Part 2

Not until the year 1742 did the practice begin of applying colour by impressions from flat wood blocks. Why the invention should have been so long delayed, and why, after it was once made, nearly fourteen years more should have elapsed before the number of colour-blocks was increased beyond two, are questions to which no certain answer is yet forthcoming. It is incredible that during the forty years when innumerable hand-coloured prints were issued no one should have conceived the idea of printing the colour as well as the black outline. Without doubt some practical difficulty connected with the printing stood in the way. Possibly the thing that awaited discovery was the trick of mixing rice paste with the colour to keep it from running. Or, as is more likely, it took a long while to discover a practical method of securing accurate register in impressions made upon damp paper which was liable to stretch or shrink during the printing process. Whatever the problem may have been, the honour of the solution is due to Okumura Masanobu. Being a publisher as well as an artist, he was no doubt alive to the economic advantage of a cheaper process and to the attraction of novelty. Some years earlier he had invented the hashira-yé, or pillar-print, and had also put forth a series of prints that show a fair understanding of the laws of linear perspective to which he gave the name of Ukiyé. Being an artist as well as a publisher, Masanobu perceived that the change in process called for a change in the style of the designs. The very first of the new prints, therefore, were characterized by finer and more exquisite detail than was suitable for the hand-coloured editions. The colours used were beni and a soft green; and the name beni-yé, which had been applied to the hand-coloured prints in which beni was used, was also given to them. A happier selection of colours could not have been made. By thinning the red and modifying the hue of the green a wide range of effects was secured. Almost every possible combination and variation was tried during the fourteen or fifteen years that the beni-yé were in vogue. The world is far richer because of this long period before the number of colour-blocks was increased, since time was afforded to work out the decorative possibilities resulting from the limitation to two colours and black and white. This limitation demanded fine skill and creative resource in the invention of pattern and the distribution of the colours employed.(4) The results achieved were remarkable. Until one has seen them it is impossible to realize that so much life and vivacity of colouring could be given by impressions from two blocks charged with rose and green.

[KIYOMITSU. Daimyo Procession Game.]

KIYOMITSU. Daimyo Procession Game.

By many the beni-yé are regarded as the choicest products of the school. So charming were they when first printed that they speedily drove the urushi-yé prints out of the market, with the exception of the tall hashira-yé, or pillar prints, of which hand-coloured editions continued to be produced for a year or two, to satisfy those who still wished paintings rather than prints. Most of the beni-yé that have survived until our time are very much faded. The beni has quite generally turned into a soft yellow or disappeared altogether. The green is more stable, but that also has in many instances become a warm citrine or russet. Extremely rare are the specimens in which the original colour has not suffered material modification.

From the testimony of the prints themselves it appears probable that very soon after Okumura Masanobu issued the first prints in beni and green, similar prints were put forth by Nishimura Shigenaga, Ishikawa Toyonobu, Torii Shiro (otherwise Kiyonobu the second), and all the Yedo print-designers, among them the veteran Torii Kiyomasu. None of these men seems to have attempted any marked departure from the type established by Okumura. About 1755, however, a group of young men appeared upon the scene, who were fired with zeal for further experiments. The leaders were Torii Kiyomitsu, Kitao Shigemasa, and Suzuki Harunobu. Kiyomitsu began by trying novel colour schemes such as two tones of beni instead of beni and green. Then he tried a third colour-block. After this new developments followed in rapid succession. The variety and range of the colour schemes broadened almost from day to day. At first the wider resources proved an embarrassment, but the mastery attained in dealing with the simpler means soon enabled the artists to take advantage of them. Invention was stimulated. In 1764 a printer named Kinroku discovered a method by which printing in colours from many blocks became possible. We can only guess at the nature of the difficulty that was surmounted; but as it is known that the printing was usually done upon dampened paper, it is evident that the stretching or shrinking of the sheets, to which I have already referred, must have proved extremely troublesome, and that every additional block must have multiplied the liability to defective register. It is reasonably safe to assume, therefore, that to find some means of overcoming this was the problem which remained unsolved for so many years.

[HARUNOBU. Young Woman before Torii.]

HARUNOBU. Young Woman before Torii.

