Funya no Asayasu

Our autumn print this year is of the relatively obscure poet Funya no Asayasu. Many analysis books comment on Teika's selection of Asayasu for inclusion in the Hyakunin Isshu. Only a few of his poems are known, none of them of particular distinction, and the theme of this one - dewdrops as gems - was quite a cliche in poetry of the day. Perhaps Teika's real motivation was simply to have another father/son pairing; Asayasu was a son of Yasuhide (poet #22 in the series). Shunsho has apparently picked up on the relationship, as his two prints are similar - they both show the poets with wind-blown kimono, and there's even a facial resemblance ...

When mixing the colours for this print, it was obvious that I should choose tones that reflect the autumn mood of the poem, but for a Canadian working on a Japanese print, that decision was only the start of the process! Readers of my 'Hyakunin Issho' newsletter will remember the little essay I wrote about this a couple of years ago describing some of the differences between Canadian and Japanese autumn images - the brightness and vividness of one, and the gentleness and subtlety of the other. If I mix a selection of 'autumn' colours from my Canadian point of view, the selection would perhaps include vivid red and yellow, set against a saturated bright blue ... If however, I look around my environment here in Japan for hints on typical autumn tones, the overwhelming colour is a dull brown, blended with some rather pallid reds and yellows, set against a quite pale-looking blue ...

Thinking about this sort of contrast - between quite strong and vivid colours on the one hand, and more delicate tones on the other - is something that I have to do every month, not just in autumn. Japanese woodblock prints are renowned for the delicacy of their colours, and in the early days of this series I endeavoured to reproduce this pale somewhat 'washed-out' look in my own prints. I thought they looked attractive this way, and people seemed to respond positively. But when I look back at those prints now, especially those from around the second year of the series, I don't find them quite so attractive any more - they lack substance.

As the years of work on the series went by, I gradually became more adventurous with the colours, and by the time that I reached the half-way point, had developed quite a complete palette from which to draw on each month. I slowly came to realize though, through discussion with other printmakers and contact with some well-preserved original prints in museums, that our concept of Japanese prints as 'delicate' and 'pale' is based on the fact that most of the prints we see now have all faded dramatically from exposure to light, as the printers of the day used extremely fugitive pigments to make the prints. When these prints were first made and put on sale, they were much brighter and bolder than we now recognize. So I too, started to use more intense colouring on my prints, and when you look over my work of the past few years, the trend towards deeper stronger colour is obvious.

I suspect though, that perhaps it has been too obvious. One of the pleasures that comes with my work is the chance to read the comments written on many of the monthly postal remittance forms. It has been common to read things such as: 'Beautiful colour this month!', 'One of my favourite colours!', or 'I especially like the colour recently.' Of course, not everybody writes something every month - I don't expect that - but it was interesting to notice that in the case of last month's print, on which the colour was quite extraordinarily vivid, not one person spoke about the colour ... nobody at all ...

So somewhere there is a good balance between 'gentleness' and 'strength'. If you are one of those who would rather see softer colours on these prints, then the next couple should make you a bit happier!

I hope you are enjoying the prints this year (I know your great-great-grandchildren will be able to!).

October 1997

Translation by Kenneth Rexroth