Fujiwara no Akisuke

Nine years into this long print series, I hope you can by now recognize the pattern in which I am making them; this is the sixth print of the year, so of course it is a courtier - in a seated position. Do you know what type is coming next?

Akisuke is the father of Kiyosuke, whose print I made last year, and it is interesting to note that Shunsho set both of them in rather unhappy-looking poses. Looking through my reference books, I can find no indication that this family had any special troubles; why would he do this? Kiyosuke's poem is sad and bitter, but this one doesn't seem so - at least to me. The image of the moonlight shining brightly through dark clouds seems optimistic and auspicious, if anything. But I think it would be a mistake to expect that Shunsho tried to make each and every picture match exactly what the poem was representing. He simply gave us a hundred people - a hundred interesting people. Or am I wrong - is the poem sad and gloomy?

There is another aspect to Shunsho's depictions that I find interesting. Over the years I have looked through many different sets of 'Hyakunin Isshu' illustrations, but I can't recall seeing any other artists who dared to pose so many of their subjects this way - with their back to us. People hidden behind screens are of course common, and some particular subjects (Sei Shonagon, for example) are traditionally posed in such a way that we cannot see the face, but for a full 10% of the set to be 'faceless' might seem excessive. Would any modern artist feel that he could get away with this?

I like these prints with no faces. As I mentioned before in one of these little essays some years ago, there is somewhat less pressure for me during the carving when there is no face, but it's not just because of that. When most of us look at illustrations of this sort, the face is naturally the focus of attention, perhaps to the detriment of the rest of the picture. But when there is no face visible, one's eye is free to wander all over the image - and in these beautiful prints, everywhere one looks one sees the bold strokes of the brush jumping out yelling for attention.

I love carving these elegant brush strokes. I know that I never, not if I practice for the rest of my life, never will be able to draw like this with a brush. Now I know that most people don't expect me to be an expert calligrapher of the same rank as Shunsho, but what is surprising to many is not that I can't write characters like this, but that I can't read them (not much, anyway)! How can a man who is illiterate, manage to carve calligraphy well enough to draw admiration from experts? Well, one needn't be an expert practitioner of any particular craft to be able to appreciate many of the nuances involved. The world of sports is a good example of this - we enjoy watching talented athletes even though we may be completely unable to emulate their achievements. So it is with me. I have watched calligraphers at work, and for endless hours have studied these beautiful characters. I have learned a lot - about where the 'strength' must be increased or decreased, about the difference between carving the 'front' and the 'back' of each line, about the stroke order of each of the characters ...

When my razor-sharp knife bit into the wood and started to cut the first stroke of the first character of the poem on this print, I hope that it did so with pretty much the same sort of motion as Shunsho's brush some 200-odd years ago. Slide round the corner - pull back a bit - sweep down strongly - then pull up away from the paper and position for the next stroke ... I suspect that there isn't much real difference between using the brush and the knife ...

I'm certainly glad that one needn't be an expert to understand something - after all, if my work could only be appreciated by those who were experts at making woodblock prints, then I'd be a pretty lonely guy!

August 1997

Translation - Tom Galt 1982