- The increased wealth of the
- merchant class in 17th century
- Japan is reflected with great
- clarity in the popular art of the
- time, the wood-block prints. These
- prints, brought to the Western
- world by ship captains and traders,
- became collectors’ items in Europe
- and America. They had a marked
- effect on the work of Toulouse-
- Lautrec and other artists of his
- time in France. Although popular
- in Japan, they were despised as
- inferior and vulgar in their subject
- matter by Japanese connoisseurs
- of traditional painting in the
- Chinese style. Collectively these
- prints are known as ukiyo-e,
- “pictures of the floating world,” a
- Buddhist term denoting the
- impermanence of and fleeting
- nature of human pleasures.
- The possibility of reproducing
- many copies from one set of
- blocks enabled the prints to be
- sold at a very reasonable price,
- and they found a ready market.
- The prints have a peculiar charm
- and show great technical skill, not
- only on the part of the original
- artist but also in the work of the
- wood-block carver and the printer,
- who applied the colors to the
- blocks by hand. The blocks
- required—one for each color used
- in addition to the master block
- with the black outlines of the
- drawing—range in number from
- three or four to as many as fifteen.
- In all cases, the registration of
- one block printing over another
- is perfect. The favorite subjects are
- pictures of the pinup type, well-
- known actors in their celebrated
- roles, geisha entertainers, and
- celebrated landscape scenes, such
- as “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji”
- by Hokusai. Prints depicting the
- various activities of women give
- an insight into the process of home
- industries such as silk culture and
- dyeing.
- The variety of colors, the flow of
- line, a high standard of taste, and
- the natural human appeal of the
- subject matter all combine in the
- great age of the Japanese color
- print in the second half of the
- eighteenth century and first half
- of the nineteenth to form a body
- of popular art almost unrivaled
- in the world.
- The art of printing from wooden
- blocks was, of course, not new in
- Tokugawa times. The Chinese had
- used it for centuries for
- reproducing written characters and
- pictures of human and landscape
- subjects. The rapid mass
- production of Buddhist charms
- was made possible in ancient
- Japan by the woodblock process.
- Characters and a frontispiece of
- the gods and saints were combined
- in some of the earliest printings of
- Buddhist sutras. A complete sutra
- was printed from blocks, one block
- for each page, in A.D. 868. Even
- after the introduction of movable
- type in China about the year 1030
- (four centuries before the first
- Gutenberg Bible was printed in
- Germany), the method of using a
- wood block for an entire page was
- continued, especially in the
- printing of sacred books.
- Many examples exist of Chinese
- landscape prints with very fine
- lines in black and white. What was
- distinctive of the great age of
- Japanese wood-blocks was the
- masterly use of color, subtle
- effects being obtained by the
- mixing of colors and by gradation
- and the wiping away of color
- already applied. Groups of
- subscribers would combine to
- commission sets of New Year
- greeting cards, and these would
- often incorporate elaborate effects
- obtained by sprinklings of gold,
- silver and mica dust.
- No artist excelled as much as
- Hokusai as a colorful personality,
- and anecdotes from his life are
- numerous. Summoned to an artist
- competition before the Shogun
- Ienari, Hokusai asked for a paper
- screen door, laid it down, and
- painted a broad, waving stripe of
- blue upon it. He then produced a
- cock, dipped its feet in scarlet
- color, and made it walk down the
- blue band. That was his picture—
- the title, “Maple Leaves Floating
- Down the Tatsuta River.”
- Hokusai had risen by constant
- struggle from a life of poverty, but
- by the end he was in great
- demand. He was chosen to
- illustrate the Life of the Hundred
- Heroes, one of the works of the
- famous author Bakin. The two fell
- out; but when the matter came to
- the ears of the publisher, he
- dispensed with Bakin and found
- another author to finish the text
- rather than lose Hokusai.
Morton, W. Scott and Olenik, J. Kenneth. Japan: Its History and Culture. New York: McGraw Hill, 1970. 131–132.