CHAPTER III

COLOUR PRINTING

The art of colour printing, which, as pointed out in the previous chapter, was an offshoot of the Ukioyé school of painting, is one of the most interesting of the minor arts of Japan. It was the colour prints that first aroused the interest of the European in Japanese art, and it is from them that in most cases he still receives his first impressions. And though, indeed, these impressions require largely to be corrected in the light of further knowledge, yet on the whole this is the most natural introduction; for, fantastic though these prints may at first appear to the unaccustomed eye, yet in their frankly decorative feeling they approach more nearly the Western standpoint than the earlier and more ideal schools of Japanese art. In the colour prints, which we may buy for a few shillings, there are obvious beauties of line, of composition, and of colour which cannot fail to appeal to us; however strange or bizarre they may otherwise appear we at once recognise them as charming pieces of decoration.

And though on further acquaintance with the subject of Japanese art we find that those who produced this beautiful work were but the journalists of art, and that the real classics stand on another and higher plane, yet on their own merits we cannot grudge them unstinted praise. They have not the noble elevation of the old schools, they do not climb the misty heights of the ideal, but they realise with exquisite feeling and refinement the beauty of the passing world that lies around them.

And while Japanese paintings, especially of the older schools, are almost unknown except to the connoisseur, and are only to be seen in a few isolated collections, the colour print is more or less familiar to all who take an interest in matters artistic. Hardly a studio but possesses a print or two, and it would be difficult to over-estimate their influence on the work which goes on around them.

But the art of the colour printer has this additional interest for us: it was a truly democratic art, its followers men of the artisan class, its customers the common people. And at a time when the upper classes of society were suffering from a gradual degeneration, when the arts became less and less alive and more and more a repetition of outworn conventions, this growth from below of a school of living art shows that the popular masses were beginning to stir, and that even two hundred years ago the bonds of feudalism were getting weaker, and the growth of a popular art was only one manifestation of the tendencies which finally overthrew the old system and substituted for it a democratic government.

The colour print artists were, for the most part, ignored by the cultured upper classes. They were men of little or no education. Toyokuni I. was the son of a maker of puppets; Kunisada was at one time the keeper of a ferry-boat; and Hokkei was a fish-hawker before he found his vocation. Then there was another reason for this social boycotting--the subjects of which they treated in their pictures. A large proportion of these were representations of actors in character. Now, in Japan the fondness for the theatre was an overwhelming passion with the common people, but by the nobility and aristocracy the stage was utterly tabooed. No person of good family dared openly to attend a theatrical performance. Actors, therefore, were ranked in the social scale as the lowest of the low--beneath even the humblest artisans. Even the colour print artists, who earned their living by depicting them, would never dream of associating with them on terms of equality.

Then another favourite subject was the delineation of the famous beauties of the Yoshiwara and the tea-houses. It is evident that the nature of the subject in this case also would be sufficient to damn the prints in the eyes of the better classes.

But, with the alien, “where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise”; and where the educated Japanese would see vulgarity and coarseness--where, perhaps, such was even intended--we, happily, see only a beautiful decorative effect.

So in Japan the colour print was the picture of the poorer classes. Costing a mere trifle, it occupied in their humble homes the place of the more expensive kakemono.

It is a matter of surprise to the cultured Japanese to find how these despised objects are prized by European collectors; and, valuing them little themselves, they have exported them wholesale, till comparatively few remain in Japan, the bulk of fine prints being now in Europe or America.

Though far surpassing in delicacy and beauty the colour prints of Europe and elsewhere, the Japanese prints are produced by means wonderfully simple, and depend for their fine qualities entirely on the wonderful skill of the craftsman.

