Category: printmaking history

Hey all- Sorry for the long wait. As I think I said before, I’m done with the printing of the Appalachian Trail Print series. I’m struggling with the binding at the moment and have discovered that I’m a much better printer (or a much poorer binder)- still in the prototype stage…

Anyway, I thought that I’d share a few of the 75 or so books I own relating to Japanese-style woodblock printmaking- the first installment concentrating on my three favorite artists: Hiroshi Yoshida, Toshi Yoshida, and Kawase Hasui.

The Yoshida Family

OK, so this is the book that starting all this nonsense 🙂

“The Complete Woodblocks of Hiroshi Yoshida”,

Amazon (later edition by Tuttle) ABE Publishing, 1987 203 pages, in English and Japanese

While living in Atlanta, I was perusing a local bookstore and they had a pile of these books. I couldn’t stop looking at these prints and still can’t- each page revealed a new world for me. Yoshida loved mountains as I do. I’m wary about the claim “complete” – there are several prints of Hiroshi’s out there that aren’t contained here, but the vast majority are. Beautiful accurate color and nice information.

“Yoshida Hiroshi: Printmaker” by Ben Bruce Blakeney

Published by: Foreign Affairs Assoc. of Japan; 2nd printing (1953), in English

Three years after Hiroshi’s death, This biography was written. It includes the post-mortem frontispiece “Court of Lions, The Alhambra” which is a charming little print. A general biography with a great list of his prints and bibliography at the time.

“Japanese Wood-Block Printing” by Hiroshi Yoshida

Published by: Sanseido Publishing, Tokyo; 1st ed. (1939), in English ABE BOOKS

Considered the “bible” of how-to in mokuhanga- especially shin-hanga. Includes 6 hand-printed examples: a frontispiece “Cherry and Castle” and a progressive stage print of “A Junk” (see right).  This book can be accessed online through David Bull’s Woodblock Encyclopedia. I find this to be a sincere attempt (although he does leave out some details) to spread the craft to the west. Since it was published in 1939, I’m amazed how many copies (although not cheap) are still available.

“Hiroshi Yoshida Exhibition“

Published by: MOA (Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan), 2000; 134 pages

Includes a wide-variety of Yoshida’s prints, paintings (some traditional sumi-e), drawings a a few images of carved blocks. Many of the paintings and drawings relate to later print designs. All images are in color with a list of works. In Japanese.

“Exhibition of the Wood-Block Prints by Hiroshi Yoshida“

Published by: Riccar Museum, Tokyo; 1976

250 black and white reproductions and 11 in color with list of works. In Japanese and sparse English.

“My Yoshida Hiroshi Unpublished Manual“, by Tamio Sonoda　

Self-published, 107 pages. Yamada Shoten.

Another book I picked up in Tokyo, this one commemorating Yoshida’s 140th years since birth has been described as a “fan boy” book showing 15o illustrations of Hiroshi Yoshida’s drawing and paintings that influenced his later prints.

“Japanese Print Making: A Handbook of Traditional & Modern Techniques” by Toshi Yoshida and Rei Yuki

Tuttle, 1966. 176 pages, in English. Copy signed “To: Sir Allen Brown [Australian Ambassador to Japan], 14th, Nov., 1966”

I feel confident that Hiroshi’s son, Toshi wanted this to be the contemporary version of his father’s “Japanese Wood-Block Printing” manual. The book certainly contains many experimental techniques during a time in which Toshi was full-swing in his modern phase. Like his later prints, I haven’t seen these techniques ‘catch on’. I do admire Toshi’s desire to go beyond the shin hanga genre.

An interesting note: My copy came with this flyer announcing an accompanying 28-minute movie “Japanese Print Making”. I believe that I later saw that it is in The University of Hawaii’s Art Museum collection, so apparently, it was made…

“Varieties of the Japanese Print, Vol. 1” by Toshi Yoshida

Self-published, 1967, in English. ABE Books

To accompany his”Japanese Print Making: A Handbook of Traditional & Modern Techniques” manual, this collection of prints feature 20 hand-printed woodblocks including several process prints. All of the designs reflect the contemporary experimental bent that certainly has a early-to-mid 60s feel.

I find that this information to be minimally-useful, but in the right hands, I think that someone can produce some interesting graphic work.

Kawase Hasui

“Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints”  by Kendall Brown

Hotei Publishing, 2003 ( or 2008). Two volumes, 592 pages, in English. Amazon.com

Coming in at nearly 12 lbs, this is not the only compendium, but certainly the most exhaustive. Also includes a DVD with additional prints not included and a 42-minute documentary (in Japanese) of Hasui working two years before his death. You can see the online version on YouTube below.

