Topic: Japanese Woodblock Prints

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History of Woodblock Prints

The Edo period in Japanese history opened in 1615 with the establishment of the Shogunate of Ieyasu Tokugawa and the relocation of the capital from the imperial city of Kyoto to Edo (modern Tokyo). During the Middle Ages, the contending daimyo, or lords of the provincial armies of samurai, ravaged the countryside with military skirmishes. The Tokugawa Shogunate effectively gained control over the daimyo and the subsequent centralization of power ushered in 250 years of peace, which fostered economic stabilization and prosperity. In the absence of war, the role of the daimyo changed. Required by the shogun to reside every other year in Edo, the feudal lords were transformed into government administrators and patrons of the arts.

Commercial ventures thrived in Edo, where successful merchants and artisans constituted a new and rising social class of urban bourgeoisie. As the townsmen prospered, they too had the leisure and means to enjoy the pleasures of the city: courtesans of the Yoshiwara district, the melodramas of Kabuki theatres, teahouses, public baths, and works of art depicting there delights. By the last quarter of the seventeenth century, the term ukiyo was associated with the Yoshiwara and its amusements.

Ukiyo, literally "floating world," was originally a Buddhist concept referring to the transitory, illusory quality of secular life, through which one could discover the essence, or spiritual reality, of existence. Closely related to ukiyo was mujo, which suggests an ever-changing existence that is full of uncertainty. In medieval times, the meaning of ukiyo carried with it the connotation of a sad and lamentable world. This interpretation was especially relevant in the sixteenth century, when life was chaotic as a result of a series of civil wars.

After peace was restored during the Momoyama period (1573-1615) by Nobunaga Oda and his general, Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and reaffirmed by the Tokugawa Shogunate, the economic situation improved for the people of Japan. The transience of life as expressed by ukiyo assumed a different connotation by the year 1700. Its meaning expanded to include the temporal pleasures to be found in the red-light district of Edo, the Yoshiwara. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, it also suggested the modern and fashionable. The most sought after courtesans donned stylish and expensive clothing and accoutrements. Whatever its context, the concept of ukiyo encompasses the fleeting, insubstantial nature of time and life.

The paintings, book illustrations, and color woodblock prints which depicted the Yoshiwara quarter and its culture during the Edo period are called Ukiyo-e. The suffix e, meaning "pictures," was added in the 1680’s. The most common subjects of this art were courtesans and their lovers, actors of the Kabuki stage, and daily life in the city and countryside. Since multiple woodblock prints could be produced quickly and inexpensively, they were distributed widely. Prints served as souvenirs for visitors returning from the pleasures of the city. A print might carry the address of the teahouse depicted thereon and serve as a form of advertising. For a devoted fan of a famous actor, his printed portrait would be a fond reminder of a great performance. Color woodblock prints were also exported to European collectors of exotica from the Far East and to nineteenth-century French artists, who were fascinated by the works of their Japanese counterparts.

The history of Ukiyo-e woodblock prints begins with a group of yamato-eshi (Japanese style painters). These pioneers in the woodblock medium established the native Japanese characteristics of the Ukiyo-e style. Evident in works by artists in the second phase of Ukiyo-e is the influence of Western art and a tendency toward realism. The final phase was one of decadence and a decline in the quality of the Ukiyo-e print. The masters of black-ink, single-color, and early polychrome prints comprise the first period in the history of Ukiyo-e prints. These artists of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries portrayed the world around them, as had artists of Yamato-e (Japanese-style pictures) during the Heian period (794-1185). The father of the Ukiyo-e print, Hishikawa Moronobu (1618-1694), even signed his name with the characters yamato-eshi (Japanese-style painter).

In the mid-ninth century, may Heian painters consciously diverged from the Chinese tradition in the visual arts. The most frequent subjects of Kara-e, or Chinese-style painting, were ancient Chinese legends and imaginary landscapes of high, craggy mountains and deep ravines, which might serve as the distant setting for a solitary monk in meditation. In contrast, Yamato-eshi, or Japanese-style painters, depicted the softly rolling hills of Japan filled with palpable vegetation. These landscape compositions were often peopled with figures performing the tasks of daily life or acting out a traditional Japanese tale. Yamato-e followed closely the theme of the poetry, which appeared on the same paper or silk as the painting itself. Text and image often described the seasons and main’s intimate relationship to cyclical, ever-changing nature.

Yamato-e first decorated the sliding doors and folding screens used in feudal castles during the late ninth and tenth centuries. Another source for our knowledge of national painting style is e-maki (handscroll paintings) of the twelfth century and, in particular, illustrations for "The Tale of Genji," a celebrated love story written by a woman attendant in the empress’ entourage, Murasaki-Shikibu. These illustrations reveal high, oblique viewpoints of the characters in action. Reverse perspective, in which parallel lines diverge with recession in space, is used extensively. Both viewpoint and perspective enhance the strong diagonal elements of the compositions. Distinctive black outlines are filled with opaque, unmodulated color. These stylistic characteristics and the native subject matter of traditional Yamato-e were transmitted indelibly to the Ukiyo-e print by woodblock artists of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Among them were Moronobu, Torii Kiyonobu (1664-1729), Katsukawa Shunsho (1726-1792) and Ishikawa Toyonobu (1711-1785).