The process is as follows:--The drawing is first made by the artist, with brush and Indian ink, on a sheet of thin paper. After being oiled to make it transparent this paper is pasted, face downwards to ensure the necessary reversal, on a block of soft cherry-wood. The engraver now proceeds to outline the picture with a knife. Then with gauge and chisel the superfluous wood is boldly cut away, and the result is a key block in line. From proofs coloured by the artist a further series of blocks are cut, one for each colour used. It may be mentioned here that the cherry-wood blocks are not cut across the grain, as in the case of the boxwood blocks we use for wood engraving, but in a line with the grain.

Then comes the work of a third craftsman, the printer. He mixes his colours for each printing, and applies them carefully to the block with a brush. Then the paper is damped and laid on the block. No press is used, but with a rubber or baren, made of a bunch of twisted fibre in a sheaf of bamboo leaf, the impression is carefully rubbed off. And so each block is used in succession until the picture is complete, accuracy of register being obtained in the most wonderful manner by rough guiding marks cut on the blocks. Sometimes metallic dusts are used in printing, and again a kind of embossing or high relief is obtained by pressure on an uninked block. It is said that this pressure is often applied by using the point of the elbow as a rubber.

The prints were issued by publishers chiefly in Yedo, the engraver and printer being simply workmen in the publisher’s employment. Sometimes the artist, too, was employed entirely by him, living in his house, and occupying a position somewhat equivalent to that of a designer for a commercial firm.

The first Japanese artist to make drawings for the wood engraver was Hishigawa Moronobu (1637-1714). These, however, were not colour prints but merely woodcuts in black and white. He illustrated quite a number of books during the latter half of the seventeenth century.

A further development was the colouring of the prints by hand, which was introduced largely by Torii Kiyonobu (1664-1729), the founder of the long line of Torii artists who devoted themselves almost entirely to theatrical subjects. It is among the immediate successors of Torii Kiyonobu that the art of printing in colours direct from the blocks appears to have arisen--at first only one or two tints being used.

The perfecting of the process is due to Suzuki Harunobu, who, going beyond a few tints on the main objects, filled in the whole picture with colour. And, though the first of the great colour print artists, in many respects his work has never been surpassed. Most of his prints are small in size, containing only a single figure, exquisitely poised, and characterised by extreme elegance and grace of line. His colour schemes were quiet and refined--grey, a pale red, one or two tints of olive green, being the components of some of his most delicate harmonies. His prints are rare, and his signature has been paid the doubtful compliment of being more extensively forged than that of any of his fellow-artists. His style, however, was more difficult to reproduce. Many of his successors fell under his influence, but even in their most successful efforts they never quite caught his peculiar elegance and charm.

[Illustration: A FIGURE GROUP From a Colour Print by UTAMARO]

Of his contemporaries the most noteworthy was Koriusai. Less delicate and refined than Harunobu, he worked in a bolder style, his drawing being particularly vigorous. His bird studies are very fine; and South Kensington Museum contains some excellent examples of his work--notably one, a clever contrast of a crow and a white heron against a grey-green background.

Reflecting Harunobu more decidedly is Shunsho, who became the master of the great Hokusai. His studies of female figures are particularly graceful and of charming colour, and his prints of theatrical subjects vigorous and striking. He died in 1790, at the age of sixty-seven.

Contemporary with Shunsho was Torii Kiyonaga, an artist who not only did fine work himself but exercised a great influence on the artists who followed him. Working with fuller colour than his predecessors he increased the number of blocks considerably, and his charming drawings of the gorgeously-dressed beauties of the Yoshiwara set the fashion afterwards so largely followed.

We now come to one of the chief of the colour print artists--Kitagawa Utamaro, next to Hokusai the most famous of all. His female studies were something quite new and distinctive, superb in line and composition, the heavy masses of black being used with consummate ease and mastery. There is an exquisite quality in his drawing, too; the features are delineated with the utmost fineness and delicacy. Indeed, to distinguish a forgery from a genuine Utamaro, one has only to examine the drawing of the hands and the face. His colour is delightful, and beautifully subtle--lavender, pink, green, and grey--but always saved from weakness by the dexterous use of the masses of solid black. Besides his female figures we have a few landscapes and flower studies, and a particularly fine little volume of insect drawings. It is related by his father in the preface of this book that, when a child, Utamaro was continually catching and examining insects, till he was afraid that the boy might acquire a habit of killing the harmless creatures. The book, however, is not entirely devoted to harmless insects, one of the drawings being a masterly study of a snake. A touch of mica used in the printing gives it a slimy sheen, and the long, coiling body, every inch of it alive and moving, is a wonderful piece of drawing. To rival it one would require to turn to the work of another Japanese artist--the netsuké carver.

