Paysan tatoué
Kusakabe
Kimbei
About this photograph :
Paysan tatoué
Japan, about 1875.
The technique of traditional Japanese tattoo has several names, irezumi or horimono. Horimono refers to tattoo in general. However, irezumi is the term generally assigned to traditional tattoo covering large parts of the body, going as far as the typically Japanese ‘integral tattoo’, which covers the body like a second skin. Japanese tattoo patterns are influenced by traditional art, popular stories and religion.
About the artist :
Kusakabe
Kimbei
Kusakabe Kimbei, one of the most accomplished Japanese photographers of his time, operated a studio in Yokohama from the early 1880s until 1913. Kusakabe Kimbei worked with Felice Beato and Baron Raimund von Stillfried as a photographic colourist and assistant before opening his own workshop in Yokohama in 1881 in the Bentendori quarter, and from 1889 operating in the Honmachi quarter. He also opened a branch in the Ginza quarter of Tokyo. As the protégé of von Stillfried, Kusakabe Kimbei continued the tradition of the psychological studio portrait and recorded scenic views of the country while he developed his own Japanese sense of photography. Like postcards today, his work was collected by tourists and exported for sale as curiosities to those who could not visit Japan. He stopped working as a photographer in 1912-1913.
To know more
See section on Kusakabe Kimbei - 7 photograph(s)