The white blossoms of the plum tree sit elegantly against the backdrop of traditional Japanese architecture.\u00a0 The many colors give the piece a rustic, yet beautiful feel.\u00a0 Gradual changes from one color to the next, or bokashi<\/em> in Japanese, help to give the print a lifelike quality by diminishing outlines.\u00a0 This is a Toshi Yoshida print, and it is not a painting or sketch, but a traditional Japanese woodblock print.<\/p>\n Japanese woodblock prints began to grow in popularity in Japan around the early to mid 18th century.\u00a0 Artists such as Torii Kiyomasu and Torii Kiyonaga set the stage with their brilliant polychrome woodblock prints.\u00a0 Later, other great artists, such as Hokusai and even Toshi\u2019s father Hiroshi Yoshida, would make their mark with woodblock prints.<\/p>\n Many of the first prints were meant to be used as advertisements, not hung up in a museum.\u00a0 Pieces often depicted actors from Kabuki shows going on at the time, or of life in Yoshiwara, the pleasure district.\u00a0 Woodblock prints were used over other medium because a group of craftsmen could produce many copies of the same picture within a short period of time.\u00a0 An explanation of just how the prints are made will aid in understanding why this is so.<\/p>\n Assuming a key block method, where drawn lines represent black outlines in the print; an artist would make a sketch of what is to be printed.\u00a0 Included in the sketch would be the kento<\/em>, or registration marks.\u00a0 These two marks, an L shape and a line, will be transferred with the original sketch so that later the artist can accurately line up the woodblocks.\u00a0 This black and white sketch of the outlines would then be placed over the woodblock facedown and carved.<\/p>\n The wood used for the key block and color blocks can have a huge impact on the finished print.\u00a0 Hardwoods, such as wild cherry, were the original source for many early woodblock printers.\u00a0 Though the wood is more difficult to cut and chisel, it allows for more and finer detail.\u00a0 Softer woods, such as the widely available pine, are easier to cut, but do not allow the amount of detail that hardwoods do because of splintering.<\/p>\n Now the key block can be carved.\u00a0 First a carving knife, hangito<\/em>, is used to cut around either side of the lines of the drawing.\u00a0 Then a round chisel, marunomi<\/em>, is carefully used to carve out the inside of the sketch.\u00a0 A smaller flat chisel, aisuki<\/em>, is used to carve out the wood right up to the previously cut lines.\u00a0 Finally a large chisel, soainomi<\/em>, is used to clear away the rest of the unnecessary wood.\u00a0 Now all that is left are lines of raised wood which will become the black outlines in the picture.<\/p>\n Next several more sketches are made, kyogo<\/em>, of the original, which will be used in making the color woodblocks.\u00a0 In much the same way as the key block was made, each color block is cut so that it will fill in a certain part of the picture with its specific color.\u00a0 There are generally almost as many color woodblocks as there are colors in the finished print.\u00a0 Not every color comes from a specific color woodblock, as some of the woodblocks will overlap their colors creating new ones.<\/p>\n Finally, each block is lined up perfectly with the moist paper, usually from a mulberry tree, with which it will be printed on using the registration marks.\u00a0 The black outline from the key block is usually pressed on first followed by the colors.\u00a0 All that is left is for each print to be examined and signed.<\/p>\n Hopefully it has become clear that like so many different types of art, woodblock printing can be long, complex, and exacting.\u00a0 Not only is an artist who can draw needed, but someone who can carve the woodblocks and apply the inks.\u00a0 Polychromatic prints would need many color blocks carved as well as the key block.\u00a0 In order to avoid a smearing of colors, each layer of ink would have to be placed onto the paper in exactly the same position as those before it.<\/p>\n Since many early prints were to be widely distributed, often as ads, it was easier to have a set of craftsmen working on each stage.\u00a0 The artist may have drawn the first sketch, but it was the wood-carvers and ink-specialist that did much of the work.\u00a0\u00a0 Contracts were often hired out to different studios that specialized in one aspect or another.