Yeishi, Yeizan, and Kiyomine, who followed immediately after, adopted his style and followed his methods closely; but rich though their effects are, and full of detail, they lack the dignity and simplicity of the earlier workers.

One of the most characteristic of all the great artists, and worthy to rank with Harunobu and Utamaro, is Toyokuni I., born in 1769. His work also was at first affected by the ornate style of Kiyonaga; and among his earlier prints are studies of gorgeously-dressed ladies, a riot of rich colour and elaborate detail, but later he turned his attention to theatrical prints, and evolved the style, distinctively his own, which became afterwards the recognised method of treating such subjects. In his lines the grace and suavity of the earlier masters become hardened to a certain severity, but what was lost in grace was gained in strength. The violent action in some of his prints is an illustration of the forcible manner in which the truth can be conveyed by a judicious exaggeration; and again, in repose, his figures have a dignity which is monumental. This effect is heightened, too, by the reticence and restraint with which he uses colour--full, strong tints, but few, and laid on in broad masses. Breadth of effect was what he aimed at and secured. In Japan he was more popular than any of his contemporaries, Utamaro not excepted; and, whereas their followers were limited to a few immediate successors, he was the founder of a regular school. Of these the best is Kunisada, known as Toyokuni II., whose early work especially was almost worthy to rank with that of his master.

But the greatest master of all the colour print artists, and one who by European critics has been acclaimed as worthy to rank with the great artists of the world, was Hokusai. It is a mark of the power of his personality that, though he lived and died in poverty and obscurity, the facts of his life are recorded with some degree of fulness; while, as a rule, little record is left of his contemporaries but their work. Born in 1760, he was apprenticed at the age of eighteen to Shunsho, but was too original in his methods, and too independent, to remain in that position long. For some years he drifted about, being reduced at one time to hawking red pepper, calendars, and other small wares in the streets of Yedo, but all the time he was getting more and more command over his art.

[Illustration: A FIGURE STUDY From a Colour Print by TOYOKUNI]

In the preface to the “Hundred Views of Fuji” he thus summarises his life: “From the age of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of things. By the time I was fifty I had published an infinity of designs; but all I have produced before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy-three I have learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence, when I am eighty, I shall have made still more progress. At ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvellous stage; and when I am a hundred and ten everything I do, be it but a dot or a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word. Written at the age of seventy-five by me, once Hokusai, to-day Gwakio Rojin, the old man mad about drawing.”

And, indeed, this was no idle boast, for he lived to a great age, and steadily gained power. When finally stricken down the old man’s lively spirit is still unsubdued, and he writes playfully to a friend: “King Yemma [the Japanese Pluto], being very old, is retiring from business, so he has built a pretty country house, and asks me to go and paint a kakemono for him. I am thus obliged to leave, and when I go shall carry my drawings with me. I am going to take a room at the corner of the street, and shall be happy to see you whenever you pass that way.”

To the end his mind was absorbed by his art. On his death-bed he was heard to murmur: “If Heaven could only grant me ten more years.” Then a moment after: “If Heaven had only granted me five more years I should have become a real painter.” He died on the 10th of May 1849, in his ninetieth year.

On his tomb is inscribed this little verse, composed, according to the national custom, during his last hours:

“My soul, turned Will-o’-the-wisp, Can come and go at ease over the summer fields.”

