William Edwin Anderson

“ All these defects in the principles of the painter’s art must necessarily influence the character of the engraver’s transcript and render the problem of comparison difficult and unprofitable. It must be enough to say that Japanese wood-cuts are distinguished by clearness and decision of line and a remarkably decorative use of masses of black, and in chromoxylography by a colour-harmony that we have yet to equal. Like the work of the artist in lacquer and metal, the finished engraving demonstrates that infinite capacity for taking pains which is so strong a feature of the national character. ”

“ It must not be overlooked, however, that although a literary and artistic training on the narrow classical lines of his time might have made him a greater painter, there is even more probability that it would have stifled the verve and originality which give the savour to his art, and would have led to a life's work of infinitely less value to the world than that which he has actually given. ”

“ As schemes of dramatic decoration they are scarcely to be surpassed and have rarely been equalled; and the time is not far distant when the sheets which brought to artist and engraver the pittance of a mechanic, and were sold for a vile price in the streets of Yedo, Osaka and Kyoto will rank in the estimation of the collector with the masterpieces of the engraver's art. ”

“ It is a dismal conclusion to predict the extinction of an art industry to which Japan has owed so much, but the end is inevitable. The introduction of movable metallic types has been the first stroke of fate, for Chinese and Japanese engraving began with the carving-out of the elaborate characters that make up the script of the two nations, and ideographic symbols and pictorial illustrations have held together in close companionship nearly down to the present day ”

“ JAPANESE
WOOD ENGRAVINGS
It would be hard to overestimate the debt which the world owes to the wood engraver. For upwards of a thousand years he has done for the great Turanian races what the type-founder and compositor have done for Europe during the last five centuries; and, throughout the civilised world, he has brought art as a means of pleasure and instruction before the eyes and understanding of millions of all sorts and conditions of men. ”

“ Any history of wood engraving that excludes the development of the processes in the Far East is more incomplete than a history of glyptic art that ignores Egyptian and Assyrian sculpture, because the sculpture of Egypt and Assyria is a thing of the remote past, while Chinese and Japanese wood engraving still remains to us, for a little while at least, as a living art. ”

“ Every lover of Japanese woodcuts will recognise that much of the charm of the more prized impressions has been contributed by the artistic feeling of the printer after the designer and engraver had done their work.
If we are to judge Japanese engraving by the effects produced, it is hard to assign its due place in the xylographic art of the world, on account of the imperfect evolution of the art it seeks to express. The Japanese painter clings to many a useless convention that has no
Fig. 37—Reduced from a woodcut in the European style, published in the Myako no hana (1888) . ”

“ Satow [2] has shown how quickly the advantages of the art were realised by the Japanese, and has presented to the British Museum copies of a Buddhist Dharani printed in Japan before the end of the eighth century, and there is reason to assume also that the Koreans, through whom Japan has derived so many of the Chinese arts and sciences, had become possessed of the same knowledge some time before her insular neighbours. Although we may infer that pictorial engraving on wood was contemporary, or nearly so, with block-printing, there is no evidence to prove the fact. ”

“ The history of block-printing and that of pictorial engraving are necessarily linked together, for, given a pictorial art as well as a literature in a nation that has just brought into use the art of printing from engraved blocks, a picture would be executed as readily as a letter or ideographic character, and would be cut on the wood whenever the need of such an illustration of the text might chance to suggest itself. ”

“ It was then that an artist of the artisan class named Torii Kiyonobu, whose name must be set side by side with that of Hishigawa Moronobu in a place of honour, began to supply portraits of famous actors and pictures of various subjects of interest to the theatre-goer of Yedo, which were engraved upon three blocks and printed in black, pale green or blue, and pale pink; and originated a phase of popular art that took a special place in the favour of the people, and was destined to undergo great development. ”

“ In fact, although the representations of women will always be found the most pleasing specimens in a collection of Japanese prints, they are not the women of Japan or of any other country, but of the artist's imagination. Landscape, birds, and flowers, the favourite subjects of the painter, appeared but little in the broadsides of the last century. It was Hokusai who set the example in landscape, in his large views of Fuji, which were published at the beginning of the present century ”

“ Let us compare the Kusa-zoshi with the contemporary chap books of our own country, or the novel illustrations of Hokusai and Toyohiro with the average pictorial cuts in our light literature of the early Victorian period, and we shall understand better the claims that the humble book artists of the Far East have upon the appreciation of their countrymen and of art lovers of all nationalities. ”

“ The art of the wood engraver had its birth in China, spreading thence to the nations which owe their ancient civilisation to the great Middle Kingdom; and it was not until centuries after the Chinese, the Koreans and the Japanese had mastered the technique of xylography that we in Europe adapted the art to our own needs. ”

“ The Japanese artist had at least equal facilities and many worthy subjects, but not one of the men who in certain directions showed so perfect and instructive an appreciation for beauty of line, has ever made a serious effort to do justice to the matchless curves of the human figure. ”

