Utagawa Toyokuni II

Who They Were

Utagawa Toyokuni II (1777–1835) was a designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in Edo during the late Edo period (1603–1868). He was a pupil, son-in-law, and adopted son of the celebrated artist Toyokuni I, and he worked within the Utagawa school, one of the most prolific lineages of printmaking in Japan. His birth name in the art world was Toyoshige, and he signed his works with that name until 1826.

Toyokuni II was active at a time when ukiyo-e—pictures of the floating world—dominated popular visual culture in Edo. His output included portraits of actors, beauties, and scenes from the pleasure quarters, though his reputation has long been overshadowed by both his teacher and his successor. He died in 1835 in Edo, leaving behind a body of work that is now studied primarily for its place in the transition between the first and third generations of the Toyokuni name.

Life and Career

Toyokuni II was born in 1777, in the sixth year of the An'ei era (安永). He entered the studio of Toyokuni I, the founder of the Toyokuni line, and became not only a student but also a member of the family through marriage and adoption. For most of his working life he used the artist name Toyoshige (豊重), a common practice for a pupil who had not yet inherited the master's title.

The turning point came in 1825, when Toyokuni I died. The following year, 1826, the family granted Toyoshige the right to use his teacher's name, and he began signing his prints as Toyokuni (豊国). This was a formal transfer of the artistic name, but it was not universally accepted. The most famous student of Toyokuni I, Kunisada, never recognised Toyoshige's claim to the name. Despite this dispute, Toyoshige continued to work under the Toyokuni signature until his death in 1835.

After Toyokuni II died, the question of the name remained unresolved for nearly a decade. In 1844, the family persuaded Kunisada to take the name Toyokuni and become the head of the school. Kunisada, who had always rejected Toyoshige's right to the title, is now known to posterity as Toyokuni III. The numbering of the three artists—Toyokuni I, Toyokuni II, and Toyokuni III—is a modern scholarly convention, imposed after the fact to distinguish three very different hands that all used the same signature.

Why They Matter

Toyokuni II matters less for the brilliance of his individual prints than for the continuity of the Utagawa school. He held the Toyokuni name during a critical decade, from 1826 to 1835, and his work bridged the high style of Toyokuni I and the commercially dominant output of Toyokuni III. Without him, the lineage would have broken, and the name would have passed directly from the master to Kunisada.

His prints are also useful to collectors and historians because his signature is identifiable. The chalice-shaped form of the toyo (豊) kanji in his signature distinguishes his work from that of both Toyokuni I and Toyokuni III. This small graphic detail allows scholars to attribute unsigned or disputed prints with confidence, making him a fixed point in the study of Edo-period woodblock production.

Toyokuni II also trained a generation of artists in his own right. His students included Utagawa Kunimatsu, Utagawa Kunishige II, Utagawa Kuniteru III, and Utagawa Kunitsuru I. These artists carried the Utagawa style forward into the mid-nineteenth century, ensuring that the school remained the dominant force in ukiyo-e long after his death.

The Name in Japanese

The Japanese name is 二代目 歌川豊国, read in kana as にだいめ うたがわ とよくに, and in romaji as nidaime Utagawa Toyokuni. The full name means "Utagawa Toyokuni the Second," where 二代目 (nidaime) marks the generational succession.

Breaking it down character by character:

• 二 (に, ni): "two." The numeral two, used here to indicate the second generation.
• 代 (だい, dai): "generation" or "succession." Combined with 二, it forms 二代 (nidai), "second generation."
• 目 (め, me): a suffix that marks ordinal position, as in "the second one." Together, 二代目 (nidaime) means "the second in line," a standard way to name an artistic heir.
• 歌 (うた, uta): "song" or "poem." This is the first character of the school name Utagawa.
• 川 (がわ, gawa): "river." Combined, 歌川 (Utagawa) is the family or school name, literally "song river," and refers to the Utagawa school of ukiyo-e artists.
• 豊 (とよ, toyo): "abundant" or "plentiful." This is the first character of the personal name Toyokuni.
• 国 (くに, kuni): "country" or "nation." Combined, 豊国 (Toyokuni) means "abundant country," a name shared by all three generations of the Toyokuni line.

Note that the artist's earlier name, Toyoshige, was written 豊重, with the same first character 豊 (toyo) and the character 重 (しげ, shige), meaning "heavy" or "layered." The shift from 豊重 to 豊国 in 1826 was a change of the second character only, marking his formal adoption of the master's full name.

Legacy

Toyokuni II's legacy is inseparable from the problem of the name he inherited. Because three artists signed their work 豊国, the history of the Toyokuni line is a history of contested identity. Toyokuni II held the name for only nine years, and his claim was disputed by the man who would eventually take it from him. Yet the modern numbering system—Toyokuni I, II, and III—preserves his place in the sequence.

His students kept his teaching alive. Utagawa Kunimatsu, Kunishige II, Kuniteru III, and Kunitsuru I all worked within the Utagawa school, extending its influence through the final decades of the Edo period. Their prints, in turn, fed the broader ukiyo-e market that continued until the end of the nineteenth century.

For the student of Japanese, the name 二代目 歌川豊国 is a compact lesson in how artistic succession worked in Edo Japan. The characters 二代目 encode a system of inheritance that was both familial and professional, and the shared character 豊 across the three Toyokuni generations shows how a single kanji could carry an entire artistic lineage.