Toshidama Gallery Japanese Prints

The Brilliance of the Osaka School

2012-03-09T04:27:00.000-08:00

Kunikazu, Soga Monogatari

For many years the brilliance of the Osaka School woodblock artists of Japan has been occluded by their more popular and populous Edo cousins from the Utagawa School in what is present day Tokyo. Happily the situation is now changing and renewed enthusiasm in the Osaka woodblock artists can be seen in publications and National exhibitions.

Osaka prints have always been a refined taste; partly the art has a particular style of drawing that can seem strange to people used to the thinner features and more direct style of Edo prints. Perhaps also there is a lingering sense that Osaka, or Kamigata style is somehow provincial - unsophisticated and less refined. Only a casual study of the prints themselves reveal that these prejudices are unfounded. Osaka prints are more or less uniformly a revelation to the ukiyo-e enthusiast. The designs, once dismissed as unsophisticated or inbred reveal themselves to be exquisitely calligraphic and commanding and the skills of the block cutters and printers unparalleled.

Shigeharu, Nakamura Utaemon III

Osaka prints deal almost uniquely with the subject of the kabuki theatre and the actors who visited the province. The characteristic brilliance of the printing and the lavishness of the designs can be put down to the specific class of the consumer and the environment of the city at that time in the nineteenth century. Kabuki was an intermittent visitor to Osaka at the beginning of the nineteenth century but became firmly established with increasing visits from the kabuki superstars of Edo. The wealthy merchants and artisans of the city became enthusiasts and formed coteries, sometimes called fan clubs, sometimes called clapping clubs, to indulge their passion for individual actors and performances. Because of their relative wealth, and their own artistic ability, these small cliques entered into the production of eulogies, poems, woodblock prints and sometimes plays in a way unique to the culture at that time. The result, as far as ukiyo-e is concerned was the production (and preservation) of some of the finest and most lavish woodblock prints ever produced.

Osaka was the second largest city in Japan in the nineteenth century. Kabuki was the expression of a population’s desires, fantasies, arts and culture - a truly great art, but also a truly populist art - despised by the authorities precisely because it wielded such power over the entire population. The ukiyo prints of actors and performances, of the courtesans and the theatre district are the most complete representation of Japanese culture of the time and they show us not only the events that transpired but also the preoccupations and emotions of a people at a particular moment in history. Kabuki and its associated cultures occupied not only an outsider’s view of cultural life but were quite physically outside the official jurisdiction - kabuki theatres in Osaka were required to be situated on a remote canal bank opposite the red light district. The actors and performers occupied a similarly outsider position - kabuki actors although very wealthy through patronage were forbidden to communicate with the samurai class or enfranchised citizens, their movements were severely restricted and they were closely watched by the authorities. All of this created the fertile grounds for the production of great and deeply felt art and culture; there are cultural equivalents here to the ballet and opera scene of Paris in the late nineteenth century and the demi-monde of post impressionists who frequented the stage doors and perhaps the English Renaissance theatre and the great writers and poets and coterie societies that produced figures such as Sir Phillip Sidney.

From the point of view of the visual arts in Osaka, the most fascinating aspect is the emergence of the fan clubs. The study of these clubs by writers such as Dean Schwaab has enlightened no end our knowledge and understanding of Osaka prints. The members of these clubs were all wealthy citizens, respectable but also devotees of the kabuki theatre and the pleasure quarter. They were also the main market for the extraordinary deluxe and surimono-type prints that are so typical of the Osaka style.

Hirosada, Ichikawa Ebizo V as the Warrior Akushichibyoe Kagekiyo

The unique aspect of many of the Osaka artists is their amateur status. In the current exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery there are works by ten artists of which only one, Shigeharu, is likely to have made a living solely from his own work. The others were involved in publishing or trades and many of these exceptional pieces achieve their beauty precisely because they are, by and large, free from the pressures and constraints of the commercial publishing industry; this applies not only to the very uncommercial lavishness of the prints themselves but also to the thought and care that has gone into the drawing and the design. From the collector's point of view, there are very few artists who produced more than a handful of prints; it has been estimated that the entire production of the Osaka printmakers is less in number and editions than one single artist such as Kuniyoshi in Edo. So hermetic were these small groups that in scholarship it still cannot be precisely determined whether the work of several artists is not in fact the work of a single artist using different names. It is only recently that it has been established that Sadahiro and Hirosada, for example are one artist and not artist and pupil. This makes the collecting of Osaka prints extremely satisfying; print runs are typically small, editions typically lavish. It is possible to collect a substantial number of the total output of an artist such as Hirosada which would be unthinkable with many of his Edo contemporaries.

When looking at many of these prints some features stand out immediately; size being the most obvious. Virtually all prints made in Edo in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were on the oban size of paper (roughly 36cm x 25cm), while the majority of deluxe Osaka prints were produced on the much smaller chuban size (the oban sheet cut in half along its long side). The other striking feature of Osaka prints is the lavish use of deluxe techniques, particularly the use of metals. To quote Dean Schwaab:

Munehiro, Two Kabuki Actors in the Hollow of a Tree

The products of these master technicians are the pinnacle of the printer’s art: a small area of garment, for example, may be decorated with embossed patterns, overprinted with colour that has been carefully graded by hand when applied to the block, and then further overprinted with complex metallic brocade designs. These many planes of design combined with the heavy, reflective quality of the metallic pigments give these densely coloured compositions a three dimensional quality that is unique.

A good example of these extraordinary refinements is the Hasegawa Munehiro, Two Kabuki Actors in the Hollow of a Tree from 1860. The inside of the trunk is encrusted with expensive gold metallic powder, the details of the costume are tipped with silver, the blacks are richly burnished, the scroll and the white parts of the dress are embossed with patinated fabric. The Yoshitaki, tetraptych of the Soga Brothers is similarly treated, and the first figure on the right is encrusted with silver and pattern, the metallics looking like applied jewels they are so thick and lavish. The exhibition at the Toshidama gallery contains a number of deluxe or surimono-type prints from the height of the main period of production in Osaka. Very fine too though are the precursors of what Schwaab refers to as the first and second period. I’m thinking here of the Ashiyuki portrait from 1830 which bears still the characteristics of the Utagawa School but nevertheless uses deluxe techniques on the costume and the sword or the beautiful and delicate Yoshikuni, Nakamura Shikan II.

In the woodblock prints of the Osaka School, it is fair to say that there is a distillation of the very best of ukiyo-e design and production. These hugely collectible pieces will become increasingly scarce and already, deluxe or rare pieces can command over a thousand dollars per print. This is a remarkable and little known flowering of great art in the nineteenth century and well deserves to be recognised along with the very best of Edo production.

The Brilliance of the Osaka School is at The Toshidama Gallery until 20th April 2012.

Collections of Osaka School prints are at The Philadelphia Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.


Yoshitaki, Scene from the Revenge of the Soga Brothers

How Come All These Japanese Prints Look The Same?

2012-01-27T03:45:00.000-08:00

Kuniyoshi, Hanbei 1840

Kunisada, Hanbei 1840

We’re showing nine prints on this page, all of which seem to share something in common. In some of them the full height, man walking seems to be almost the same; in others a half portrait only; and in all of them a drably coloured striped kimono. How come they share so many characteristics? How come they all seem so similar?

Kuniyoshi, The 100 Ogura Poets 1847

Kunisada, Hanbei 1852

The simple answer is that they all depict the same character in the same kabuki play, even though the actor is not always the same, the production is not necessarily the same and the dates of the prints are eighteen years apart. It is perhaps helpful to imagine the current vogue for remaking classic films. Despite the fact that fifty years may separate the productions, modern film makers will in the majority of cases adopt the same signifiers for a role - the poses, the costume, the haircut etc and the iconic stills from the film will most probably be re-imagined for the

release poster and so on. Nobody questions that a film role or stage role comes with its own baggage, its own identity. So it was with kabuki, and perhaps more so because of the inherently conservative nature of the art, of the audiences and of the culture.

Kuniyoshi, 36 Fashionable Restaurants 1852

The play that is depicted in all these prints is called Yaoya no Kondate and features the tragic tale of Hanbei, a greengrocer and his wife Ochiyo. Based on the true story of a shinju (double suicide) in 1772, the play, written shortly after the event, was an immediate hit. Hanbei is an honourable and humble man who loves his wife; unfortunately his wicked step-mother, Okuma, lusts after him. Compromised by the complex tangle of relationships, Hanbei and Ochiya are obliged to commit suicide to find uncomplicated love in the afterlife. The most prolific image from the play is not the dramatic suicide or the seduction by the older woman but of Hanbei, pictured as mild and unassuming, walking away to meet his lover, the forged letter of divorce in his right hand. Kuniyoshi is usually credited with the invention of this strolling, disaffected figure because of his famous depiction of Hanbei in the series The Ogura Poets Compared, a compendium of one hundred prints by Hiroshige, Kunisada and Kuniyoshi and one of the great print series in ukiyo-e.

