Here we are, breaking my rule about no 'duplications' in this series - a second design by Katsushika Hokusai! This is from his masterwork Fugaku Hyakkei (100 Images of Mt. Fuji), the third volume, published in 1849. And no, I haven't been lazy and made a one-colour print for you - there are four 'colours' on this one!

No sooner had I come up with the concept for this Treasure Chest print series, than I realized that the prints just had to line up with the seasons. I never intended that each and every one should exhibit a seasonal feature - this isn't a haiku series! - but certainly as the series progressed, the passage of the year would be marked in the images.

Here in Japan the most well-established method of indicating season of course involves plants and flowers, but that's not the only way. This print, for example, doesn't have a lot of greenery (!), but don't you think you can tell what season is depicted?

It occurs to me though, as I prepare this print and story for sending out to the collectors, that I might be being a bit self-centered here; this print is timed to appear in your mailbox on the 20th of June, and by then the rainy season will be well under way ... here in Ome where I live! But what about collectors in other parts of Japan? And those living in other countries?

Well, at this point I have to admit that there is nothing I can do about this problem; now that I have collectors situated in many countries around the world, it is just not possible to make a print series that will fit everybody's local situation ... in real time.

But each of you will own this Treasure Chest for many years, and once you have the full set of 24 prints on hand, just how you look at them - and on what kind of schedule you display them - will be completely up to you. If your rainy season falls in mid-winter, as it does for those of you in Western Canada for example, then that will be the time to bring out this print!

(But here in Tokyo I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks from now, when I can put this one away!)

David
Monday, June 20, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:48 PM | Comments (2)

Time for some drama in the series! Things have been pretty quiet up to now, to say the least, so here's something to wake you up! The image was produced by Nishimura Shigenobu for the publisher Iseya, probably sometime in the 1730's. Going by the large actor's crest illustrated on the kimono, this is Ogino Isaburo, one of the popular actors of that day. As to which scene from which play is being depicted here, my browse through various reference books has turned up no particular information. It looks as though he has been hiding in a well, and this is the dramatic moment when he leaps out, draws his sword, and puts the 'bad guys' to rout. Perhaps one of you collectors - any kabuki fans among you? - will be able to fill in some details for me.

This is not a precise reproduction of the original print. Full-colour printmaking was still sometime in the future at the time this was created, and it was published in the urushi-e format (lacquer print). The black outlines were printed from a woodblock in the standard manner, but colouring was applied to each print in turn by hand with a brush, and the darkest areas of the image were coated with shiny black lacquer.

I did make a reproduction of an urushi-e in one of my Surimono Albums, carefully painting all the colours on each print in turn, but I'm sorry, reduced to this tiny format, and with my very tight schedule, it was impossible for me to do that this time! So I 'jumped ahead' in time a couple of decades, and cut a set of woodblocks for printing the colours. It makes me realize just how much of a technical advance colour printing must have been in those days. In place of rows of painters dabbing colour onto prints one-by-one, trying to remain reasonably within the lines, printers could 'churn them out' in massive numbers, and with much more precise registration.

Of course, they too would be rendered obsolete around a century and a half later, but during their time, they had a pretty good run of it!

David
Monday, June 6, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:00 AM | Comments (4)