All his life beset with poverty, unhappy in his domestic life, his dauntless spirit sustained him, and his incessant industry never flagged. He lived for the most part with one daughter, an artist also, in a bare room, with little or no furniture beyond his painting materials. When the room became unbearably dirty--and they were not squeamish--they changed to another house. Always poor, dressed like a pauper, ascetic in his mode of life, he had an utter contempt for money. When he received payment for his work the money lay uncounted at his side, and when importuned by a creditor he threw him one of the unopened packets and went back to his work.

In 1817 he published the first volume of the “Mangwa,” a collection of rough sketches, which, in its fifteen volumes, forms a veritable encyclopædia of Japanese life and industries, and is sufficient alone to establish him as one of the great draughtsmen of the world. These sketches were printed from woodblocks in a scheme of black, grey, and light red, and included studies of every kind--street scenes, architecture, birds, beasts, flowers, and insects. The “Hundred Views of Fuji,” similar in style, added still further to his reputation.

But even more striking and distinctive is the great series of colour prints illustrating the landscape of his country--the waterfalls, the bridges, and the “Thirty-Six Views of Fuji,” which are something quite new in Japanese art, not conventional landscapes of the old Chinese style, abstract and ideal scenes, but pictures of certain places, each with its individuality strongly stamped upon it. They are, however, equally far from the Western realistic standpoint, each picture being an audacious decorative arrangement both as regards line and colour. Most daring of all are the waterfalls, superb in their boldness of conception and rich, full colour, but equally fascinating are the quieter harmonies of the “Thirty-Six Views of Fuji.” To study such pictures is to be lifted out of the commonplace view of things and to look at nature through the temperament and with the eyes of a poet.

But, while so highly esteemed by European connoisseurs, Hokusai is by no means so highly thought of in Japan. And this is not entirely due to the fact that he was a man of the people, a painter of the vulgar and the commonplace. Though it is hardly possible for us to overrate the magnitude of his genius, still, the more we learn of the great painters of the older schools the more we see the reason of the Japanese verdict, for even we would hesitate to place his work alongside that of Cho Densu, of Sesshiu, and of the great Kano masters. The fact is that no man, however great, can afford to do as Hokusai did--to set aside altogether the accumulated benefits of centuries of experience and work absolutely fresh from the beginning. The greatness of his achievement shows the power of his personality, but the greatest results of all are built on the foundations of others. And in spite of its amazing originality and its force we must recognise that in Hokusai’s style there is a lack of the dignified reticence and grace--the culture, in fact--of the best work of the classic schools.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE THIRTY-SIX VIEWS OF FUJI From a Colour Print by HOKUSAI]

But the distinction lies even deeper. His outlook, keen and marvellously accurate to catch any passing phase, has not the deep seriousness of the older masters. He was a modern of the moderns--materialistic, humorous, somewhat flippant--while they were mystics, striving to pierce through the veil and discover the truths lying beyond. Each represents the spirit of his time, and, though the comparison is interesting and needful, it is due more in justice to the older men than to Hokusai, whose reputation, it is safe to say, will in Europe mount higher and higher, while the qualities of the old classic painters will appeal to but a few kindred spirits.

One other colour printer of the first rank remains--Hiroshigé I., worthy to rank with Harunobu, Utamaro, Toyokuni, and Hokusai. His landscape prints are particularly charming in their delicate renderings of effects of atmosphere and light, and no one could portray better the peaceful effects of quiet evening light.

But the art which culminated in the work of these great men entered now into a period of decline. The latest artists brought nothing that was new; and, charming though much of their work was, it merely repeated, with continually lessening effect, what had been said before.

With the opening of the country to European influence came the final degradation--the introduction of violent aniline dyes to take the place of the old soft Japanese tints.

Since 1880 a slight revival of the art has taken place, but it has, as yet, produced nothing to rival the productions of even fifty years ago.

[Illustration: A LANDSCAPE From a Colour Print by HIROSHIGÉ]