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Preface

FIG. 1

Kitagawa UTAMARO

歌麿 (1754–1806)

Entrance to a Picture Dealer’s Shop

江戸名物錦画耕作 (1790s)

Polychrome woodblock print (nishiki-e), 22 x 15 cm

Author’s Collection

The focus of this print is a picture dealer showing a sheet of ukiyo-e to some female customers. Three scrolls hang on the wall in the rear of the shop. Other prints are suspended from the ceiling, one of which depicts a sumo wrestler, a popular subject at the time.

My aim in writing this book is to appeal to a new generation of art lovers and collectors in the world of ukiyo-e (literally “pictures of the floating world”), a genre of Japanese woodblock prints and paintings produced between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries depicting city life, in particular activities and scenes from the entertainment district of Edo, the old name for Tokyo, such as beautiful courtesans and geisha, popular actors and bulky sumo wrestlers, as well as tales from history and, later, scenes from nature.

As an artist who has lived in Japan for over fifty years, my interest in Japanese prints is primarily aesthetic. Of particular fascination to me is why and how the images and styles of the art form have changed between the mid-seventeenth century up to the early years of the twentieth century when prints by publishers came to an end and artists started to print their own work, the latter a subject beyond the scope of this book.

Another area of personal interest is the production of ukiyo-e and I will discuss the methods and materials employed in producing Japanese prints. Years ago I had the opportunity of working with a printmaker. These memories are still vivid and I would like to share them with the reader.

Countless volumes on Japanese prints stand on the shelves of public libraries and schools or are in the hands of private print collectors. Most of these books limit their range to the pictures of the ukiyo-e school of printmaking, simply because it is the largest and most complex area of print study. It is also the area of greatest interest to the majority of collectors. Ukiyo-e offered a wide range of subject matter that could be used as decoration for battledores or fans or, because it was mass-produced, mounted into inexpensive scrolls for the average city dweller.

Many of the numerous volumes on ukiyo-e approach the subject chronologically or organize it according to the different schools of picture making. This book differs somewhat in that it approaches the Japanese print by subject. By investigating particular subjects, the book offers valuable information needed for the appreciation of prints within these selected areas. It also deals with subjects that are usually not found in other books, such as the audience for Japanese prints and where and how such prints may be purchased.

After an introductory chapter on the historical background of ukiyo-e, including the way Buddhist prints from China influenced the development of Japanese printmaking, I will focus in Chapter 2 on how the prints are made. The unique materials used by the craftsmen have not changed over hundreds of years. These materials and their uses, combined with the high quality of craftsmanship, allow viewers to admire the prints beyond the aesthetic qualities that produce the deepest emotional responses.

It is also important for readers to realize that the making of prints was a collaborative effort between the artist, woodblock carver, printer and publisher. The artist was the creator of the picture only. His efforts were, in turn, taken over by a publisher who had workshops where woodblock cutters and printers were engaged in turning the artist’s work into a multiple-image product. On occasion, calligraphers were called in to participate in the composition of prints, bestowing a professional look on the poetic text.

As will be seen in Chapter 3, woodblock printed books are a major element in the study of Japanese woodblock printing. These books can be individual picture books displaying the artist’s oeuvre, illustrated novels or instruction books on how to draw. Like single-sheet prints, the books were also produced as travel guides or used to describe kimono or other patterns. Many collectors have dedicated their collections solely to the picture book.

Chapter 4, Poetry Prints and Picture Calendars, will allow the reader to enter the world of Japanese literature. It was the poets, either by themselves or the society they belonged to, who commissioned artists to create limited editions of poetry-related prints (surimono), some incorporating calendars (egoyomi). Because these compilations were privately financed and the number of editions limited, the quality of crafts-manship and materials of these works is far superior to the commercial productions turned out in mass quantities.

In the following chapters (5–11), I will take the reader on a journey through the favorite subjects of ukiyo-e print artists: graceful and stylish women from the teahouses, shops and pleasure quarters of Edo; flashy and popular kabuki performers, often gracing posters advertising theater performances; enormous sumo wrestlers; landscapes and scenes from nature depicting birds and flowers; once-censored erotic images; well-known scenes and characters from history; and how the new foreign community was viewed by the Japanese, especially their customs and dwellings in Yokohama.

Who bought these pictures and why—ranging from the earliest Buddhist pilgrims to the contemporary crowds at the annual College Women’s Association charity exhibitions in Tokyo—is the theme of Chapter 12.

Throughout the book, the lives of the print artists are discussed. Some artists are well documented, others are a complete mystery, but the lives of all of them are part of a great study and I will relate the information that is available.

During the Taisho period (1912–26), a time of modernization and industrialization in Japan but also one of cultural preservation, a book was published featuring the mon (seal) of every publisher of Japanese prints, together with their name and location. It is fitting that one of the illustrations from that book, of which I own a first edition, should be reproduced here (Fig. 1). It is a woodcut copy of an Utamaro print showing a picture dealer’s shop.

Frederick Harris