What is it regarding this old Japanese art that I love?
I’ve always been fond of certain aspects of Asian culture, from Martial Arts (of which I train in a few) to artwork such as Taoist paintings (I love the minimalism) and Japanese prints.
One of the things I really love about the Japanese printmaking methods is that no matter how simple the design of the print, you can tell how it would require many years of tough practice in order to produce such artworks – and not just the prints themselves, the paper too as I found out!
In my research into the Japanese printmaking techniques I was surprised to find out that traditionally it wasn’t just one person who created the print – it took the combined effort of up to four people to produce a print!
I hope you will find the Japanese printmaking methods interesting.
First of all, what does Ukiyo-e mean? And how do you say it?!
Originally the term Ukiyo-e came from the Buddhist philosophy of Ukiyo. Ukiyo referred to the material world as being not very pure and rotten – as opposed to the afterlife.
Slowly however this term evolved to mean something else. Japan had been a war-torn country for hundreds of years, but in the Edo era (the 17th century) it was made peaceful under the Tokugawa shogunate and the wars ended.
This brought a rise to artistry and the appreciation of aesthetics. Urbanization was rising, and Edo became the center of Japanese culture and pleasures. The term Ukiyo came to mean “the floating world” – referring to the fleeting pleasures and freedom from the concerns of everyday life.
The Japanese prints around that time usually depicted this carefree attitude and thus came to be known as Ukiyo-e: “pictures of the floating world”.
I have a limited understanding of Japanese, however looking at how it’s written it’s pronounced as follows:
U (like “oo” but short)
ki (as it sounds)
yo (again just as it sounds)
e (as in the “e” in “met”)
So when were these techniques created? Woodblock printing techniques had actually been around for a long time before they became popular in Japan. The Chinese had been using woodblock printmaking methods to make books for hundreds of years – and many of these books could be found in Japan as well – however, the first Japanese illustrated print book only appeared in 1650.
The book was “Ise Monogatari” which was a famous traditional Japanese story, but in this book the text had the main focus, and the pictures secondary. This slowly changed however until prints were made as unique artworks – meaning they had begun to be viewed as true art pieces.
The Ukiyo-e however weren’t created just for art’s sake – there were a lot that were created as advertisement posters (not the famous ones obviously).
So who was involved in the creation of the Ukiyo-e prints? Creating these prints wasn’t a solo act…
Even though the Artist of the Ukiyo-e got the credit for the artwork there were three more craftsmen involved in the process:
The master woodcutter: the tradesman who carved the woodblock following the artist’s sketch.
The Printer: mixed the colors and actually did the printing.
The Publisher: in charge of co-ordinating the efforts of the Artist, Woodcutter and Printer. The Publisher also chose how the artwork was going to be published.
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