“ Utagawa Toyohiro is best known as the artist of some of the romances of Bakin, an honour which he shared with Hokusai; but his chromoxylographs, although not numerous, were equal to those of Shunshō for delicacy of outline and subdued harmony of colour, and his engravings in black and white illustrating contemporary novels equal those of Hokusai, from the purely academic standpoint, but have less vigour and character (Fig. 22) . Utagawa Toyokuni, the greatest artist of the school, was the designer of an enormous number of broadsides, theatrical and otherwise. ”

“ Torii Kiyonobu must be regarded as the founder of the theatrical school of popular art, for no theatrical broadsides of artistic value are known to have been issued before his time. He was moreover a designer of playbills and of illustrations for the quaint little novelettes called Kusa-zoshi (see page 49) , which were published in considerable numbers about the same time, and he is said to have been the inventor of the style of stage scenery still in vogue in the theatres of Tokyo and Kyoto. ”

“ The broadside designers also devoted some attention to the wrestler, who was a favourite caterer for the amusement of the public, but their training in the traditional art canons had rendered them unfit to appreciate the grand display of muscular force, that often revealed itself beneath the hide of the athlete, and as they could make nothing of the heavy features and elephantine limbs of their model, the few studies of the wrestling arena that have reached us have little attraction for the art collector. ”

“ Toriyama Sékiyen is little known, except by an interesting album of colour prints engraved by Riokō Tōyei, and a curious book descriptive of Japanese goblins, the Zokku hiak’ki (1779) ; lastly Utagawa Toyoharu, who may perhaps be regarded as the founder of the line that was destined to receive the mantle of the Katsugawas, devoted nearly the whole of his time to painting, and has left few colour prints.
The generation succeeding that of Shunshō was little less brilliant. It included Kitawo Masanobu, Kitagawa Utamaro, Hosoï Yeishi, Yeizan Utagawa Toyohiro, Utagawa Toyokuni, and Hokusai. ”

“ As a rule Chinese woodcuts are characterised by an angularity that contrasts strongly with the flowing graceful lines of the Japanese engraving, and there is never any of the effective use of masses of black that appears in the engravings of the eighteenth century in Japan. ”

“ The copper and Dutch metal are most commonly found in broadsides of the Osaka school; the silver and gold leaf on the New Year cards of the present century.
The Tools of the Printer were as simple and inexpensive as those of the engraver, but the clever fingers and careful habits almost characteristic of the race enabled the men to secure results that could hardly be excelled. ”

“ The Meizan dzu-yé of Tani Bunchō is an excellent supplement to the group of the Meisho dzu-yé, and contains many vigorous sketches of the mountain scenery of Japan. The illustrations of these works as a class are very spirited, and, notwithstanding the absence of light and shade and the defects of perspective, conveyed a vivid and faithful impression of the scenes depicted. The figures introduced into the landscape, street, or building were admirably grouped, and the more idealised pictorial transcripts of history and folk-lore were well composed and told their story with good effect. ”

“ The existing examples of the Hishigawa period are not numerous, but they are very precious to the student of Japanese woodcuts because they foreshadow in almost every direction the remarkable set of works that were to come in later times, works that will be of constantly growing interest and value to the Japanese littérateur who in future years will have to recall to his countrymen the common phases of the picturesque existence which is now so rapidly drawing to a close. ”

“ And yet although few branches of art have been the object of more painstaking and appreciative research in Europe than xylography, its Oriental manifestations, past or present, even for the professed student of the subject, have but the most nebulous kind of existence, and the reason is not far to seek. ”

“ The First or Initial Period is a long term probably extending from the commencement of block-printing, but certainly not later than the fourteenth century, to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The work of the pictorial engraver was apparently confined throughout to the Buddhist woodcuts already mentioned, for although many block books were printed in the temples, none of these are known to bear illustrations. Further researches may however be rewarded by the discovery of facts that will necessitate material alteration in the dates of our periods. ”

“ It is sad to think that his labours at last are nearly ended, superseded by processes that modern science has placed within our reach and in which his trained eye and clever hands can take no part; but his share in our past progress will always be remembered with gratitude, and his works will be guarded amongst the choicest treasures of the museums and libraries of the future. ”

“ All are agreed that he was the most versatile, original and prolific artist of his school, and that his numerous albums and book illustrations have done more than any other agency to further the cause of industrial art amongst his countrymen, and to make that art known in the rest of the world. ”

“ Portraiture, indeed, was almost confined to the theatrical artists, for although some admirable and characteristic transcripts of the features of famous priests of bygone times have been handed down to us by the temple wood-carvers, there is scarcely anything deserving the name of portraiture in painting, and no example of it even in the works of the prolific nétsuké carver. ”

“ The portraitures of Yōsai were actually types of the patrician order, while those of the popular artists were either purely imaginary, like the women of Utamaro, or modelled upon stage impersonations, adjusted to the tastes of an audience from which, unfortunately, all the representatives of culture and gentle birth were excluded by the social law of the age. This period in the history of wood-engraving fell below that which it succeeded, despite the valuable legacies bequeathed by Hokusai,
Fig. ”