Princess Shokushi

This first of our two female poets this year is Shokushi Naishinno, daughter of the Emperor Goshirakawa. She is one of the more recent members of the 'Hyaku-nin Isshu', living only 800 years ago. 'Recent' that is, when compared to Tenji Tenno, who lived more than 1300 years ago. It is hard for me to believe that nearly 600 years separate the earliest and latest poets in this series. I am trained to think of these hundred people as a 'group'. Can't you easily imagine a scene where all one hundred people are together having their picture taken, perhaps in front of a famous temple ... Murasaki Shikibu over here ... the tall and handsome Ariwara no Narihara in the back row over there ... white haired Shunzei sitting in the front row, stern face scowling at the camera ... and this lady, Princess Shokushi, fan covering her face, flirting with the man standing next to her ... 'Say cheese, everybody ...!'

It's been a long time since I talked to you about the number of colours used on these prints. About five years ago, when I first started diverging from the colouration of the original book, I was hesitant and somewhat apprehensive about the reaction from collectors. The comments were favourable though, and I gradually grew bolder with my 'deviation', until by now I am almost completely ignoring the original colours. I'm certainly glad I have done, because although the original book is a beautiful object, the range of colours is certainly limited. This print for example, has only five (or perhaps six) colours. I have used 20 impressions ... The original publisher, Karigane-ya, was of course trying to keep costs down. Every additional colour meant more money for wood, more carving time, and of course more printing time. Considering that there are a hundred pages in the book, they really had no choice. For them as business people, 'time equals money'. If they had used 20 colours for each of these designs, the cost of the completed book would have become astronomical. Nobody would have been able to afford it.

For me though, it's a different story. Although using more colours does increase my costs a little (for extra woodblocks), I cannot say that 'time equals money'. David Bull the publisher is very lucky: his two 'employees', David Bull the carver, and David Bull the printer, both work for free! Just toss them a chewy loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese now and then ...

Now although 20 sounds quite impressive compared to five, it really isn't such a big deal. Many beautiful woodblock prints use far more printing impressions than that. I have illustrations of some prints in books (I can't possibly afford the originals!) that use close to a hundred impressions to achieve their spectacular effects. I'm not going to try that in any of these Hyaku-nin Isshu prints, as the designs are too simplistic for such complicated treatment, but when this series is finished ...

I make ten prints each year, and my exhibition in January 1999 will show the finished 100 prints of Shunsho's series. Perhaps the exhibition after that (in January 2000?) will show only one print ... a print that took me a full year to make. But it might be expensive ... a year's supply of bread and cheese ...

May 1996

Translation: Tom Galt, 1982