Like the beauty of Eliot’s Chinese jar, the prints perpetually move in their stillness. Come close and you see the details, each one of them a separate wood block beautifully tucked together as one fine print (Stormy Sea of Kanagawa from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji by Katasushiko Hokusai is one example). You notice the colour scheme and the number of blocks that must have been used. See some three paintings from a distance. They boggle the mind’s eye. They are one big, continuing landscape (Hioshige’s Eight Scenic Views of Kanazawa under Full Moon, for instance). In addition, the registration of colours, which even today is sometimes a big problem for the printer with sophisticated gadgetry, is simply marvellous.
“These woodcuts are the reflections of the themes of the age,” explains Japan educated Sabah Hasan, who has curated this exhibition. An expert in the subject herself she perfected it in Koyoto (Koyoto was the capital of Japan at one time and literally means the eastern capital) from whose City Arts College she did her Masters in Fine Arts with specialization in printmaking. She has also been artist in residence the Department of Indian and South-East Asia Collection at the Victoria and Albert Hall Museum in London, and has held many solo and group exhibitions. She is at present teaching at the National College of Arts, Lahore.
“This art was exported from the sub-continent along with Buddhism, as Buddhist scriptures were carved on blocks, and were used for preaching”, so tells the curator. “Indeed this method of printing via China and Korea arrived in Japan in the early 8th century By the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the Edo period (1603-1867) this art started being used in the books and illustrations among the merchant classes,” she informs you. The first artist of note in the Ukiyo-e form was Moronobu Hishikawa. Artists were then started being commissioned by the emerging bourgeois to paint scenes of town life, including festivals, public entertainment, and theatrical performances. Landscapes, portraits of courtesans, Kabuki actors and historical subjects were later particularized this art.
The prints of the four famous painters of this genre, namely Kitagawa Uatmaro (1753-1806), Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), Ichizyusei Hisoshige(1797-1858)and Sharaku(1794) have left a deep imprint on the history of Japanese art. Their unerring sense of line, colour and form has produced masterpieces of landscapes (Hokusai designed prints for nearly seventy years and his Thirty six views of Mount Fuji is a stunning series of landscape whose production occupied him for nearly a decade). Ichizyusei Hisoshege’s legendary works The Fifty-three stations on the Tokaido, a series of landscapes, not only won him fame in Japan but brought international recognition.
Kitagawa Utamaro paints the popular courtesans and famous beauties of old Edo (now Tokyo). Close-up portraits are his forte. Sharaku, who came suddenly on the scene, and disappeared after 10 months, made an impressionistic depiction of 28 close-up portraits of Kabuki (theatre) actors.
The process of making a print was handled by four different kinds of professionals. The artist drew the outline and marked the colours for various areas in collaboration with the publisher. The blocks were of hardwood (wild cherry) which were handled by professional cravers who sent them to printers and finally to the publishers. Thousands of prints were made. The pieces in the exhibitions are copies only.
This art form declined during the early Meiji years. After the Second World War, when it was revived, the artist decided to control the whole process. It has since then been very effectively used by contemporary print-makers in Japan. The technique, however, is still learnt in traditional workshops. The exhibition is open from 9am to 6pm at the National Art Gallery (except Saturdays) from June 30 to July 9.—Mufti Jamiluddin Ahmad