As early as the eighth century, the woodcut medium was employed in Japan by Buddhist scholars for disseminating religious teaching and sacred images. The right of the middle class by the early seventeenth century was accompanied by an increase in literacy and growing marked for popular texts. Woodblock relief printing offered an effective way to meet the demand for illustrated texts, including ballads, serial stories, anecdotes about famous actors and courtesans, and itineraries along major routes of travel. Since calligraphy had traditionally been considered a higher form of art than painting, the text in these books was more important than the illustrations. However, Moronobu’s pictorial effects so delighted readers that the impact of the image dominated that of the text. Eventually, the printed image came to be viewed as a work of art in its own right, and these early independent prints were termed sumizuri-e (black-ink pictures).

The progressive use of color in woodblock prints began with the hand coloring of black-and-white images. In the early 1700s, a single orange-red color, tan (red lead), was applied with a brush to certain areas of the printed black outlines. Around 1715 a rose-pink color, beni, replaced tan as the predominant color with sparse additions of yellow, blue, and green. Although prints were originally colored by hand, it soon became apparent that production would be appreciable faster if this color were also applied to the woodblock and printed. Beginning in the late 1740s, such prints, or benizuri-e, were limited to a few colors in a simple design.

The techniques for the polychrome prints, so popular in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were developed at the instigation of a sophisticated elite in Edo. These dilettantes amused themselves by designing elaborate pages for calendars. In 1765 they commissioned the artist Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770) to replicate the originals in the woodcut medium for distribution to their friends as New Year’s gifts. To maximize profit, commercial publishers of the time were using thin paper and inexpensive pigments for print editions, but Harunobu’s clients were willing and able to pay for a high-quality product. Using luxurious colors, superior cherry wood, and a heavier grade paper to withstand repeated impressions, Harunobu perfected the technique for nishiki-e, literally "brocade pictures," utilizing up to ten different color blocks. Ukiyo-e printmakers quickly adopted this multi-block method.

By the last decade of the eighteenth century, the golden age of the Ukiyo-e print was achieved by artists such as Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) and Torii Kiyonaga (1752-1815). Artists, carvers, and printers had achieved technical mastery of the woodblock medium and many woodblock artists were exploring new stylistic means and subject matter. Of special note is their serious attention to realistic Western perspective as observed in Dutch copperplate etchings. In contrast to the reverse perspective of Yamato-e, Renaissance methods simulated nature, as the eye would see it. On the flat plane of the picture surface, parallel lines converge, as objects appear to recede into the distance. Japanese artists practiced copying and adapting Western perspective devices and among those who successfully incorporated them into the woodblock medium were Kiyonaga, Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). It is no wonder that the works by Japanese artists influenced by European art were those preferred by French Impressionists.

Both Hokusai and Hiroshige concentrated on the landscape and celebrated sites of Japan. Often produced in sets as a travelogue, these images proved immensely popular at home and abroad. The popularity of fukeiga, or landscape prints, has been attributed to many factors. The government bans on certain subject matter stemmed production of one of the major themes in Ukiyo-e, erotic scenes of the Yoshiwara. In 1790, the Shogunate instituted the first in a series of measures severely restricting the types of prints that could be published. Licentious subject matter was outlawed; as were deluxe editions made with luxuriant colors and costly papers. Eventually all prints had to be approved by a censor appointed by the government.

Another reason for the growing demand for fukeiga has been ascribed to the shogun’s restrictions on travel. Representations of views along the Tokaido road that ran between the imperial palace in Kyoto and the Shogunate capital of Edo may have been especially appealing to those unable to travel and see the countryside for themselves. Finally, landscape views and renderings of famous architectural monuments provided an apt vehicle by which Ukiyo-e artists could explore their interest in Western perspective.

Ukiyo-e prints of the last decades of the Edo period, which ended in 1868 with the restoration of imperial power and the Meiji government, reveal a decline in standards of quality, the so-called "decadence." Works by artists such as Keisai Eisen (1790-1848), Hiroshige III (1843-1894), and Toyokuni III (1786-1864) lack the charm and elegance of works by the preceding generation of masters. Proportions of the figures were less elongated and appeared less graceful. Facial expressions became coarse, with exaggerated features and make-up. The quality of workmanship and materials suffered with increasingly large editions. Perhaps this decline in the traditional standards of quality was an unsuccessful attempt to prolong or recapture the spirit of a fashionable, bygone age. Government restrictions in the first half of the nineteenth century served to stymie artistic freedom and creatively, and eventually the market for Ukiyo-e prints experienced increasing competition from the introduction of photographs and lithographs. Most significantly, the demise of the Ukiyo-e woodblock print may be attributed to the impending modernization of Japan and the subsequent preoccupation of its government, businessmen, and artists with the ways of the West.

Carma C. Fauntleroy
http://www.artgallery.sbc.edu/ukiyoe/historyofwoodblockprints.html

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