\u00a0 F. Morley Fletcher states in his book, Woodblock Printing by the Japanese Method, that a very low percentage of errors were made, only 4 to 5 percent of the prints were considered failures, when tasks were delegated between several individuals.\u00a0 He also states that there was little degradation in the woodblocks after four-thousand prints.\u00a0 This is what allowed for seemingly complex prints to be produced in mass quantities quickly. This was, however, not always the case, and many woodblock prints would be sketched, carved, and printed by skilled artists.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026the production of the finest wood-block colour print, the creative art and vision of the artist is needed not only in the sketch but in the cutting and printing as well. Only in this way can continuity be assured and the vitality and power of the artist shown in full in the final result,\u201d states Hiroshi Yoshida in the preface of his book Japanese Woodblock Printing.\u00a0 Though many thought there had been a regression in skill after the masters of the Edo period, Hiroshi showed that a new type of master had been born.<\/p>\n Hiroshi Yoshida combined what had been previously three separate tasks into one.\u00a0 His belief rested in that a true artist could sketch, cut, and print his or her own woodblock prints.\u00a0\u00a0 It was his intimate knowledge of all the processes of woodblock printing which allowed him to create such beautiful works, many of which are highly valued worldwide.\u00a0 It was this legacy that he passed to his eldest son, Toshi Yoshida.<\/p>\n Toshi\u2019s training in Japanese woodblock prints began early in his life.\u00a0 One can only imagine how much Hiroshi drilled into Toshi about the proper way to make a sketch or cut a woodblock.\u00a0 Much as his father had, Toshi quickly learned the ways of the woodblock.\u00a0 Works such as \u201cYodo River,\u201d \u201cOkaramon,\u201d and one of his first prints \u201cCrab\u201d were all self cut.\u00a0 A \u201cjikoku<\/em>\u201d seal on his prints indicate that the woodblocks were self cut.<\/p>\n Not all of Toshi\u2019s prints were self cut.\u00a0 After the death of his father in 1950, Toshi began to stray from the norm.\u00a0 Fewer blocks were self cut as he began to invest more time in overseeing his family\u2019s studio.\u00a0 However, prints made during this time did not lack in beauty or skill.\u00a0 Using his knowledge of carving and printing, Toshi was able to supervise work done in the studio.\u00a0 This was even more important towards the end of his life when he became too weak to even sign his prints.<\/p>\n Hiroshi and Toshi showed just what they could accomplish.\u00a0 They took what some considered to be a stale art form and started it anew.\u00a0 Their works will perhaps be placed alongside those of Sharaku and Hokusai.\u00a0 By mastering all the steps of woodblock printing, they gained an understanding that would allow them to produce such works of the highest quality.<\/p>\n (http:\/\/www.hendricksartcollection.com\/yoshida.html).<\/p>\n Bull, D. (http:\/\/www.woodblock.com\/sitemap.html).<\/p>\n Chiappa, J.N. (http:\/\/users.exis.net\/~jnc\/nontech\/prints\/process.html).<\/p>\n Fletcher, F.M. (1916). Woodblock Printing by the Japanese Method London, Sir Isaac \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pitman and Sons, Ltd.<\/p>\n Merritt, H. and Yamada, N.\u00a0 Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu.<\/p>\n Yoshida, H. (1939).\u00a0 Japanese Woodblock Printing.\u00a0 Tokyo, The Sanseido Company, Ltd.<\/p>\n Disclaimer<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Art of a Woodblock Master The white blossoms of the plum tree sit elegantly against the backdrop of traditional Japanese architecture.\u00a0 The many colors give the piece a rustic, yet beautiful feel.\u00a0 Gradual changes from one color to the next, or bokashi in Japanese, help to give the print a lifelike quality by diminishing … Continue reading “Nowlan Freese”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":261,"featured_media":0,"parent":360,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"page-full_width.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-460","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/261"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":639,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/460\/revisions\/639"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/kucera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bibliography<\/h4>\n
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