Kunisada, Hanbei 1852

Kunisada, Hanbei 1856

Kunisada, Hanbei 1858

It is interesting to note that in fact Kuniyoshi first introduced the strolling, turning figure to illustrate Hanbei in the third month of 1840. Kunisada also produced a similar print in 1840, depicting Hanbei in his customary robes - both prints commemorating a performance at the Ichimura theatre in the second month of that year. The distinctive robes will have been the choice of the actor (Nakamura Utaemon IV), the pose is Kuniyoshi’s own. Having revived the pose in 1847 for the 100 Poets series, Kuniyoshi reuses it in 1852 in a collaboration with Hiroshige for a series depicting famous restaurants. Here he has kept the pose and the robes but brought the figure right up to the picture plane to create a half length portrait. In the same year, Kunisada borrows the turning figure wholesale for an actor portrait now in the Brooklyn Museum. He uses the figure once more in 1856 to illustrate a puppet play on the same theme and finally in 1858 for a series of famous actors in hit plays, where he sets the actor against a similar backdrop to Kuniyoshi’s steep, one point perspective of 1840, but set at night using a hugely skillful scheme of dark blues and blacks. Intriguingly, one of Kunisada’s finest prints, a surimono of the Yoshiwara at night also uses this scheme but without the figure. The date of this piece is unknown although it is presumed to be from the 1850’s.

What we can learn from these examples is not a shameful story of plagiarism, but a rich example of collaboration, and of shared artistic and cultural experience, something less known in western art. Ideas and notions of genius and of individual talent were fairly unknown to the Japanese in the 19th century. Rather, they enjoyed the to and fro of images and the building of micro-genres which resulted in a constant refinement of one icon or another sometimes (as we can see here) over a period of decades.

Kunisada, Night in the Yoshiwara

Paper Sizes in Japanese Woodblock Prints

2012-01-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

It’s very confusing for people visiting Japanese print galleries - especially online - to see prints described as oban or chuban or kakemono-e with no great explanation of what that means. I thought we’d sort out what these sizes are, why they are as they are and what made artists choose to use each format. It should be noted that there is no standardised measurement for Japanese paper of the Edo period. Sizes below are approximate and different sources will quote sizes that vary by several centimeters.

Japanese woodblock prints from the seventeenth century onwards have used a type of paper known as Hoshu Paper. This is derived from the mulberry tree and is a by-product of the silk industry; it has the advantage of being exceptionally strong and at the same time very soft - allowing the water based inks to penetrate deep into the fibres of the paper and yet strong enough to withstand the repeated printings and harsh rubbing with the baren that multicolour printing requires. The fibre in the paper is very long and this assists the paper in maintaining stability over periods of prolonged wetting and drying, essential when achieving perfect registration of colours over many printings.

The standard sheet size in production is 53cm x 29cm. When the standard sheet (known as o-bosho) is cut in half it produces a pleasing format of 26.5cm x 39cm, (usually trimmed to 36cm x 25cm) a size called oban and this sheet size (illustrated above) is by far the most popular for ukiyo-e artists. Landscape artists such as Hiroshige would turn the standard vertical format on its side to produce horizontal oban prints. Vertical oban prints should properly be called oban tate-e (vertical picture) and horizontal oban sheets denoted by the suffix yoko-e.

The oban sheet could be cut again to produce a half size sheet called a chuban (19.5 x 26.5), a size used almost exclusively by artists of the Osaka School (see Yoshitaki chuban illustrated above right). The oban and the chuban are the primary sizes and it is unusual to come across the many other formats that were occasionally used. Greater flexibility could be employed however by joining several of these units together. Oban and chuban sheets were used in multiple forms to produce both dramatic vertical and horizontal pieces. The commonest by far is the triptych, three sheets joined along their long edge to form a single landscape image. These prints were used at first to depict battle scenes in warrior prints but became popular for showing the full width of the kabuki stage. Kunichika in the latter years of the nineteenth century all but reinvented theatre prints with his dramatic use of this format in wide, panoramas of cinematic breadth with foreground figures set against plain backgrounds (illustrated below) .
Diptychs (two sheets joined by their long edge) were also popular for theatre depictions especially by Utagawa Kunisada in the 1850’s. For even greater impact, polyptychs were used in sometimes five or more sheets, on occasion to show several well known actors as a series of stage portraits united by the same background (illustrated below).

Particularly dramatic is the kakemono-e, a format that used two oban sheets joined along their short edge to form a scroll like or pillar print (see right). This form was popular in the earlier part of the nineteenth century as an early form of pin-up. Artists such as Kunisada and Eisen adopted the form to illustrate well known beauties of the day - sometimes prostitutes or courtesans, sometimes women of fashionable appearance. There are some theatre scenes where the kakemono-e is appropriate although these are more rare. The koban is a small format print measuring 23cm x 13cm and rarely seen, otherwise, it is unlikely that most people will encounter prints that fall outside of the range already stated.

Artists will have used the common oban format partly for reasons of economy; allowing two complete prints from each o-bosho sheet and also because the public who collected ukiyo-e were in the habit of assembling the prints into collections and then having them bound into books to keep them safe, (this explains the pin like album binding holes visible on most prints) and therefore a consistent format made the art of collecting easier. Often the triptych and diptych editions were designed in such a way that they could be sold as individual sheet portraits or as a set. Collectors sometimes mounted the three sheets onto a backing paper to keep them together. This does not much affect the value of the prints and it is not uncommon to see a print described as having “original Japanese album backing”.

In certain prints such as this Yoshitoshi vertical diptych of The Penance of Mongaku it is easy to see how the artist has chosen the format to enhance the design and composition of the piece. Equally many of the chuban series of landscape prints by Hiroshige were reduced in scale to allow for portability and mass production, though his grand designs of his later years were printed in oban tat-e format to allow him to experiment with exaggerated foreground space.

The other issue is trimming and margins. With the knowledge that most prints were to be bound into albums or joined in some way, Japanese woodblock prints were always produced with margins of a centimeter or two. It is to be preferred that a print nowadays should have the margins intact. In some cases (Hiroshige and Yoshitoshi for example) important information such as series titles or publishers details are printed outside the image and on the margin (see left). Intact, full size prints are quite rare. There is the paradox that prints which were trimmed and stored in albums were more likely to survive than loose sheets.

Generally speaking the word oban refers to the paper size, commonly seen in vertical format. The original exact dimension, the existence or loss of margins and the inconsistencies of the publisher and artist will all determine the final sheet size. As a general rule then, Format: oban tat-e with margins, untrimmed means a paper size of roughly 26cm x 35cm in vertical format with a plain paper border around the image and that remains a perfectly acceptable description.

Happy New Year From Toshidama Gallery

2012-01-02T12:12:00.000-08:00

Toshidama Gallery would like to wish all its visitors a very happy and prosperous New Year. We have been moving the gallery over the last two weeks and hence there have been fewer blog posts on this and our other site. We are glad to say that the disruption is at an end and we look forward to some new and exciting exhibitions for 2012.

The current show is on until January the 20th and we urge readers to join the Newsletter subscription list and benefit from 10% discounts on all current prints. We open the 2012 season with a great exhibition of Kunisada’s later actor portraits. We are looking primarily at the best of his actor pictures from 1850 onwards. There are some earlier prints by way of contrast but the focus of the show is on his great series of fine and deluxe pictures from the latter part of his career. As usual, we will try to show prints for all budgets and there will be notable prints for sale in every format.

We start this year’s posts with a look at the different formats in woodblock prints and how they affect composition. Our Wordpress blog looks at the work of the contemporary artist Paul Morisson and the monochrome prints of Hiroshige from the 1840’s. Once again Toshidama Gallery would like to thank all its visitors and readers from 2011 for their continued interest and best wishes for 2012.

What to look for in a Japanese Print - Part II

2011-11-14T05:27:00.000-08:00

If one were to ask what makes a Japanese woodblock print special or valuable or rare, it would be hard to come up with a single, definitive answer. There are some common factors, of which condition is predominant, but there are many other factors of equal or greater importance. It would be pleasing to say that beauty or skill were paramount but sadly this is not always the case.

As with so many things, a final judgement on the 'worth' of a print is a mixture of many different factors. Balancing these contributions is quite subjective and will also vary from auction house to auction house and from collector to collector. Fashions change, rarity shifts with time and scholarship, consensus is affected by events - like a major retrospective at a national museum - which force scholars and collectors to reassess an artist or a movement. For example, throughout the nineteenth and most of the twentieth century, ukiyo-e collectors and commentators dismissed the work of the late Edo period as 'decadent', giving the greatest emphasis and scholarship to the 'classical period', ie prints from the the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as the drifting, sparse women of Utamaro and Haronobu. The works of Kuniyoshi were tolerated but widely dismissed for being vulgar. The work of Kunichika and Yoshitoshi was barely recognised right up until the late twentieth century. Happily, as contemporary scholars work to establish the reputations of these very great artists we can hope for a more balanced overview of Japanese art. Old habits linger however and the rarity, the age and the lingering sense of 'genius' mean that even a patchy Utamaro in very poor condition will command higher prices than a fine Kuniyoshi, despite evidence to the contrary.