The name of Suzuki Harunobu is familiar to every admirer of Japanese prints. It is in large measure to his genius that the development of full-colour printing is due. He was not only the first artist to make use of the new process, but he took advantage of it to bring out prints of a novel type. Very dainty and graceful these were, and in the poetic allusions or quiet humour with which they were charged, and in the quality of the brush-strokes with which the drawings were executed, they made a direct appeal to men of taste. Success was instantaneous. By the year 1765 Harunobu had come to the front and distanced all competitors for popular favour. The serenity and compelling charm of his compositions brought him wide fame. Realizing the possibilities that now lay before him, he proudly exclaimed, “Why should I degrade myself by the delineation of actors?” His ambition, he said, was to become “the true successor of the painters in the department of printing”; that is to say, to design prints that should be worthy substitutes for paintings. Instead of restricting himself to a few primary or secondary hues and the variations resulting from their superposition, he mixed his colours to get the precise tint desired, and he used as many colour-blocks as were needed for the effects at which he aimed. The Yedo-yé, or Yedo pictures, as the prints had been called from the fact that they were produced only at the eastern capital, were now denominated nishiki-yé, or brocade pictures, from the number of colours woven together in them. To the printing itself, the charging of the blocks with colour, the character and quality of the pigments and of the paper used, Harunobu gave careful attention, and these things were greatly improved as a result of his experiments.

Under his leadership the art now entered upon the period of its greatest triumphs. In the eager search for novel subjects scarcely anything was left untouched. History, mythology, and romance, the numberless fêtes and merrymakings of the people and the daily routine of their lives, representations of celebrated poets and heroes, scenes from the drama, portraits of popular actors and courtesans, the revels of the Yoshiwara, animals and plants, familiar scenes and famous landscapes, furnished motives for almost endless broadsheets and book illustrations. No other art was ever more crowded with human interest.

The forward movement in print-designing at this epoch was helped on by a number of highly gifted artists who seem to have worked together to some extent. Katsukawa ShunshoÌ, who took up the theatrical branch of print-designing that Harunobu scorned, is one of the most distinguished masters of the Ukiyoé school. He was a designer of marked power, a colourist of the first rank. His works are not yet appreciated as they should be, but the finest of them yield pure aesthetic delight of most exalted quality. Kitao Shigemasa, Ippitsusai BunchoÌ, and Isoda Koryusai also rank among the first-rate men of this period. In the contest for popular favour during the ten years following the death of Harunobu, which took place in the summer of 1770, it has been said that the guerdon rested upon Koryusai, but that is a mistake, for both ShunshoÌ and Shigemasa stood higher in the estimation of qualified judges. All, however, were surpassed a few years later by Kiyonaga, the last great artist of the Torii line and the culminating figure in the history of the Popular School. He conquered by the rugged strength and marvellous quality of his brush-strokes, by the richness of his colouring and the ripe mastery he displayed over all the resources of his craft. But also he created a new type of design—that which found expression in the great diptychs and triptychs that stand as the triumphs of colour-printing. At the height of his power his influence over his contemporaries was so great that, without exception, the younger men among them copied his style as closely as they could.

When Kiyonaga, about 1793, stopped designing prints, the decadence had already set in. The decade that followed was a period of rapid deterioration, with Utamaro as its particular evil genius. Yet many of the most splendid of the prints were produced in that decade. Where shall we look for anything finer than Eishi’s wonderful series with the chocolate background, or his triptychs of the Prince Genji series? Where shall we find anything to equal the brilliant characterization of Sharaku’s actor portraits? Where else shall we turn for such marvellously facile rhythmic line, such swift, vital handling as that which made Utamaro’s masterpieces the despair of his many imitators? Toyokuni also designed many fine prints; but as he was a man of less force than the others I have named, he fell faster and farther than they did, and fewer of his works command our admiration.

[HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister.]

HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister.

I have left myself little time to speak of two eminent artists, both of them world-renowned, who by their genius made the latter years of the Ukiyoé school as notable in their way as any in its entire history. Either Hokusai or Hiroshige might well engage our attention for an entire evening. Both were extraordinarily prolific; Hokusai was the more versatile and has the wider reputation. Both are among the greatest landscape artists the world has ever known. Their numerous prints of landscapes are a revelation of the possibilities of originality in composition and variety of interest in this field. Unless one has studied these prints in fine examples, it is impossible to realize how great is their merit. This is true of all the prints, but particularly true of Hiroshige’s. Between the best impressions and the very good ones the difference is really astonishing. But the best are so extremely rare as to make it probable that because of the difficulty and the cost of printing, very few of them were issued—the publishers finding cheaper editions more profitable.

Though classed as Ukiyoé artists, Hokusai and Hiroshige really represent a separate movement which undoubtedly would have crystallized into a distinct school had worthy followers arisen to carry it forward, had the times been different, and, last but not least, had the genius of the two masters been less transcendent.

