TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI / 月岡 芳年 (1839-1892)
Wuyi Mountains / 武夷山 (2,158 m - 7,080 ft)
China
In Rising Moon over Mt Nanping, Series 100 Views of the Moon, Woodblock print, c.1885
The mountains
The Wuyi Mountains (2,158 m - 7,080 ft) in Chinese 武夷山, also known as Bohea Hills in earlier Western documents are a mountain range located in the prefecture of Nanping, in northern Fujian province near the border with Jiangxi province, China.
The highest peak in the area is Mount Huanggang on the border of Fujian and Jiangxi, making it the highest point of both provinces; the lowest altitudes are around 200 metres (660 ft). Many oolong and black teas are produced in the Wuyi Mountains, including Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) and most famous Lapsang souchong.
Human settlement on the slopes of Mount Wuyi can be traced back 4,000 years by archeological remains. During the Western Han Dynasty, the ancient city of Chengcun was the capital of the Minyue kingdom. In the 7th century, the Wuyi Palace was built for emperors to conduct sacrificial activities, a site that tourists can still visit today. The mountains were an important center of Taoism and later Buddhism. Remains of 35 academies erected from the era of the Northern Song to the Qing Dynasty and more than 60 Taoist temples and monasteries have been located. However, most of these remains are very incomplete. Some of the exceptions for which authentic remains are preserved are the Taoyuan Temple, the Wannian Palace, the Sanqing Hall, the Tiancheng Temple, the Baiyun temple, and the Tianxin temple. The area is the cradle of Neo-Confucianism, a current that became very influential since the 11th century.
Mountain call and Mountain open are ceremonies held in the Wuyi imperial tea garden. The County magistrate used to take the chair of the Mountain Call ceremony on Jingzhe Day. In the formal ceremony, tea planters call out together “tea, tea, sprout”. By doing this, they pray for the blessings in the tea harvest.
The mountains have been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, for cultural, scenic, and biodiversity values since 1999.
The artist
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi /月岡 芳年) also named Taiso Yoshitoshi / 大蘇 芳年 was a Japanese artist.
He is widely recognized as the last great master of the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock printing and painting. He is also regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of Edo period Japan, and the first years of modern Japan following the Meiji Restoration. Like many Japanese, Yoshitoshi was interested in new things from the rest of the world, but over time he became increasingly concerned with the loss of many aspects of traditional Japanese culture, among them traditional woodblock rinting.
By the end of his career, Yoshitoshi was in an almost single-handed struggle against time and technology. As he worked on in the old manner, Japan was adopting Western mass reproduction methods like photography and lithography. Nonetheless, in a Japan that was turning away from its own past, he almost singlehandedly managed to push the traditional Japanese woodblock print to a new level, before it effectively died with him.
His reputation has only continued to grow, both in the West, and among younger Japanese, and he is now almost universally recognized as the greatest Japanese artist of his era.
The artist
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi /月岡 芳年) also named Taiso Yoshitoshi / 大蘇 芳年 was a Japanese artist.
He is widely recognized as the last great master of the ukiyo-e genre of woodblock printing and painting. He is also regarded as one of the form's greatest innovators. His career spanned two eras – the last years of Edo period Japan, and the first years of modern Japan following the Meiji Restoration. Like many Japanese, Yoshitoshi was interested in new things from the rest of the world, but over time he became increasingly concerned with the loss of many aspects of traditional Japanese culture, among them traditional woodblock rinting.
By the end of his career, Yoshitoshi was in an almost single-handed struggle against time and technology. As he worked on in the old manner, Japan was adopting Western mass reproduction methods like photography and lithography. Nonetheless, in a Japan that was turning away from its own past, he almost singlehandedly managed to push the traditional Japanese woodblock print to a new level, before it effectively died with him.
His reputation has only continued to grow, both in the West, and among younger Japanese, and he is now almost universally recognized as the greatest Japanese artist of his era.
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2019 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
