Ki no Tsurayuki

Here, for our third print of the year, is one of the major figures in Japanese literature, Ki no Tsurayuki, who lived just slightly over a thousand years ago. He is best remembered today for his work as editor/compiler of the famous 'Kokinsh*' poetry collection, and his preface to that work is now considered as the earliest masterpiece of Japanese prose. He is also one of the major figures in the history of Japanese calligraphy (although the poem on this print is of course not in his handwriting, but in that of Shunsho ...).

I must confess that when I first looked at this design, I felt a little bit disappointed. After all, Tsurayuki is one of the most famous of the Hyaku-nin Isshu poets - why did Shunsho do such a 'low-key' design for him? But I suppose that I should avoid making the association - 'big name = big design'. To follow that way of thinking would of course result in a series that was made up of a relatively small number of 'special' prints accompanied by a flock of mediocre work. Shunsho instead chose to give us a much more evenly balanced, and generally quite understated collection. I am so much focussed on the one-by-one pace of making these prints that I tend to lose grasp of this 'big picture'. At the end of last year's work, when I saw my first fifty prints displayed together for the first time, I was quite struck by the way in which they really do form an integrated set. Shunsho's Hyaku-nin Isshu is truly one of the masterpieces of Japanese art, and I am glad to be playing a part in bringing it to the attention of so many people ...

I should mention something about the colours on this print. (I probably shouldn't admit this, but whenever the design is a 'quiet' one like this, I tend to focus more on trying to make an attractive balance of colours on the print.) Most of the colours on my prints are 'made up' by myself, using a very small collection of fundamental pigments, which I mix together to create the particular shade desired. A couple of months ago though, when I was visiting the pigment shop, I got a bit carried away by the very wide variety of pre-mixed colours that were on display there, and bought some of them. For the kimono on this month's print I tried using one of these pigments, an attractive brown, 'straight from the bottle'. The colour looked very beautiful in my mixing bowl, but when I saw the printed impression it was awful, completely 'wrong' for this design. I tried a few more tests, a bit darker, a bit lighter, but all were awful. I was a bit confused, and put the work away for the evening to think about what had happened. When I came back the next morning, I had the solution - onto the colour block went a swab of this 'bad' brown, plus a swab of one of my favorite red pigments, 'bengara'. Mix together with the brush, make the impression, and ... voila! The colour you see here.

I had forgotten a basic tenet of this work - the extreme personal nature of printmaking. I am sure that the person who created that brown pigment, attractive in its own right, was an expert colour designer, but he wasn't David Bull ... and that was what made all the difference. It is the printer's job to create his colours, and nobody else's. For better or worse, he must use his own discretion, his own skills, and his own taste. Nobody else can share this work. I felt a warm glow when I finished this print, and I hope that you too find it attractive. Until next month ...

May, 1994

Translation - Kenneth Rexroth, 1964