Articles: The Art of ancient Japan : Seiu Ito, the father of modern kinbaku

The Art of ancient Japan : Seiu Ito, the father of modern kinbaku

Seiu Ito (伊藤晴雨 ), also romanised as Seiyu Itoh . He was born on 3rd March 1882 in Tokyo, died on 28th January 1961 in Tokyo. He was a Japanese painter, recognized today as "the father of modern kinbaku". In Japanese, kinbaku means "the beauty of tight binding.", which is the Japanese style of bondage.

Ito was born Hajime Ito in the Asakusa district and started his education in painting by 1890. His father was a metalworker and he also received training in ivory carving, later sculpture. He adopted the alias Seiu (means 'clear' and 'rain') at age 13. Around 1907, he began working for newspapers.

Ito hired a young art school model named Kise Sahara in 1919. Kise became Ito's second wife after she got pregnant and posed willingly for her husband's kinbaku art. Ito became the target of censors in 1930, which led to draining of his fortunes and he lost his works at the Great Tokyo Air Raid. In 1960, he was awarded by the Japan Artists Association .

As an artist, Ito was very interested in kabuki and other ways of the Edo period and his book 'A History of Edo and Tokyo Manners (江戸と東京風俗野史) was published after the Kanto earthquake. His technique for depiction of Edo period tortures was to bind his model in various ways, have the photographs taken, and use them as inspiration for his paintings. A notorious exploit of such kind was binding his pregnant wife Kise and have her suspended upside down for a drawing imitating the ukiyoe (The Lonely House on Adachi Moor in Michinoku Province by Yoshitoshi). He had a series of art collection called ' The Art Of Bondage', here are some few examples:

Title : Submission