So, what to look for. Condition remains paramount - within reason. It is pretty well impossible to find eighteenth century prints in pristine condition. The fugitive vegetable colours mean that even the best prints will have faded disastrously from their original state. The age of these prints means that greater handling and exposure will have had a major and detrimental effect. Even with highly collectible artists, if a print is torn, trimmed, scuffed, faded and creased its value will plummet to almost nothing. For nineteenth century artists it is preferable that the print be untrimmed or at least not trimmed into the image. This is more rare than most people imagine - the best preserved ukiyo prints were stored in albums and ironically these were trimmed to shape when they were bound. The crispness of the print is also important: the earlier in the edition, the sharper the lines on the wooden block will be and hence the sharper the lines andthe edges on the print. This is what is meant when dealers refer to 'early editions' and an early edition will also potentially have different colours and publishing information. In a series such as Yoshitoshi’s 32 Aspects of Women, the second edition without the three-colour cartouche (shown to the left) is worth less than half the value of the first edition with the three-colour cartouche (shown on the right). Sadly there are plenty of dealers on the internet who fail to specify late editions and charge early edition prices, snaring the unwary buyer.

Worse still are reprints - this is a particular problem with Hiroshige. Hiroshige was so popular during his life and following his death that the original blocks became worn beyond repair. For decades after his death, new blocks were carved by pasting an original print onto fresh timber and carving the image exactly through the paper making near identical copies. Whilst these were considered equally valid in Japan, in the West, with our different culture of authenticity, these prints have little or no value at all and yet are often sold as ‘original’ (for example on e-bay, where they are widely available, as shown to the left). It is wise to examine a small area of intense detail, mark for mark against a known example (such as the print to the right). Any deviation will indicate a late copy, as will the flatter and brighter colours and thicker paper.

It is important then, with all print artists, to get early editions, as little trimmed as possible and in the best condition possible - an example of a pristine print is the Kunichika shown to the bottom right. Some damage when working with fragile finite resources is inevitable. In general when collecting it is necessary to make a judgement of the value of a piece - its condition against its rarity and the beauty of the piece itself. An important, rare and beautiful print by Kuniyoshi will still be valuable even if it is slightly trimmed or has some damage. A minor print by Kunisada in poor condition - trimmed, and creased from a late edition will be worth comparatively little. In the end though it is down to the judgement and the preference of the individual. Collecting an entire series by a particular artist - Kuniyoshi’s ‘Treasury of the Loyal Retainers’ for example, will entail buying prints of widely varying quality over a long period of time and then up-trading periodically (selling on less good copies and substituting them with better editions) until a homogeneity is achieved.

At the end of the day, experience and personal preference is what distinguishes the purchases a collector makes. A little experience and some sensible caution are the basics, after that, the thrill of collecting is in the end the acquisition of a very personal knowledge about a very personal response to art. But do also beware of cheap deals and vague wording… the word ‘original’ is sometimes not enough.

Techniques in Japanese Prints IV - Bokashi

2011-10-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

Bokashi (shading)

Probably the most common advanced technique in woodblock prints is termed bokashi which means shading or transition. It is so universal in some artists' work that it seems barely noticeable but it nevertheless provides extraordinary variety and depth to a print as well as naturalistic tones within the grid of the black key lines and other colours.

The strip of dark blue sky at the top of most Hiroshige, which fades to sky blue and then white as it approaches the horizon is maybe the most identifiable use of bokashi. The technique is almost a signifier of Edo period landscape prints - so much so that it loses its primary purpose of naturalism and becomes a design motif or signifier of sky and recession.

Elsewhere in ukiyo-e, the method of shading is more subtle, less obvious or staggeringly complex as in the case of the illustrated Kunisada Secret Meetings by Moonlight. Normally, the woodblock itself is inked evenly (a skilled operation in itself) so that the raised and carved surfaces receive a uniform coat of ink. The block is first dampened, the ink applied and then carefully brushed to achieve even distribution. In bokashi the ink is applied in greater quantities where the strongest colour is desired and then subsequently less heavily where lighter shades are required. The brush marks and abrupt edges are then smoothed aside by gentle brushing in multiple directions. The whole process is made more difficult since the printer can barely see the progress of his work because of the dark colouration of the wood itself. When the desired shading has been achieved the paper is laid down and the print is made.

In some cases, several colours can be blended together at once to achieve what might be called a ‘rainbow’ effect as in the beautiful print of a musician by Kunichika illustrated here. Looking again at the Kunisada, the night-time grisaille effects produced by the overlapping gray shades, the delicate woodgrain and complete fading away of architectural detail in say the window bars is truly astonishing. It is very hard indeed to try to deconstruct the printing process, the order of the separate applications of ink and the number of separate tones achieved by overlapping the different inked blocks. This is one of the best examples of the technique that I have seen, the more so since the intention of the process and its role in the design and the meaning of the print are so important.

Bokashi was mainly a product of the nineteenth century boom in ukiyo-e, the process not being common in prints prior to that. Deluxe prints from the 1840’s onwards took advantage of this and the other specialist techniques to produce truly extraordinary prints that shimmered and sparkled with mica and metallic inks, complex shading and embossing on thick, luxury papers. For collectors, these luxury items are now highly sought after objects and with justification, because of the endless complexity of design the new techniques offered to the artist.

Techniques in Japanese Woodblock Prints III - Mica

2011-09-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

Printing With Mica (Kirazuri)

You may have come across Japanese prints which are described as having mica as a feature of a special or deluxe edition. There was a craze for mica prints in the late eighteenth century, most famously by the enigmatic and little known artist Toshusai Sharaku who was mysteriously active for one year only from 1794 - 1795. His caricature prints of actors of which only 140 are known have deeply pigmented and mica strewn backgrounds, so dense that the few prints that remain are invariably cracked and crazed with the effects of decades of rolling and creasing. Sharaku is one of the most expensive ukiyo-e artists; a single print by him was sold at auction in 1997 for $296,000. Utamaro (1753 - 1806) also used this difficult and time consuming technique.

Fewer deluxe prints were produced during the nineteenth century, presumably because of high demand and therefore pressure on production, but as the popularity of ukiyo-e declined from the 1870’s onward, the deluxe edition became popular again amongst aficionados and collectors. Mica prints remain some of the finest prints that were produced in Japan. Not only did they shimmer with reflective dust, they were printed onto thicker paper with complex designs and other expensive techniques such as embossing or burnishing.

Printing with mica (and sometimes metallic powders) was a difficult and highly skilled technique. The nature of the glue and the way it held the fine powders when mixed together was such that it tended to adhere to the block rather than transfer neatly to the paper. Consequently the block was firstly prepared with gum arabic, then dusted with mica using a fine brush. The paper was then printed, transferring a sandwich of glue and dust to the required area. Alternatively, the gum was printed directly onto the paper (sometimes through a stencil) and the mica powder was sieved onto the wet glue to be dusted off when the glue had dried.

Woodblock prints with a lot of mica still present are rare because of the tendency for the powder to wear off with time, as the gum becomes brittle and less ‘sticky’. Kunichika was particularly fond of mica in his prints, particularly on series such as the 100 roles of Baiko and the 100 roles of Ichikawa Danjuro. The very fine Danjuro print illustrated below has some of the best preserved kirazuri I have seen. This print and others by Kunichika are at Toshidama Gallery from the 23rd of September 2011.

Techniques in Japanese Woodblock Prints II

2011-09-02T12:01:00.000-07:00

Gauffrage, or Embossing.

I wanted to write these short explicatory notes to help people appreciate the terms and the techniques they might come across when viewing Japanese woodblock prints perhaps for the first time. It can be quite off-putting to tackle the specialist terminology, which is why at Toshidama Gallery we usually use plain words to describe process. Gauffrage is a case in point. It is common for a print to be described as having fine gauffrage on the cuffs of a jacket or the collar of a kimono but what does this French word have to do with Japanese prints?

Gauffrage is a hybrid word; French in origin, from gaufrer which means to emboss. This in turn has its origins in gaufre or honeycomb or waffle. In English it turns up as goffer which is a seventeenth century word meaning to crimp or plait in costumery. The word is used in the context of printmaking to mean blind embossing, a raised area of the print that is not necessarily coloured. If using a word in English other than embossing it might be better to choose the Japanese, karazuri which simply means ‘empty’ or ‘done without ink’.

The technique is simple enough, a carved area of the block is created as normal and the damp paper is laid over it and rubbed very hard with a smooth object or ‘burren’. This produces a sharply defined, raised area on the paper that will appear more or less apparent depending on the direction and source of the light. The effect is to bring life and dimension to the print - as your eyes move in relation to the surface more or less detail is revealed to you.

The technique is most common in Japanese prints of the Meiji era (1868 - 1912) although it has been used in manuscripts and other items as far back as the twelfth century, but it was really the enormous popularity of ukiyo prints in the late nineteenth century which allowed publishers and artists the license to produce lavish effects such as these.

