Fujiwara no Ietaka

This month's poet, Ju Nii Ietaka, was a direct contemporary of Fujiwara no Teika, the compiler of this collection of poetry, being just four years older; it is interesting to note that they both survived into their eightieth year, no common feat in those days. Perhaps their poetry activities kept them mentally active; they both left a substantial legacy of poetry collections and anthologies.

Because I am making reproductions of existing prints, and not new originals of my own, many of the decisions that must be made when creating a print have already been made for me; I simply follow what the original craftsmen did. But because I do make alterations - use more colours, or carve the hair more finely, etc. - the process is not completely 'automatic'. In a couple of the prints that I made during the past year, I had an idea for something a little bit different, and carved the set of colour blocks with that in mind, but when it came time to print and I saw the trial copies, I found that my conception wasn't quite so attractive, so discarded one or two of the finished blocks, and made the print a different way, testing various colour schemes until I found one that seemed to work.

Hiroshi Yoshida, the well-known print artist of the first half of the 20th century, wrote a book on printmaking in which he had strong things to say about this; '(That is) not the right way to work. Such an artist may be likened to the skipper who sails out of a harbour without any fixed destination in mind. The ship proceeds over the sea this way or that, as willed by the wind and tide, and then when he comes in sight of land, the skipper points to it and says that that is his destination. That is absurd.'

His point was that before the making of a print begins, before any actual cutting or printing is done, the printmaker should have a clear idea in his mind of just what the finished print is to look like. The manufacturing process is simply an automatic series of steps that moves toward that pre-determined goal.

Now I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I admire this ideal - someone could have such a clear mental image of a finished print, right down to all the delicate details, that there were no 'surprises' when doing the test printing; I myself am slowly improving in this regard. This month's print for example, came out pretty much as I had envisioned it during the weeks of carving.

But to work this way seems to me to ignore one of the fundamental aspects of woodblock prints - the infinite range of beauty that may be produced from these simple materials: the delicate pigments and the 'deep' and responsive paper. I believe it is truly infinite - no matter how much experience a printmaker may have, or how well he has 'imagined' the finished print, these materials are still capable of surprising him. I think that even such a wonderful artist as Mr. Yoshida must have sometimes caught his breath when he lifted the paper up off the block and saw the result. I am sure though, he said nothing ... just smiled a quiet smile ...

In my case, as I still have such a lot to learn about this craft, I frequently encounter such surprises. 'Look at that!' is a phrase frequently heard in my workshop ...

Of course I hope I too will eventually gain such mastery over the woodblocks that I can create a finished print 'in my mind' and then simply do what is necessary to make it, but even if I do, I hope I never become such an 'expert' that I no longer let the materials surprise me with their beauty. Out in Mr. Yoshida's wide sea are many wonderful lands, and I feel no shame when my ship drifts against unexpected new shores ...

June 1998

Translation: Clay MacCauley, 1899