National Pet Day: Isoda Koryūsai

National Pet Day is an unofficial holiday celebrated on April 11. It was founded 2005/2006 by animal advocate and pet and family lifestyle expert Colleen Paige. The day is dedicated to all types of pets, but especially to those who are awaiting adoption. It also highlights the responsibility of pet ownership, and celebrates the positive impact pets have on our lives.

National Pet Day, 11 April: art by Isoda Koryūsai (1735-1790 Japan)

 Isoda Koryūsai was an artist during the classic period of the Ukiyo-e style in the mid-1700s.

Isoda Koryūsai, Chinese Dog, ca. 1777, color woodblock print on paper, 27.6 x 21 cm   © 2025 Worcester Art Museum (WAM-481)

Koryūsai produced over 150 prints on the subject of birds and animals. This depiction of a Chin dog, clothes horse and bowl of sweets evolved from the genre of painting influenced by Chinese art called kacho ga ("bird-and-flower painting"). It may have been meant as a New Year's card for 1778 which was the year of the dog in the 12 year zodiacal cycle. The Japanese Chin actually originated in China and may have been a present from a Chinese emperor at one point, as it was a breed owned almost exclusively by Chinese, and subsequently, Japanese royalty.

The Edo (or Tokugawa) Period (1615-1868) was the last period of traditional Japan. It was a time of peace, political stability and economic growth under the military dictatorship (shogunate) founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616).In the 1630s there was a complete ban on Christianity, an expulsion of all foreigners except a few Dutch and Chinese traders in Nagasaki, and, from 1633, a ban on foreign travel by Japanese.

The roughly 250 years of peace led to an expansion of the Japanese economy, particularly in commerce and manufacturing, which led to the development of large urban centers. The emergence of a well-to-do merchant class brought about the development of a dynamic urban culture that found expression in a particular genre of the traditional art form of woodblock printing, the Ukiyo-e style. Ukiyo-e means "pictures of the floating world," floating in the Buddhist sense of the transience of earthly pleasures. The earthly pleasures depicted in these woodblock prints reflected the glittering entertainments of Japanese cities: the theaters, restaurants and brothels. Eventually, however, Ukiyo-e subject matter extended into genre scenes, landscape and literary illustration.

Early Ukiyo-e images were painted, but with demand high, artists turned to the woodblock medium. Initially these prints were black and white or three color. By 1764, the multiple block process (often as many as twelve for one print) was perfected, creating the nishiki-e or brocade picture, so named for the wide range of colors available to an artist.

Isoda Koryūsai was unusual among ukiyo-e artists, having been born into a Samurai-class family in Edo (Tokyo).  Although little to nothing is known about his training, some scholars propose that he ventured in to printmaking in order to survive having become a "masterless samurai" (ronin), basically an unemployed samurai. His elite class gave him a background in literary and historical works and bird-and-flower subjects.  Although there is no evidence, Koryūsai's style and compositions suggest that he may have been a pupil of the first great classic Ukiyo-e master, Suzuki Harunobu (1724-1770), or he certainly imitated Harunobu's style in order to cash in on the master's notoriety.

Koryūsai was an extremely prolific printmaker, having produced over 170 series of prints and more than 2500 designs attributed to his name. The majority of his series consisted of four to twelve prints on such traditional subjects as The Four Seasons, The Five Confucian Virtues, The Six Jewel Rivers, The Six Poets, The Seven Gods of Good Fortune, and numerous landscape series in eight views (hakkei). Many of these prints were prefaced with the word kuryu (something currently popular) or yatsushi (modern version of a classic theme, often literary). He was also prolific, of course, in prints of beautiful women (bijin-ga) of the pleasure quarters, as well as shunga (erotic) prints.

After retiring from the bijin-ga field, he changed direction and created prints with Chinese themes, often taking subjects from the Kanō School, artists patronized by the samurai and noble classes. These late prints bare the preface hokkyo, or "bridge of the [Buddhist] law," a priestly rank that certain artists with family connections were granted.