In this sketch of the history of the art of Ukiyoé colour-printing only the more salient features have been touched upon. Of the prints themselves it is not too much to say that the finest of them are the most beautiful specimens of printing that have been done in any land at any time.

Yet none but the most primitive methods—or what from our point of view may seem such—were employed. The most wonderful among all the prints is but a “rubbing” or impression taken by hand from wood blocks. The artist having drawn the design with the point of a brush in outline upon thin paper, it was handed over to the engraver, who began his part of the work by pasting the design face downward upon a flat block of wood, usually cherry, sawn plankwise as in the case of the blocks used by European wood-engravers in the time of Dürer. The paper was then scraped at the back until the design showed through distinctly in every part. Next, the wood was carefully cut away, leaving the lines in relief, care being taken to preserve faithfully every feature of the brush-strokes with which the drawing was executed. A number of impressions were then taken in Chinese ink from this “key block” and handed to the artist to fill in with colour. This ingenious plan, which is manifestly an outgrowth of the early custom of colouring the ink prints (sumi-yé) by hand, and which perhaps would never have been thought of had not the colour itself been an afterthought, enabled the artist to try many experiments in colour arrangement with a minimum amount of labour. The colour scheme and ornamentation of the surfaces having been determined, the engraver made as many subsidiary blocks(5) as were required, the parts meant to take the colour being left raised and the rest cut away. Accurate register was secured by the simplest of devices. A right-angled mark engraved at the lower right-hand corner of the original block, and a straight mark in exact line with its lower arm at the left, were repeated upon each subsequent block, and, in printing, the sheets were laid down so that their lower and right-hand edges corresponded with the marks so made. The defective register which may be observed in many prints was sometimes caused by unequal shrinking or swelling of the blocks. In consequence of this, late impressions are often inferior to the early ones, even though printed with the same care, and from blocks that had worn very little. The alignment will usually be found to be exact upon one side of the print, but to get further out of register as the other side is approached.

The printing was done on moist paper with Chinese ink and colour applied to the blocks with flat brushes. A little rice paste was usually mixed with the pigments to keep them from running and to increase their brightness. Sometimes dry rice flour was dusted over the blocks after they were charged. To this method of charging the blocks much of the beauty of the result may be attributed. The colour could be modified, graded, or changed at will, the blocks covered entirely or partially. Hard, mechanical accuracy was avoided. Impressions differed even when the printer’s aim was uniformity. Sometimes, in inking the “key block,” which was usually the last impressed, some of the lines would fail to receive the pigment, or would be overcharged. This was especially liable to happen when the blocks were worn and the edges of the lines became rounded. A little more or a little less pigment sometimes made a decided difference in the tone of the print, and, it may be noted, has not infrequently determined the nature and the extent of the discolouration wrought by time.

[HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister.]

HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister.

In printing, a sheet of paper was laid upon the block and the printer rubbed off the impression, using for the purpose a kind of pad called a _baren._ This was applied to the back of the paper and manipulated with a circular movement of the hand. By varying the dampness of the paper and the degree of pressure the colour could be forced deep into the paper, or left upon the outer fibres only, so that the whiteness of those below the surface would shine through, giving the peculiar effect of light which is seen at its best in some of the surimono (prints designed for distribution at New Year’s or other particular occasions) by Hokusai and his contemporaries. Uninked blocks were used for embossing portions of the designs. The skill of the printer was a large factor in producing the best results. Even the brilliancy of the colour resulted largely from his manipulation of the pigments and various little tricks in their application. The first impressions were not the best, some forty or fifty having to be pulled before the block would take the colour properly. Many kinds of paper were used. For the best of the old prints it was thick, spongy in texture, and of an almost ivory tone. The finest specimens were printed under the direct personal supervision of the artists who designed them. Every detail was looked after with the utmost care. No pains were spared in mixing the tints, in charging the blocks, in laying on the paper so as to get the best possible impressions. Experiments were often tried by varying the colour schemes. Prints of important series, as, for example, Hokusai’s famous “Thirty-six Views of Fuji,” are met with in widely divergent colourings.