The photographs here show three uses of embossing on a single print of Zi Luo reading by Moonlight from the series One Hundred Phases of the Moon by Yoshitoshi of 1888. In the first picture the series cartouche is deeply and sharply embossed with intersecting hexagons against which float the calligraphy of the title.

A quite different technique has been used to emboss the sack of rice that Zi Luo is carrying. It is possible that the texture was derived from stiff hessian material rather than carved wood since the embossing technique could employ any resistant textured surface as a pattern.

In the final example, the rough texture of the paper is used in the lower half of the print to evoke the rising mist. It appears that the rest of the paper has been flattened to create the contrast and hence the higher, raised edge.

In addition to the differing effects of the embossing, Yoshitoshi has used the most delicate gradations of shading and effects of colour to add realism, depth and surface incident to the composition. The result is a fine evocative print which seems effortlessly to demonstrate the range of the woodblock artist. This print and others by Yoshitoshi will be available in our new season show: 4 x 4 Giants of the Ukiyo Scene from September 23rd.

Coming up at the Toshidama Gallery

2011-08-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

As summer comes to an end and the beginning of the new season approaches, we'll be continuing our series on techniques in japanese prints with a look at gauffrage (embossing), looking into the relationship between Kuniyoshi and Kunisada's warrior prints as well as examining in depth some of the exciting new prints in the next show 4 x 4: Giants of the Ukiyo-e Scene, opening on the 23rd September.

In the meantime, it's worth taking a look at our Wordpress blog, which examines the cultural context of Japanese Prints. And at the Gallery, there's a retrospective show from the archives, with some substantial discounts (and an additional 15% for newsletter subscribers).

Enjoy the last days of summer!

Techniques in Japanese Woodblock Prints Part 1 - Shomen-zuri

2011-07-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

Burnishing, or Shomen-zuri

Woodblock printing in Japan, ukiyo-e, was quick to develop from the single-colour outline prints of the early eighteenth century and their hand-coloured counterparts into the multi-colour block prints of the nineteenth century. Sometimes described as embroidered pictures, these mid- and late-century prints present us with rich polychrome surfaces, pictures which use multiple coloured blocks that are double-printed, over-printed, shaded, burnished, embossed and sprinkled with shiny, reflective mica. I want to look in more detail at these techniques in the coming weeks through these short blog posts starting with a frequently used technique of burnishing or shomen-zuri.

The first picture (shown above) is a magnificent triptych portrait of the actor Ichikawa Danjuro IX by the artist Toyohara Kunichika and it dates from 1894. It’s quite a big image at 72cm x 38cm. The enlargement of the print shows the intricate carving of the lines of the hair and the masterful massing of the imposing figure set against the nearly empty background. However carefully shot though, something from this fine portrait is missing. Looking at the next image which was shot on the slant a sophisticated pattern of filigree flowers and leaves is revealed, this beautiful black on black design only revealing itself when held at an angle to the light. The pattern here has been burnished onto the background printing of the black tunic; this technique is what is called shomen-zuri.

To gain the intense black of the tunic, it is likely that a first ground of black would have been printed and then a second layer printed on top, possibly containing rice glue or gum. A block with the pattern carved in relief would have been placed under the printed area of tunic and the surface of the paper rubbed with a smooth, hard object - the preferred item being a polished boar’s tusk, or spoon. The constituents of the ink would encourage the shiny pattern to appear on the surface of the print. This technique was most commonly used on black areas and it lends the prints a great deal of depth. It has to remembered that in nineteenth century Japan there was not the same tradition of framing art and hanging it on a wall. Prints were designed to be held in albums or passed around; this way the different techniques would catch the light as they were being handled.

Techniques such as this were time consuming and therefore expensive to produce, and consequently are most commonly found on deluxe prints rather than playbills or large series. This beautiful portrait and others of Danjuro are available at the current exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery, Personalities of Edo: the Cult of Celebrity in Japanese Woodblock Prints until August.

Tall Tales and Japanese Woodblock Prints

2011-06-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

Benkei and Yoshitsune and the Fight at Gojo Bridge

Some stories persist; immune to cultural change, embroidered and adapted to different times, rising and falling in popularity and sometimes losing touch completely with their origins and their roots. None of this matters of course, what matters is what people make of a story, how cultures adapt mythology to suit their own needs or express their particular frustrations. In the west I’d think of King Arthur, the sixth century English tribal chief who has fulfilled everything from Anglo-Saxon desires for nationhood, the greed of the Glastonbury monks who faked his grave to attract pilgrims; or the Victorians who made him their great romantic saviour and the new-age people of today who see in him a mystical link to a lost and greener world.

So it is in all cultures but perhaps more so than any in the Edo culture of nineteenth century Japan. In Japanese woodblock prints, many legends and myths surface again and again in one disguise or another. The rich mythological history of Japan is the persistent thread that runs through the subject matter of the entire genre. The period was particularly volatile; economically, politically and socially. Japan had emerged at the beginning of the century as a robust bourgeois society, dominated by townsmen but mired in the shogunate - the samurai culture of the middle ages. The century-long struggle to adapt and face the new challenges of international trade was painful. Print artists like Utagawa Kuniyoshi or Utagawa Kunisada struggled to express the growing unrest of their audience in the face of punitive censorship laws aimed at quelling popular dissent. One way round the prohibitions was to make series of prints glorifying the deeds of the past, celebrating great warriors or heroes and illustrating the poems and myths of common popular culture. These history essays and genre pieces stood in for the real subjects of the prints which were often too controversial to be directly addressed.

Mitate was a common form of expression; it means "to stand in for" or "to satirise". To the urban Japanese mitate-e or satire prints were akin to the modern cryptic crossword puzzle whereby identities of actors or plays, historical figures or bandits were referred to obliquely by gesture, by objects such as flowers or else places and landmarks. In spite of their obscurity, the prints were quite readable by the well educated urban Japanese.

One such hero, pictured in hundreds of prints of the mid-nineteenth century is Oniwakamura known as Benkei. Born in 1155 and reputedly of enormous strength and vitality, Benkei was raised by monks who were both religious and military. As a young man he positioned himself at one end of Gojo Bridge and disarmed travellers of their swords. On reaching his 999th sword he fought with a young nobleman Minamoto no Yoshitsune who won the battle of the bridge and thereafter Benkei served as his principal retainer. They fought in the Gempei wars between the Taira clan and their own Minamoto clan. The conflict saw the destruction of the Taira clan and the establishment of a nationwide shogunate and the suppression of the power of the Emperor for 650 years until the Meiji Restoration in the 1860’s. Given the waning grip on power that the shogunate experienced in the nineteenth century, depictions of the rebel heroes Benkei and Yoshitsune no Minamoto were bound to be contentious; all the more given that after their military victories, they were hounded to his death by Yoshitsune's own brother who assumed supreme power.

Benkei and Yoshitsune represent hugely powerful symbols to the Japanese... heroes, warriors, rebels and men of principle. By representing them, artists ran the risk of glamourising the names of the men who were betrayed dishonourably by the infant shogunate. The fight at Gojo Bridge is maybe the most widely reproduced scene from the life of Yoshitsune. It is important to remember that this is a symbolic fight and not one between opposing powers. The fight, almost certainly mythical, sets out the future relationship between the two characters; it establishes their physical presence and their personalities. All the other stories that follow stem from this crucial coming together of the two heroes. I am reminded very powerfully of the English hero Robin Hood and his fight with Little John on the bridge in Sherwood Forest. These two myths are certainly the same archetype... the smaller man of noble birth defeats the giant on the bridge who has a heart of gold and swears fealty to the victor. Both Robin Hood and Minamoto are heroes pitched against unreasonable odds and the relationship between them and the stronger men is nearly identical. Like the Japanese, the English have allowed Robin Hood to enter their culture as a powerful symbol and like Minamoto his story continues to be retold and developed.

Toshidama Gallery is showing Heroes and Personalities in Japanese Prints from the 8th July 2011. Many of the Benkei prints on this page will be for sale as well as other depictions of great figures from history. The show runs until early September.

Bathers and Echoes in Japanese Prints and Beyond

2011-06-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

As regular readers will know, reference, allusion and quotation are an embedded part of Japanese visual culture. Indeed, the Chazen Museum of Art, Wisconsin recently put on a blockbuster show on this very theme, Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Tokugawa School. Sometimes the quotations are so clear and the similarity so great that it seems unacceptable to western eyes that this could be possible without law suits for plagiarism or intense jealousy and disagreement between artists.

In our current exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery, we are showing some beautiful prints by Toyohara Kunichika, which are a complex mitate-e, or parody on the theme of the famous Japanese novel The Tales of the Genji. One of the best pieces of this series, #9, Aoi is reproduced to the left. Kunichika produced this piece in 1884 and yet one doesn’t need a Masters in Art History to be immediately aware of the similarity to the Utagawa Kunisada panel from a triptych of the 1840’s (shown right). The Kunisada is a fairly straightforward depiction; the Kunichika - alluding to his teacher’s previous work - connects the image to a chapter likening the development of Prince Genji’s twelve year old bride to the blooming of seaweed. Kunichika is able to use both literary and visual allusion to add layers of meaning to his ‘parodic’ version of the story. A highly literate and knowing audience of townspeople would have known this and appreciated the play on words.

