Japanese Prints [antikvár]

Japanese Prints ni-s.it'd. Thcyfoi-monfofllu. i'dinloly onjoyabU. iirts nfllu' prims hnvchoc-n popiil,,,-i, liisl imporli-ri. moiT Ihiin ii liunih ml ; most I'lisily appi-(H-inti>d and most iiii FnrEnst. Tlioy wofi' produced liv hand. Woodblock cnRrnvinK and printinB had boon in standard use in China and Japan for many centurius and tlic skilled craftsmen needl?d only to perfect their techniques, not lo invent them. The artist, working from a roush sketch, would produce a design in black anil white, usinR brush and ink on thin paper. This was pasted face downwards onto a block of seasoned mountain cherry, planed alonR the grain. The engraver cut away the wood around the lines, leaving these in relief. Ink was applied to the raised lines and proofs taken by laying dampened paper on the prepared block and exerting pressure by hand, using a pad of twisted bamboo fibres enclosed in a bamboo sheath which was kept pliable with a little oil. Prom these proofs further blocks were cut, one for each colour. At this point the skills of the printer took over. To maintain correct register of the colours, to keep an even impression in areas of fiat colour, to gradate and shade the colours bv wiping the block before printing, or sometimes by exerting lighter pressure, called for a high level of craftsmanship. The organization and supervision of the activities of the artist, engraver and printer were provided by the publisher, who was frequently also the owner ot the sales outlet. It is not known how much contact the artists had with the printers and engravers who worked on their designs, but one must suspect that this was very variable. We do not even know how much influence the artists had on the choice of colours for the prints. Certainly the colours were sometimes indicated by the artist on copies of the proofs before the colour blocks were engraved. However, one often finds prints, of apparently the same date, which have marked variations in colour. How far these were produced in consultation with the artist and how far by the printer and publisher alone is undetermined. The prints derive from a popular art, susceptible to the altering whims and fashions of the urban populace of Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa period (1615-1868). By reflecting these changing fashions they throw light on the everyday life of a unique and, to our eyes, exotic culture, which now no longer exists. Intense commercial rivalry between competing firms of publishing houses, combined with the skills and inventiveness of the Japanese craftsmen, brought the technique of woodblock printing to the highest level ever attained anywhere in the world. Not only was the printing superb, but the Japanese of that era seem to have had an instinctive understandingoftheartofgraphicdesign.Theirmethod, using the flowing line and broad expanses of flat colour, provides an immensely satisfying treatment of the subjects portrayed. Most of the Japanese prints illustrated in this volume were designed by artists of the Ukiyo-e school, which had its main flowering from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the nineteenth centuries. Other schools and other eras in Japan had their own distinctive graphic styles but these constitute separate fields of study. The term Vkiyo-e has been translated as 'pictures of the floating world'. To the Japanese, ukiyo (the floating world) was a word conveying several meanings. The earliest of these, never completely lost, expressed a Buddhist concept of sadness at the fleeting, transitory nature of existence. By about 1680 the term had taken on more positive, subsidiary meanings. The 'floating world' became a particular style of life, the shiftless existence of the pleasure-seeker and the transitory nature of his pleasures. It thus took on overtones of 'risqué', 'up-to-date' and 'living tor the moment, not caring what tomorrow may bring'. In Edo the Japanese capital, such drifting pleasure-seekers abounded, as did the haunts where their wants could be met The Lthoritarian government under the dynastic Tokugawa family of mUitwy dictators required that all provincial nobles should reside ^ Edo for four months of each year, and should keep up appro-nriatelv grand (and expensive) residences for themselves and their Sues These retinuL of samurai and other retainers formed a roô"of relatively under-employed, upper-class men, who looked to r^rViv îo orovide them with amusements. At the same time the