Nishimura Shigenaga (Japanese: 西村 重長; c. 1697 – 23 July 1756) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist.
Shigenaga was born c. 1697 in Edo (modern Tokyo).[1] He worked as a landlord in Tōriabura-chō[2] before moving to the Kanda district, where he ran a bookshop and taught himself art;[1] he is not known to have had a teacher.[3] His work began to appear c. 1719. He worked in a variety of genres and formats.[1] His earlier work tended to be yakusha-e portraits of kabuki actors in the style of the Torii school; his later work is in an idiom more his own, incorporating the influence of Okumura Masanobu and Nishikawa Sukenobu.[2] Other genres he worked in include landscapes, kachō-e pictures of scenes of nature, and historical scenes.[3] He made a number of uki-e "floating pictures" incorporating geometric perspective. The number of uki-e he produced was second only to Masanobu, who asserted himself the originator of the technique.[4]
Shigenaga's better-known work includes the series Fifty-four Sheets of Genji, a collaborative series with Torii Kiyomasu II in c. 1730–35; and the Picture Book of Edo Souvenirs in 1753.[1] He produced some of the earliest ukiyo-e landscape prints; in 1727, his was the first set of prints of Lake Biwa.[5] His work had a strong influence on later artists such as Suzuki Harunobu and Ishikawa Toyonobu,[1] who may have been students of Shigenaga's;[6] Toyonobu may have been Nishimura Shigenobu, Shigenaga's most prominent student.[2]
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