These nods and winks don’t stop with artists of the same school or even the same continent. Readers will be aware of how important ukiyo-e were to the development of impressionist and post-impressionist painters and how that in turn influenced early modernists - big names such as van Gogh, Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse. It’s interesting to look at the examples on this page and to see perhaps how little Cezanne and Matisse used western painting tradition and how much of a debt they owed to these Japanese examples. Interestingly, van Gogh owned a copy of the Kunisada triptych and it is not fanciful to suppose that Cezanne would therefore have been aware of this and others from the series in Gogh’s collection.

Of course Kunisada didn’t invent the gracious form of the ama divers either as the 18th century Utamaro pictured below demonstrates. Interesting to note also is the pictorial space in Japanese prints, which is inherently flat. The sea in both the Utamaro and the Kunisada is a pictorial rather than a realistic representation. There is no recession or spatial depth opened up in the picture - in western art the sea is a key device to create deep recession in pictorial space - in the Kunisada the sea begins in the left panel as a background to the diver but travels into the centre panel as a purely flat, graphic device. In the ukiyo-e pieces the figure is then released to observe only pictorial rules rather than representational ones. Focus on representation has underpinned western art since the sixteenth century; to artists such as Cezanne and van Gogh or Picasso and Matisse, the revelation of an internal aesthetic in ukiyo prints must have offered the chance of liberation from centuries of tradition.

In the Matisse, as in the Kunisada, the sea is rendered without perspective and in decorative bands of colour. The figures too primarily serve expressive purpose, making no attempt to render anatomy. Crucially, the ukiyo-e, the Matisse and the Cezanne are picturing a lost Eden of casual nakedness, relaxation and nature - something that Japan was then famous for, or as Matisse would famously put it in his 1904 painting: Luxe, calme et volupté.

Looking at Prints - Two Women and a Dog by Utagawa Toyohiro

2011-05-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

What can we tell of this brush drawing by Toyohiro? The drawing tells us a great deal about the process of Japanese woodblock printing and raises questions which everyone has about authenticity and process.

This drawing is from the early 1800’s by the highly sought after woodblock artist Utagawa Toyohiro. It shows two women in front of Mount Fuji; a dog in its exuberance has knocked the right hand lady off her feet and her hair pins and pipe have gone flying. It is possible that there is some coded sexual meaning in the scene but it is difficult to say for sure since there appears to be no record of the print for which this drawing should have been a preparation. It is an astonishing tour-de-force, drawn freehand and with brushes, the lines exuding confidence and delicacy. The piece is in the archaic manner, sitting between the early style of the Utagawa School and the eighteenth century mannerism of Utamaro.

But how can we be sure that this is by the hand of the great artist himself? We can’t is the short answer. This uncertainty underpins the issue of authenticity across the whole genre of Japanese art, which is in a wholly different tradition to western art of the last two hundred years. We in the west place a heavy emphasis on romantic notions of originality, of genius, of individualism and of authenticity. This is less the case in the tradition of Japanese art where there was no corresponding Romantic Revolution propelling individuals to the status of men touched by God.

Of originality, we can clearly see in so many woodblock prints the wholesale copying of scenes, landscapes, styles etc from one artist to another, something abhored here in the west. Even artists' names become endlessly conferred from studio to studio as in kabuki theatre; individuals would take either the entire name of their teacher or syllables from two teachers to construct a new title... for example Kunisada I, Kunisada II, Kunisada III or Kunitoshi and so on. Established artists ran informal studios with apprentice artists coming and going and these apprentices were likely to become closely involved in the production of prints, as were the printing studios whose job it was to interpret the original drawing for the process of printing.

Let’s take a look at the whole process. The artists, in this case Toyohiro would produce a master drawing in black ink using brushes. A skilled assistant called a hikko would then trace the original drawing several times and these would then go back to the artist for approval. This tracing (called a hanshita) would then be subject to corrections. What is fascinating about this Toyohiro is the correction in the face of the right hand figure. This suggests that the drawing is either an original which Toyohiro has corrected himself or else a hanshita that he has corrected after its creation but prior to printing. Either way one can be fairly certain that this drawing is by the hand of Utagawa Toyohiro at least in part.

It’s not possible to say why this piece has survived since the next part of the process is for the hanshita to be glued face down to a wooden block and the areas of white paper and the wood beneath to be carved away leaving the black lines in relief. The washi paper of this piece is nearly transparent to facilitate this process. The carved block would then have been inked and several black line sheets (kyogo-zuri) were printed and then passed back to the artist for approval. Each of these proofs were then in turn pasted onto blocks and each separate colour block carved from these. Finally the edition of prints was manufactured, each print using several blocks, some printed several times to increase depth of colour or else brushed in gradations of colour to produce different, graded effects.

I would conclude that this drawing is probably a hanshita which has been corrected in person by Utagawa Toyohiro but then abandoned. For the western obsession with authenticity this is quite important since at least the artist’s hand has had direct contact with the work which is oddly more than can be said for the subsequent prints. For some reason, these pieces do not attract the attention that they deserve despite being (in western terms) more original. In the end though this is a superb and exquisite drawing more than two hundred years old, unique, original and breathtakingly beautiful.

The drawing Two Women and a Dog by Utagawa Toyohiro will be featured in the forthcoming exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery, A Century of Women, from the 27th May 2011. The drawing is priced at £360.

A superb explanatory film of the woodblock process is available here, courtesy of wesleyan.edu

Of Men and Umbrellas - Kasa-obake in Hirosada’s Woodblock Print

2011-04-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

What a fantastic image we have here. Who is it, what is it, what does it mean? At first glance I suppose that this looks like a diffident man poking his head through the battered sides of a Japanese parasol.

This is a representation of a kabuki actor in the role of Kasa Ippon ashi or Kasa-obake - the "one legged umbrella demon". The demon is an artefact spirit or Tsukumogami - that is, an object that is over one hundred years old and according to belief has become imbued with a life force being both alive and aware. These spirit objects are similar in many ways to our belief in poltergeists. Like poltergeists they are playful and mischievous but rarely malign, although they become more angry when they witness needless waste which should make them popular with the current trend for recycling!

When not on the kabuki stage these sprites are pictured with one leg and an incredibly long tongue. Although they are traditional folklore creatures, they have enjoyed a resurgent popularity in the twentieth century. This is partly to do with the video gaming industry which tirelessly seeks out bizarre figures and outlandish plotlines. As you will see from some of the illustrations Kasa-obake now turns up as avatars, plastic toys, cartoon characters, and movie stars. The Hirosada woodblock print picture above is the first instance that we can find anywhere of a representation of the demon although I’d be fascinated to know if there exists an earlier one.

For those interested in Yokai, (Japanese demons) I recommend the movie trilogy Yokai daisenso ("Big Ghost War: Spook Warfare") Japan 1968, dir. Yoshiyuki Kuroda; Yokai Hyaku Monogatari ("One Hundred Monsters") Japan 1968, dir. Kimiyoshi Yasuda; and Tôkaidô obake dôchû ("Along With Ghosts") Japan 1969, dir. Yoshiyuki Kuroda; or Takashi Miike’s recent Yôkai daisensô ("Great Yokai War") 2005. Kasa-obake makes a hugely entertaining appearance in these films, a clip of which can be seen here on youtube.

Kasa-obake make an appearance in Super-Mario Land 2 and in Muramasa - the Demon Blade; they also have a starring role in the great Manga series Gegege no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki.

This unique print remains a superb and enigmatic image; the first depiction we can find of the umbrella demon. Beautifully printed and sensitively rendered it emanates a quiet mystery. It is a beautiful object and is available at the Toshidama Gallery for only £225.

Giant Spiders - Obscure Meanings in Japanese Prints Part I

2011-04-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

Arachnophobes - which I’m afraid includes me! - should look away now. Ukiyo-e is littered with the corpses and the dripping fangs of over-sized and fantastical spiders. Something one notices immediately is how similar they all look and also how dissimilar to any ordinary spider one might have come across. Not only in their size; you will also notice that most only have two eyes and six legs instead of the correct number of eight. Why is this and what is the ukiyo-e fascination with them?

There is some discussion over the creature known as Tsuchigumo, (the gigantic spider). The name translates as ‘ground spider’ and there has been a great deal of speculation about the relationship between the myth of the spider and an aboriginal race of people who supposedly lived in the north of Japan. The Koropok-Guru or Pit Dwellers of Northern Japan were a distinct racial group who dwelt in underground pits until around the 6th century and were anathema to the incoming races that form the dominant group of peoples in recent times. It seems as though these pit dwellers (also called Tsuchigumo) were wiped out by the incoming Ainu peoples whose roots are in Russia. The Ainu still form a distinctive racial group in modern Japan, finally recognised as such towards the end of the twentieth century.