The pigments most frequently used were comparatively few, and different lots of the same pigment seem to have been far from uniform in hue. As to this and some other points upon which we should be glad to have light, no very certain information exists. We do not know how soon some of the colours began to fade. Internal evidence indicates that in some instances the change took place within a comparatively short time, as in the case of the lovely blue used by Harunobu and ShunshoÌ chiefly as a colour for sky and water. It appears to have been a compound tint formed of blue mixed with some other colour to modify its intensity. In the change which followed—possibly a chemical one—the blue disappeared in whole or in part, leaving in its stead a buff hue having peculiar depth and a soft, velvety texture. To our eyes the modified colour is often far more beautiful than the original, but the variation, it may safely be asserted, was not desired by the artist.

The quality of the colour wrought by these changes explains why it is not possible to-day to reproduce the prints successfully. The printing process is still in use, and, as the plates in such publications as “Kokka” attest, very splendid results are still yielded by it. But some of the old pigments cannot now be obtained; and if they could be, we should still have to wait long years for time to mellow the prints made with them. Indigo can be had, but it is not the same indigo and its colour is not quite like the old, which was extracted from blue cloth imported from China. Beni can be made, but the secret of the blue added to it to produce the divine violet seen in many of the prints has been lost, as has that of the precious moss-green used by Utamaro. Many reproductions have been made during the last twenty-five years, and some of them are extremely clever; but the printing lacks depth, and when placed beside the old works they appear dull and lifeless.

Colour-prints were made for many purposes. To some extent they were used as advertisements. Incidentally they served as fashion plates. Some were regularly published and sold in shops. Others were designed expressly upon orders from patrons, to whom the entire edition—sometimes a very small one—was delivered. The number struck from any block, or set of blocks, varied widely. Of the more popular prints many editions were printed, each one, as might be expected, inferior to those that preceded it. Not infrequently the Yedo publishers removed from their out-of-date blocks the marks showing their imprint, and sold them to publishers in Osaka and Nagoya, by whom poor and cheap editions were issued. Eiraku-ya of Nagoya, in particular, is said to have bought many old blocks, some of which were revamped in various ways before being reprinted.

[HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister.]

HARUNOBU. The Sleeping Elder Sister.

In a number of instances, when blocks had worn out or had been accidentally destroyed in the fires by which Yedo was ravaged, the artists were called upon to make new drawings of the same subjects. Usually, in such cases, the second design differed very little from the first, save in such details as the patterns upon the garments of the figures and the styles of hair arrangement, which invariably reflected the current mode. Kiyonaga’s “Iris Garden” and his well-known triptych “Ushiwaka Serenading Jorurihime” are notable examples of this practice. Two designs of each of these were issued, the intervals between the appearance of the first and second being, in each instance, about three or four years. For the later editions of many of the prints designed by Harunobu changes were made in the blocks, and the number was sometimes increased and sometimes decreased. After his death re-engravings of a number of his prints appear to have been made, as well as forged works in imitation of his style to which his name was attached.

Most of the prints were sold at the time of publication for a few sen. The finer ones brought relatively higher prices, and such prints as the great triptychs and still larger compositions by Kiyonaga, Eishi, Toyokuni, Utamaro, and other leading artists could never have been very cheap. In general, however, the price was small and they were regarded as ephemeral things. Many were used to ornament the small screens that served to protect kitchen fires from the wind, and in this use were inevitably soiled and browned by smoke. Others, made into kakemono or mounted upon the sliding partitions of the houses, perished in the fires by which Japanese cities have been devastated; or, if in houses that chanced safely to run the gauntlet of fires, typhoons, cloudbursts, and other mishaps, their colours faded and their surfaces were rubbed until little more than dim outlines were left. These lost prints include a very large proportion of those that were most beautiful, and especially of those having inoffensive subjects.

Fortunately, though the upper classes did not consider the prints as works of art, that did not prevent them from buying them for the entertainment they afforded. The samurai, though they considered it degrading to take part in the amusements of the lower classes and affected to despise the vulgarity of the theatre, sometimes attended the performances in disguise. And when they returned to their home provinces with their feudal lords after the six months of every year spent in the capital, they usually carried with them large quantities of prints. Country people visiting Yedo rarely returned without taking many of these cheap souvenirs of the city to distribute among their neighbours. Of course many were destroyed, but the Japanese have always been accustomed to take care of their possessions, and so many thousands of prints were neatly packed away in boxes and placed in the kuras, or fireproof storehouses. There they were often spoiled by mildew, the dread foe of the Japanese housewife, and eaten by insects. Those pasted in albums, as were many of the noted series by Hokusai and Hiroshige, fared better than the loose ones.

[HARUNOBU. Woman reading Letter.]

HARUNOBU. Woman reading Letter.