Prince Motoyoshi

For the final member in this year's set of ten prints, I have chosen Prince Motoyoshi, who was born just about 1100 years ago. His father, the emperor we now know as 'Yozei In', is also a member of the 'Hyakunin Isshu', and I sent you his print a few years ago.

Motoyoshi is remembered as being something of a 'ladies man', and many of the poems he exchanged with lady friends are preserved in anthologies of the time. I wonder, is this poem from 'real life' or just an imagined composition?

I should mention a couple of things about the printing of this month's picture. Back at the beginning of the year when I was roughly planning out the way that this set of ten would look and making mental notes on suitable colours for each print, I thought that Motoyoshi's design might look good with a 'double-printed' colour: a base of lilac overlaid with grey to give it a deeper tone. All year long, each time that I perused the year's designs, I 'saw' this colour in my mind. Last month though, when I was working on Fujiwara Kiyosuke, the colour that I had first had in mind for him didn't work out, and the idea of using this lilac/grey combination surfaced in my mind. I tested it, and it looked good, so I printed his edition in that colour, put the blocks away, and started working on this print.

When it came time to do the printing for Motoyoshi though, I couldn't shake off the idea that he would look best in this colour. All year long I had seen him standing there with his back to the 'camera', draped in a kimono of this shade, and when I tried it out in a test printing, he looked so good to me that I couldn't resist going ahead with it, even though there have been four other prints this year that have used a purple of one sort or another. Last year I guess I used too much blue, and now this year it's been too much purple. But perhaps the overall balance of the entire one hundred won't be too bad ...

The other thing that you might notice about this print is the use of an unusual printing technique. The original book that I am reproducing uses only the most basic printing techniques, but in order to make my prints a bit more interesting, I have been occasionally trying some 'special' ways of printing. The textured pattern inside the round areas on this kimono is one example of this. I pressed the 'washi' onto a woodblock that I had prepared with a textured surface, and that pattern was thus transferred to the print. The texture is only visible when the print is viewed with horizontal light; if the print is hanging on the wall in a frame, it is difficult to see. I like the effect of this 'karazuri' (empty printing) very much, and I think I'll try some more of it in the near future (but I promise to go easy on the purple!).

Thank you very much for your support of my work during this past year. When I look back over the ten prints, I can see many things that make me satisfied with my progress, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. That'll be the goal for this coming year ...

January 1997

Translation: 'A Hundred Verses From Old Japan', William N. Porter 1909