It is possible, (although not proven) that the Tsuchigumo of myth is some kind of retelling of these ancient battles. Most of the research that backs up this theory is over one hundred years old and not entirely reliable. At any rate, the Tsuchigumo we are concerned with primarily appears in the story of Minamoto no Raiku. In this great myth the hero Raiko is busy investigating the appearance of gigantic floating skulls. During this quest Raiko falls ill and is confined to bed and ministered to by either a young servant boy, a beautiful woman or a priest depending which you believe. A retainer of Raiko suspects the boy, and his true identity as that of the giant spider is revealed. A chase ensues and there is a fight in a cave in which Raiko kills the beast who then erupts with enormous spiderlings which are in turn destroyed.
Kuniyoshi made many great prints of Tsuchigumo and it is useful to compare the Kuniyoshi version of 1845 with say, Kunichika’s masterly triptych of 1866. You will notice that despite the intervening twenty years, there is little or no difference in the rendering of the great spider. The comparison illustrates perfectly the normality of ukiyo-e artists in appropriating each others work for commercial and artistic ends. Ideas of copyright or intellectual property were completely absent in nineteenth century Japan leading to a huge pool of imagery that was copied, modified, recycled and embellished. There is something enviable in this humility and esprit de corps that is quite different from recent western regard for individual genius. The Japanese are no less creative, abundant or disregarded for their tradition and it is refreshing to see such great art that is free from the tiresome hubris of lonely genius touched by God.

Nevertheless to our eyes the myth has been responsible for any number of entertaining images and there is little doubt that the tradition of Tsuchigumo has informed recent graphic and literary output, especially in Japan where the imagery has migrated right across the diverse platforms of manga, anime and computer video games.

We have the most widely reproduced Kuniyoshi Tsuchigumo on sale at the gallery for £325 in the current exhibition and other arachnid images from our archives for those interested in the subject. The exhibition runs until 27th May 2011.

The Care of Japanese Prints

2011-04-05T12:08:00.000-07:00

It’s important to know what to do with prints when you buy them; these are after all rare and valuable things and a long term investment. People collect ukiyo-e for a variety of reasons; some are collectors with a real passion for the subject or for a particular artist, others appreciate the art but also wish to amass a substantial portfolio of work which can be realised... sold on some years later for profit. Investment is the key driver in the market and Japanese woodblock prints are fast becoming valuable commodities and a good hedge against inflation.

Given that some prints are very valuable indeed, the question is what to do with them when you have them. At Toshidama Gallery we acquire prints from sources all over the world, and more often than not they arrive rolled in cardboard tubes, or folded loose in a padded bag, and backed with all the wrong papers and mounts. The first thing we do is try to remedy these problems to prevent further damage.

There are two schools of thought with regard to the safe storage of prints. Some people feel strongly about not mounting prints; while others, like ourselves, take the long view that if properly mounted, the print is kept flat, easily managed and better protected for long term storage. At Toshidama the first thing we do is to remove prints from inappropriate mounts and flatten them if they have suffered curling. We never join triptychs but nor do we separate them if they have been previously joined.

Prints should be mounted professionally using rice paper conservation tape which these days is fully reversible. The board should be acid free conservation mounts since the acid in ordinary card will encourage the print to yellow and go brittle. Window mounts in the same material definitely enhance the look of a print but also protect the surface from contact by other sheets. Finally, we store prints in acid free mylar protective conservation sleeves which prevent humidity changes and protect against accidental damage. This is how our prints are shipped; flat-packed in custom, stiffened mailers, ready to be stored directly by the client or framed for display. This saves the purchaser a huge amount of work, who otherwise would have to source a conservation framer to carry out the same job. Prints should be stored out of direct sunlight either flat or vertically and sensible precautions should be taken to avoid damp or mildew.

We recommend that the prints are kept as they are. However the outer frame dimensions can easily be changed without detaching the print from its backing. Early vegetable-dyed prints (pre-1830) should rarely be exposed to light without full spectrum museum quality UV protection glass. Later prints are more hardy and the inexpensive, lesser grade UV glass can be used. We generally use simple dark stained oak frames for ukiyo-e prints. The recent British Museum and Royal Academy Kuniyoshi exhibition used more or less identical frames to our own.The Toshidama Gallery is always happy to advise on conservation matters and to supply framed prints if clients request them.

Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) Fight on Benkei's Bridge, 1860

2011-03-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

There’s a lot of history and myth making to catch up with in this very fine print. First of all, what is it... what’s going on... how do we find out more? Well, what we can see is two strong men against a dark background fighting on a bridge. The man on the right, seems to have an unfair advantage - he’s much bigger than his opponent and he’s wielding a sword whereas the figure on the left only has a length of bamboo. We might wonder who will win, or indeed who is the aggressor.

Only a very little knowledge is needed to find out about more this print. For a start it might be an idea to identify the artist. Kunisada has a very distinctive signature and is seen here in the Toshidama cartouche in red and yellow. The scene of two men fighting on a bridge is a common subject in ukiyo-e and usually depicts the fight between the heroes Benkei and Minamoto no Yoshitsune, one of the great folk tales of Japanese history.

First, a little background. Saitō Musashibō Benkei was a warrior monk, who lived in 12th century Japan. It is said that he was brought up by monks, was famously strong and tall and that he was a great fighter. When he was seventeen, he became a yamabushi, (a mountain monk) and positioned himself at Gojo Bridge, relieving travellers of their swords before allowing them to cross. His one thousandth victim was Yoshitsune. Yoshitsune was also brought up by monks and was a skillful swordsman; his older brother Yoritomo became head of the Minamoto clan and together they went on to defeat the Taira clan in what is known as the Genpei war of 1180. Where myth and history part company is the tale of Yoshitsune being trained in martial arts by the tengu, mythical half-bird, half-man creatures skilled in martial arts.

The print depicts Benkei with sword and Yoshitsune on the left about to engage in the famous duel. Yoshitsune won the duel and Benkei failed to win his one thousandth consecutive sword. Instead he became Yoshitsune’s loyal retainer, dying with him at the battle of the Koromo river. Yoshitsune is usually depicted much slighter than he is here and Benkei more fearsome; as it is Kunisada has shown Yoshitsune as heavily tattooed, which is again a break from tradition.

Benkei’s final stand - defending the bridge to the castle where his master and family were committing suicide - is also legendary. This last act of courage is widely known as the ‘standing death of Benkei’. It is said that he was so pierced with arrows that his attackers feared to approach him. When they eventually summoned the courage they discovered that Benkei had died standing up. There is a nice resonance with this in modern western culture in the image of the death of Boromir from the 2001 movie of The Fellowship of the Ring. Clearly the persistent image of loyalty and sacrifice has a powerful meaning across all cultures.

This print is available at Toshidama Gallery for £370 less 10% for newsletter subscribers.

What To Look For In A Japanese Print

2011-02-11T02:45:00.000-08:00

When most people first start to look at Japanese woodblock prints I suppose that they are struck by the colours or the force of the design, a nagging familiarity or perhaps a sense just of beauty and rightness. Certainly it was this ‘rightness’ that first attracted me to owning these lovely things.

But none of these works of art were produced for their own sake. There are very few scenic pictures in ukiyo-e... there are landscapes but more often than not these served as pictorial guides to famous routes or else as backdrops for actor portraits. Most prints have a story to tell and it’s this aspect of the art that I find so fascinating. Not many people in the west can read Japanese and I have many Japanese friends who find it equally difficult to decipher meaning from these pictures, so where to start?

Most prints conform to sets of rules and the easiest of these to disentangle are the cartouches... the small panels of writing dotted over the surface. Looking at the print opposite, The Modern Comparison of the Thirty-six Poets, we can see how these can give us a greater understanding of the print. (Click image for a larger version.)

The prints in this series compare poets with flowers but in this print we see a portrait of the famous actor Sawamura Tossho II, so what’s going on? What this print is really illustrating is the story of Ume no Yoshibei, a Robin Hood character or otokadate. These were street gangs, the forerunners of the modern day yakuza, who were said to protect people from lawless samurai. In the play, Yoshibei murders a young man for money and during the fight, Yoshibei’s finger is bitten off. The victim turns out to be the brother of Yoshibei’s wife Kuomi. Kuomi finds Yoshibei’s finger in her dead brother's mouth and realises that he has been murdered by her husband. She kills herself in grief, having cut off her own finger. But how do we know that this is Yoshibei? Any theatre lover of Edo (the old name for Tokyo) would have recognised the white herons and black crows on the kimono of Ume no Yoshibei. These devices symbolize innocence and bad luck respectively. This pattern immediately identifies the character of Yoshibei and hence the well known story of tragic violence.

