chemistry"
  ^ contrast butsuri-kagaku 物理化学 【ぶつりかがく】 (n): "physical chemistry"
* rafu 裸婦 【らふ】 (n): "nude woman"
* giga 戯画 【ぎが】 (n) caricature; cartoon; comics
  ^ ga 画 【が】 (n): "picture; drawing; painting; sketch"
* bake 化け 【ばけ】 (n): "transforming oneself; taking on another form; disguising oneself"
  ^ bake tanuki 化け狸 【ばけだぬき】 (n): "supernatural tanuki (Japanese folklore)"
* maneki neko 招き猫 【まねきねこ】 (n): "beckoning cat; figure of a cat with one paw raised (usu. white porcelain)"
  ^ maneku 招く 【まねく】 (v): "(1) to invite; to ask; (2) to beckon; to wave someone in"  
  ^ The "maneki"  招き is its corresponding noun.
* hiki 匹(P); 疋 【ひき(P); き】 (1): “(ひき only) counter for small animals; (2) counter for rolls of cloth”

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(4) "In some works, like 'A Black Cat Under a Tree' (1915), a painting on sliding cedar doors by NIWAYAMA Kōen 庭山 耕園 (1869-1942), the little black cat licking one arm in the lower part is less captivating than the lovingly described leafy branches above."

(5) “Cats arrived in Japan from China in the mid-sixth century, supposedly via a ship carrying sacred Buddhist scriptures.

ネコの文化
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ネコの文化
(奈良時代頃に、経典などをネズミの害から守るためのネコが中国から輸入された)

translation: cat culture: In Nara period, to defend [the Buddhism] sacred books [being imported from China], cats were [also] imported.

(6) "A typically feline pose is captured in UTAGAWA Hiroshige’s 歌川 広重 color woodblock print 'Asakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi Festival' (1857) [浅草田甫酉の町詣, one of 名所江戸百景 series], in which a white cat on a windowsill gazes out over a landscape where a crowd of people has gathered in the distance."
(a) Torinomachi 酉の町 is the former name of Tori-no-ichi “酉の市の旧称.”
dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/161323/m0u/
(b) とり‐の‐いち  酉の市
dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn2/161302/m0u/
(“11月の酉の日に行われる鷲 (おおとり) 神社（大鳥神社）の祭り。年により2回または3回あり、順に一の酉・二の酉・三の酉とよぶ”)

translation: The festival held on the “Tori” days in November at Ōtori Taisha. Depending on years, [the festival] is held twice or thrice a year, in the order of the first, second, and the third 酉の日 of that month
(c) You see, the kanji for “tori” is 鳥 or (less frequently, when referring to a chicken, not a bird) 鶏. However, chicken is also one of 十二支, represented in both China and Japan by the kanji 酉 (number 10 in 十二支). So there are several 酉の日 in November.
(d) There are many 大鳥神社 (or 鷲 神社). One was/is in Asakusa, which is in the background of this ukiyo-e, beyond the rice fields.

(7) "Nearly life-size and rendered with exquisite sensitivity in gray washes, 'Meditating Cat With Kyōka Poem' 狂歌 (late 17th century) by Hōzōbō Shinkai 豊蔵坊 信海 [僧; died in 1688] pictures a fat sitting tabby facing forward in a state, it seems, of sublime contentment."

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(8) "Another instantly recognizable feline behavior is depicted with remarkable anatomical realism in a woodblock print by Takahashi Hiroaki called ‘Cat Prowling Around a Staked Tomato Plant’ (1931), in which a black and white cat with wide-open yellow eyes sinuously stalks unseen prey."

www.pinterest.com/pin/109423465922494837/

(9) "The prowling cat appears in one of the exhibition’s five sections, ‘Cats Transformed: Imagination and Realism,’ in which some of the most impressive works depict not house cats but big ones like lions and tigers. In YOSHIMURA Kōkei’s 吉村 孝敬 large, technically marvelous ink and watercolor painting ‘Dragon and Tiger’ 竜虎図 (1836), a curiously cuddly tiger stands on dainty paws on a mountainside with a serpentine dragon emerging from swirling mist in the background. If this cute beast seems to lack the rangy muscularity of real tigers, it’s for a good reason: Big cats were not native to Japan, so artists resorted to domestic cats as models."

rangy (adj)
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rangy

(10) "In the show’s first section, ‘Cats and People,’ are pictures of sumptuously garbed courtesans with their pets. Some picture the inordinate affection humans often bestow on them, as in Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s 1888 woodblock print of a woman in full regalia curling herself around a white cat. But the show’s only explicitly erotic image (in the ‘Cats Transformed’ section) is TAKAHASHI Hiroaki’s [高橋 弘明, also known as 高橋 松亭 Shōtei (1871-1945?)] ‘Nude Playing With a Cat’ (circa 1927-30) [裸婦と猫; 千葉市美術館 所蔵] , in which a naked young woman dangles a scarf before an attentive kitten."

(11) "The second section, 'Cats as People,' focuses on a centuries-old tradition of representing comically anthropomorphized animals called giga. Mid-19th-century prints here represent fully dressed, bipedal, human-feline hybrids enacting scenes from popular theatrical entertainments of the time. These include a pair of group portraits of recognizable famous actors with pointy ears, whiskers and patterned fur by UTAGAWA Yoshiiku 歌川 芳幾."

In the “slide show” that comes with the NYT review, the English title is “The Story of Otomi and Yosaburō” (1860)  於富 (or written as お富) 与三郎 話.
(12) "As in the West, where they consort with witches and can bring bad luck, cats have a dark side in Japanese folk culture. The show’s third section, ‘Cats Versus People,’ pertains to the figure of the bake neko, or, cat monster. Among the exhibition’s most formally complex works are action-packed prints by two different 19th century artists, Utagawa Kuniyoshi and UTAGAWA Kuniteru 歌川 国輝, that illustrate stories involving such an evil creature. In several pieces of their works, humans carry on in the foreground as giant, snarling cat faces loom malevolently in the backgrounds."

In the NYT slide show, the English title is "A Scene of the Origin of the Cat Stone at Okabe on the Tokaido Road" (1848-1854), whose Japanese title is 東海道 岡部 宿 猫石 由来 之図. (Oka-be = 岡部, name of a town)
(13) "On the other hand, cats can be auspicious. Consider the maneki neko, or 'beckoning cat' — also known as 'lucky cat' — the rotund, big-eyed little figure with the raised paw that greets customers"

Consult (3).

(14) NYT slide show:
(a) Utagawa Hiroshige's "Cat Crossing to Eat" (1830-1844) 歌川 広重
(b) TSUKIOKA Yoshitoshi's 月岡 芳年 “Looking Tiresome: The Appearance of a Virgin of Kansei Era 寛政年間処女之風俗," from the Series "Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners" 風俗三十二相 (1888)

* 寛政 is an 年号 of a certain emperor.
(c) UTAGAWA Kuniyoshi's 歌川 国芳 "Cats Suggested as the Fifty -Three Stations of the Tōkaidō 猫飼好五十三疋" (1874)

* For definition of 疋, see (3).