Kyōshi netting fish for his mother, Utagawa Kuniyoshi

Exhibition Label: "The Art of Stories Told," Jun-2004, Veronica de Jong During the Edo period (1615-1868), Confucianism (China’s preeminent ancient philosophy) was adopted and promoted by the government in the hopes of establishing a stable government peopled by loyal ministers. This new form of government replaced a series of unstable military regimes led by samurai who violently fought over land, people and power for hundreds of years. This print is one of a series of twenty-four illustrating Chinese stories of filial acts. Respect and devotion to parents, grandparents and elders was central to Chinese society and thought to also apply to behavior at court and to one’s ruler. Here we see a wife and husband by a stream, the wife is leaning over a rock using a net to scoop up a fish. Utagawa emphasized the actions of husband and wife by placing them in the foreground, and they are set in a romantic-looking landscape that shows signs of the print designer’s use of the Western one-point perspective. Tucked into the right side of the print is a simple dwelling with an elderly lady inside. Evidently this woman is the well cared for and nourished mother who completes the illustration of filial piety.