Looking again at the print of Yoshibei, the big box in the top right of the print contains the series title and the print title. The odd shape to the left in red and yellow is Kunisada’s signature and is quickly recognisable. Underneath that is a date and censor seal and beneath that is the carver's seal in yellow and the publisher's seal in white. So, what has this print told us? It is a print by Utagawa Kunisada from June 1862. It was carved by hori Ota Tashichi and published by Hiranoya Shinzo and pictures the famous actor Sawamura Tossho II as the robber Yoshibei, at the same time making a comparison between a modern poet and the flower in the cartouche above.

There are many good books available that carry this kind of information. The Japanese were excellent record keepers so this knowledge is thankfully not lost. The internet, too, provides an excellent resource of detailed knowledge if you know where to look. By putting, ‘herons and crows in kabuki’ into Google for example you will find a link on page one from the excellent kabuki21, identifying Yoshibei. Ukiyo-e signatures are available on many other sites, and so on. Building up knowledge of a print and what exactly it represents is one of the great joys of collecting.

Vampire Cats and Evil Women

2011-02-01T05:15:00.000-08:00

5% off Kunichika at Toshidama Gallery

2011-01-20T11:55:00.000-08:00

Toshidama Gallery newsletter subscribers are now benefitting from regular offers on purchases of Japanese prints at Toshidama Gallery. For the remainder of January and February, newsletter subscribers can have a 5% discount on all the woodblock prints in our current show: Kunichika at The Toshidama Gallery. The newsletter is issued every six weeks or so, you can subscribe here at the gallery and we will not share subscriber details with others and you won’t receive spam and reminders from us either. We look forward to adding you to our mailing list.

The Genius of Hirosada

2011-01-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

The current exhibition of Japanese prints at the Toshidama Gallery looks at portraits of the kabuki stage. Amongst the pictures on show are several by the artist Konishi Hirosada (ca. 1810-1864). Originally known as Sadahiro, he changed the order of the syllables in his name in 1847.

Hirosada was the leading artist of the Osaka School of printmaking in the mid 19th century. His favoured format was the chuban print (19 x 25 cm) and it is sometimes said that he was a commercial artist and that the smaller print size favoured advertising bills and handouts. Hirosada put far too much into these prints, technically and artistically, for them to have been theatre bills alone. Almost all of his actor prints are scrupulously designed and lavish in production. More often than not the prints used metallic pigments, embossing and burnishing. These lustrous, jewel like prints are closer to English Renaissance drawings in their quality, their brevity and their completeness of design than they are to theatre playbills.

In his theatre portraits he plays delightfully with the tension between flat theatrical space and subtly realised forms and expressions. In the print Onoe Tamizo II as Torii Matasuke we see the troubled Matasuke who has been tricked into killing his master’s wife. This is a study of great subtlety depicting an honourable man whose fate (suicide) awaits him. Within the conventions of the woodblock medium Hirosada conveys Matasuke’s dignity and trustedness but the eyes are troubled and the black background is heavy with foreboding. The delicately realised hand raised hesitatingly to his face opens the space between the flatness of the kimono and the picture surface. The figure is caught in indecision, the eyes gaze to the mid distance, the mouth slumps in dismay. It is an exquisite work which treads a fine line between flat decoration and expressive strength.

By way of comparison we’ve included Holbein’s portrait drawing of Sir Richard Southwell from 1536. It’s interesting to compare both artists’ sparse use of line and emphasis on the face at the expense of other detail. Although the styles are very different, both pictures display insight into the personality of the sitters with equal depth and equal brevity.

Onoe Tamizo II as Torii Matasuke is for sale until the 17th of January at the Toshidama Gallery.

Toshidama Seals in Japanese Prints

2010-12-13T12:17:00.000-08:00

Most people who look at Japanese woodblock prints will have come across a curious round seal next to the signature. The seal which takes a variety of forms is called the Toshidama Seal and was habitually used by the artists of the Utagawa School of printmakers in the nineteenth century. These artists so dominated the woodblock scene that the seal in one form or another has become pretty ubiquitous for prints of the period.

So what is it and what does it mean? Initially celebrating religious ceremonies to the god of the year, it is a good luck symbol and in its original circular form it depicts a screw of cloth containing small gifts of money to be given to children on the occasion of the new year, hence the four lumps in the circular ring.

The symbol was first used by the artist Toyokuni I in perhaps 1809. There’s no evidence as to why he used it nor why it became associated informally with the school. However it is only shortly afterwards that Kunisada (later Toyokuni III) adapted the symbol and made it more or less his own. In the bulk of Kunisada’s work, the conventional round symbol has been elongated and is normally printed in yellow with a red infill. Kunisada signs his name and often a phrase such as, “from the brush of...” or “drawn by...”. From 1850 onwards almost all of his prints have the signature enclosed by a Toshidama cartouche.

Toyohara Kunichika who was a pupil of Kuniyoshi used the conventional round cartouche in pretty well every print until his death in 1898.

At some point the Toshidama became an embedded and popular New Year gift for children, a tradition that continues to this day in Japan. These days instead of rice cakes or coins in a cloth, parents make gifts of mint bank notes, folded and placed in specially designed envelopes that are printed with cartoon characters or emblems of Daruma, the pine tree or the plum which are all emblems of good luck like the ones illustrated below.

Japanese Prints Top Sunday Times Wish List

2010-12-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

It’s very gratifying to see Japanese prints gaining recognition in the National press... twice in the same paper. Singled out for particular attention as ART BOOK OF THE YEAR is: Hiroshige: One Hundred Famous views of Edo by Melanie Trede and Lorenz Bichler, Taschen £27.99.

Well known English art critic Frank Whitford writes: “I simply love this book. It faithfully reproduces on a single page, at a size close to the originals, 119 woodblock prints that Hiroshige designed in the last two years of his life, redefining the landscape not only for Japanese art but for such Europeans as Whistler, Monet and Van Gogh, who copied or were inspired by them.”

In his ‘pick of the best’, he goes on to describe Hokusai by Matthi Forrer (Prestel) as: “almost the most desirable volume on my own Christmas shopping list.”

We are currently planning an exhibition of Japanese prints on the 53 stations of the Tokaido Road for next year which will feature several prints by Hiroshige amongst other outstanding ukiyo-e artists.

David Bowie... Pop Goes Kabuki

2010-11-23T03:43:00.000-08:00

Ukiyo-e artists have used kabuki, (traditional Japanese theatre) as subject matter for their woodblock prints more or less since its inception in the seventeenth century. David Bowie started experimenting with kabuki for his stage shows in 1973. By the time of his Aladdin Sane tour he was wearing actual kabuki costumes and using kabuki stage props and masks. The long extract below deals with Bowie’s debt to kabuki and is taken from the excellent “Ziggy Stardust Companion”.

"In the West, Japan was traditionally viewed as an 'alien' culture, at least in the way that it was represented in the tabloids. It was often crudely caricatured as an incomprehensible, rule-bound society in which ritual humiliation was the order of the day for its citizens. Bowie's Ziggy dignified Japanese culture and showed him open to ideas outside Anglo-American rock. Bowie helped internationalise pop, starting a long-running fascination with the East. The result of this kabuki appropriation, was a violent clash between the logic of the rock gig (connection and camaraderie) and that of kabuki theatre (stately though garish formality).

"The use of kabuki styles in rock performance was an innovation. Some of the costumes for the Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane shows were actually first used in kabuki theatre, others were designed for Bowie by Kansai Yamamoto, again based on traditional designs. The overall visual effect of these shows was that of a blurring of 'found' symbols from science-fiction space-age high heels, glitter suits and the like - with kabuki-style garments whose effect was to signify the codes of another culture, one alien to Western society. In the context of the times, Bowie's appropriation of kabuki theatre was, for a Western pop audience, in equal measure unsettling and fascinating. And kabuki was innovative and cool: for instance the Mawaributai - a revolving stage now a staple in some glitzy rock shows - was invented in Japan almost 300 years ago.

"In kabuki theatre, all parts, both men and women, are played by men. Its androgynous nature was elevated by Bowie to a position of fundamental importance. It was the kabuki aesthetic of visual excess, its garish though formal juxtaposition of colours, which attracted Bowie while he was drawing the Ziggy character. The heavily made-up red or gold lips, black eye-liner and blusher, set against the whitened pallor of the rest of the face, echoed the make-up used in kabuki theatre. The constant changing of costume, so evident in both the Ziggy and Aladdin Sane stage shows, also had its origins in kabuki. A change of kimono meant a change of personality."

The Toshidama Gallery has a new show devoted to kabuki performances and actor portraits, many of which foreshadow our contemporary delight in pop excess. The show runs until the new year.

Women and the Floating World

2010-11-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

I guess it is to be both anticipated and regretted that the women of Japan who were once the great writers and poets and priestesses, not to say robbers and warriors of their culture, should have been reduced by the middle of the nineteenth century to the status of ornament and prostitute. They became ritualised and mimicked, exploited and feared, bound by convention... however, strong women - or at least the illusion of strong women - are still evident in the art of ukiyo-e; the Japanese woodblock prints of 18th and 19th century Japan.

More often than not, real women, powerful women, make an appearance in ukiyo-e art only as cautionary tales, or else as paragons of feminine virtue and piety. I’m thinking here of Kunichika’s series 36 Good and Evil Beauties... women to be revered as saints or feared as demons. But by far the most common depiction of women of the time is either in prints of the kabuki stage or as prostitutes... geisha or courtesans if you prefer. Both these models remain insincere. In the first instance because there were no kabuki roles for women and these prints, beautiful and seductive as they are, depict onnagata or female impersonators representing the female characters.

In the second case, the activities of the courtesans took place within the walled city of the Yoshiwara, a pleasure quarter not subject to the normal rules of society and living its own life, by its own clock and with often brutal consequences. The Yoshiwara, a sort of cross between the Vatican and the Reeperbahn had for centuries catered to the desires of men for mistresses, for theatre, for indulgence of any kind... it was only here and even then within strict codes of behaviour, that women could find leverage in an otherwise male society. In the art of ukiyo-e, as in so much Western art, real women are really only an illusion.

Illustrated here are Kunichika’s portrait of the “Evil Omatsu” from 36 Good and Evil Beauties; a woman who poisoned her wealthy husband. Below is Yoshitoshi’s “Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners: Looking itchy - The Appearance of a Kept Woman of the Kansei Era (1789-1801) Number 16.”

The Army beneath the Waves

2010-11-12T11:50:00.000-08:00

We’re showing two prints in the current exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery which commemorate the battle of Dan-no-ura from 1185. This legend is part historical fact, part myth and part ghost story. Interestingly, it is also the subject of a debate about the laws of natural, (or unnatural) selection.

The sea battle was the culmination of a war that would decide who ruled Japan for the next seven hundred years. Two opposing factions, the Minamoto and the Taira (Heike) clans faced each other in fleets off the coast of Japan on April the 25th, 1185. The Taira had with them the seven year old Emperor and his family; the Minamoto were led by the legendary warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune. The turning point in the ferocious battle came when a senior Taira general defected to the Minamoto and identified the ship containing the child Emperor Antoku and his family. The Minamoto archers turned their arrows on the flagship, sending it out of control. As the battle turned against them, sensing defeat, Antoku and his grandmother jumped to their deaths saying, "in the depths of the ocean we have a capital;" followed shortly by their loyal Taira samurai.

The Taira threw the crown jewels overboard with them. The royal sword was never recovered. At the close of the engagement, the warrior Taira Norimori placed a heavy anchor on his armour and followed the rest into the sea. Norimori, clutching the anchor is a popular and enduring image of this encounter.

The defeat signaled the end of the Empire and the imposition of the Shogunate until 1868 when the Meiji Emperor was restored, though the child-emperor beneath the waves has continued to be revered up to the present day.

It is said that the Taira ghosts still haunt the sea and the site of the battle is host to a particular species of crab, the Heike crab, named after the old royal family. As you’ll see from the picture, the shells of these crabs bear an uncanny resemblance to the face of a Samurai warrior. We’ve put in a link to a video by Carl Sagan that nicely proposes that the crabs have developed this startling look through human selection... in other words, since the most visible ‘Samurai’ crabs are thrown back into the sea through fear of the Taira ghosts, it is these mutations that get to prosper.

Gauguin in Print

2010-10-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

...or maybe that should be prints in Gauguin...Japanese prints, that is. There’s a big show of Paul Gauguin’s paintings at the Tate Gallery in London this month. He’s a little overlooked compared to contemporaries such as Van Gogh so the current show comes as a welcome revival. The huge influence of Japanese prints in the work of both artists should not be underestimated. Van Gogh made direct copies of Hiroshige prints, writing to his brother that, "this day I have found something wonderful that I shall surely copy," but it is perhaps less well known that Gauguin also made copies of Japanese prints as in the two paintings illustrated.

Woodblock prints were used to pack trade goods towards the end of the nineteenth century. The flat areas of colour, the perspective and the unusual compositions chimed with the young artists of Europe and were quickly assimilated with the innovations of Cezanne and the Impressionists to make a modern, symbolist art that was more sensuous, more decadent and more abstract than the European tradition. All of this is very evident in these two pictures. Gauguin’s debt is clear enough in the painted copies of the prints and the flattened space of the later painting, as is his debt to Cezanne in the brushstrokes and composition.

Surely though, his later paintings from Tahiti display all the characteristics of the floating world... the lazy, sexual undercurrent, the panoramas of available women, the absence of the modern day and the explicit suggestion of pleasure, all laid out frieze-like on the canvas against a background of flat colour or worked pattern.

I’ve done a bit of research to identify the prints in these paintings... the later still life depicts a print by Utagawa Yoshiiku from 1864 of the actor Ichikawa Kodanji playing the hunter Nagohe with his wild white hair and a spear in his hand. The other painting shows an actor print by Kunisada. We are showing two warrior prints by Yoshiiku in the current exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery along with other major artists of the Utagawa School.

Japanese Prints. Why? (2)

2010-10-07T12:13:00.000-07:00

Warrior, courtesan, witch, wizard, demon, actor, ghost... what’s not to like? For English readers there’s a show of Japanese prints opening in Oxford called Japanese Ghosts and Demons: Ukiyo-e prints from the Ashmolean. Toshidama Gallery is showing some of these artists in our opening exhibition.

We’re showing this very fine print of the actor Ichikawa Danjuro as the ghost of the betrayed wife Uwanari by Kunichika, from 1898. She comes back from the dead to haunt her philandering husband through the ghost of her daughter. The picture on the left is a rare nineteenth century photograph of Danjuro... without the mask! The Hannya mask is said to be dangerous and demonic, but also sorrowful and tormented. The print is in near perfect condition and sparkles with mica dust and embossed details.

The show opens on the 7th of October and runs for six weeks. It features works by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, Toyohiro, Kunisada, Yoshitoshi, Yoshiiku and others. There are landscapes, demons, warriors, heroes, beautiful women, actors and giant fish! The work is all museum quality, archive mounted and safe shipped. You can browse the show... buy greetings cards and purchase with confidence using our secure online payment gateway.

We love this work, we think it’s important and we hope you will also appreciate it. Over the next few weeks we’ll be introducing the world of Edo Japan, through art work of the period and showcasing individual prints, their background, their history and the stories behind them.

Japanese Prints. Why?

2010-10-03T11:44:00.000-07:00

Some people say, ‘why Japanese prints?’... or, ‘it’s a bit niche isn’t it?’ Well, yes and no. The market for Japanese prints is large. Pensive Love, 1790, by Utamaro fetched €313,00 at auction in 2002. A fine Hiroshige can sell for up to $30,000 at the moment. There are major sales by all the big auction houses twice a year, and all the major international museums have large collections and put on regular exhibitions. Ukiyo-e, or pictures of the floating world, are a major art form, they are a good solid investment and the market is stable and rising. Most of all they’re simply unbelievably beautiful.

The nice thing about collecting Japanese prints is that the period is fairly confined, the artists are very consistent and the prices are mainly affordable. It’s still within most budgets to purchase a first edition Kuniyoshi and see it in a major exhibition or illustrated in a text book.
The key thing, as in all art collecting is to love the work, love the artist... become involved in their world, their dreams, their obsessions. The Utagawa School is a good place to start. The work of these artists is popular, available and accessible, there are plenty of text books available and a lot of good online source material. We can point you in the direction of online resources if you see something you like and want to find out more about it. This blog is intended to open the window on an art form, and a world of decadence and mystery gone for ever.

Illustrated is Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners: Looking itchy - The Appearance of a Kept Woman of the Kansei Era, 1888, from the current exhibition at the Toshidama Gallery. It’s a ‘trophy piece’, if you like. It’s a very famous print; a Google search will take you to it as a large image on Wikipedia and it tends to be the representative image of this artist. It is a fine and knowing piece of drawing and a fine example of the skill of the printmaker.

Toshidama Gallery - Welcome

2010-09-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to the Toshidama Gallery blog. We’ve been dealing privately in 18th and 19th century Japanese prints for a while and felt that it was the right time to have a gallery online, and with as much access as possible. The new site will be open on the 5th of October. We’ll be having exhibitions with works for sale, videos, a shop for cards and such like and as time goes by, an archive and catalogue archive so please visit the gallery, enjoy what you see and purchase a work of art if you see something that you like or that intrigues you. E-mail us if you have a question about something or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube or Myspace.

We want to make this extraordinary, magical, world as open to as many people as possible. We don’t want to be stuffy or unwelcoming at all... art can seem off-putting and difficult but we want to show you that you can invest, however modestly, in original artwork, at reasonable cost, that brings with it history, uniqueness and a window onto a world that is unimaginable to us now.

We look forward to seeing you. Unlike most Japanese print galleries online, we have a secure payment gateway. We want the experience of seeing, of enjoying and of purchasing to be as straightforward as possible.

This print above is by Utagawa Kuniyoshi and comes from his Stories of True Loyalty of the Faithful Samurai. This piece is featured in the forthcoming Utagawa show and the series will be discussed on this blog very soon.