“Kawase Hasui and His Contemporaries”  by Irwin Prachter

Emerson Museum of Art, 1986

Essays on Kobayashi Kiyochika, Shozaburo Watanabe, Hashiguchi Goyo, Kawase Hasui, and publisher’s marks.

With black and white images and 9 color plates from prominent shinhanga artists: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Kobayashi Kiyochika, Hashiguchi Goyo, Ito Shinsui, Kawase Hasui, Hiroshi Yoshida, Kasamatsu Shiro, and Ito Takashi.

Well, that’s all, folks!

Stay tuned for the next installment of books about woodblock printmaking.

A secret holiday message may be transmitted with your decoder ring and don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine!

This is a continuation of the first entry introducing this print

Below are the individual impressions for the shin hanga print “Flower Street After the Rain” or “Kagurazaka Dori” by Hiroshi Yoshida, 1929. I hope it’s not too much of an esoteric subject, but hey, I’m a geek about this stuff.

For my (and others’) sake,  I have added some of the artist’s hand-written notes along with some of my own about what I believe each impression’s technical considerations  were and how it was designed by the artist.

Folks that are not familiar with overlapping colors may be surprised with how much stronger the impressions on the left sides (no.’s with A) appear in context with how they appear in the cumulative print on the right. This can be explained in two ways: (1) the  perception of value contrast as the solitary colors are surrounded by blank paper and (2) often colors on top of others are not absorbed into previously printed colors- especially if the paper is damp which creates somewhat of a resistance. Often the newly-printed colors merely appear to tint the previous colors rather than darken them.

I’ve heard that if a woodblock design or printing wasn’t going that well, a publisher would decide make it into a night scene. In this print, however, it’s clear to me that this design is all about featuring a night-time luminosity of reflections and glowing interiors.

Since I did not take these images, there may be a lot of variation in lighting value and temperature. I believe I remembered the individual color sheets to be of a lesser quality paper that has become darker that the washi used for the cumulative impressions- this makes sense cost-wise and registration is not an issue. Either way, thank you again Florida State University’s Art Collection!

Number of impressions (lightest = least, darkest = most)

Final print

Once again, here is an the animation from the first entry:

The baren (馬連 or バレン) is the most important tool (other than hands) for a mokuhanga printmaker. As it’s well-documented, hon barens have three parts: the (1) shin, or coil that is twisted shirodake bamboo and sewn into a disc; the (2) ategawa, the disc composed of ~40 sheets of washi paper glued together with persimmon juice sealed with water-proof urushi lacquer; and the (3) takenokawa, a timber bamboo leaf covering. Barens are, as you can imagine, quite expensive as it takes upwards of 6 months for a craftsman to make and cost anywhere from US$800>$1400. The number of strands, the width of strips, and how they are braided dictate the coarseness, power, and/or finesse of the baren depending on the intended printing effect. An article from woodblock.com about hon barens and baren-making can be seen here.

I have used a number of low and medium-quality barens (murasaki, etc.) over the years, but I always felt that my equipment lacked hon (or “authentic“) barens. I experienced the advantage of using the real thing while printing at Mokuhankan in Tokyo where Dave Bull was generous enough to allow me to try many of them from his baren ‘strongbox’. Incidentally, there was fine 8-strand baren which we all politely fought over for detail work. Anyway, I found that the hon baren’s washi ategawa allows for the printer to pull on the baren sides in order to concentrate the power in several directions plus the bamboo coil really makes a perfect combination of power and finesse. I would also recommend using the standard 13 cm-size baren as it  works as an ‘outrigger’ to keep it flat on the block while printing.

“After a while, I really felt as if the natural combination of a hon baren’s coil, disc, and covering was simply an extension of my arm and fingers.”

UPDATE: So I am always “trolling” Japanese auctions (Jauce.com, Yahoo.jp, etc.) for printmaking tools. I occasionally come up with jewels- last year, I purchased 32 Kintaro-brand maru bake (printing brushes). Anyway, after about 2 years of diligently looking for barens, I hit what I consider the ‘motherload’ of barens a few weeks ago- maybe a printer died 🙁 Although not cheap (especially with all of the fee$), I was able to purchase 7 hon barens! I wonder where they came from- most are very lightly used if all and one seems very old. I believe that there are (2) 16-strand, (2) 12-strand, and (2) 8-strands along with (1)a very old-looking 6-strand(?). I am patiently waiting for Hidehiko Gotou, who is purportedly the last maker of traditional hon barens, to help me identify them.

Gotou-san said that the baren coils can last a professional printer for up to 3 generations, the ategawa for up to a decade, and as you probably know, the a takenokawa covering lasts for a print or two depending.

This fall, I had the pleasure of meeting Gotou-san at the IMC 2017 conference in Manoa, Hawaii. Earlier in the year, I had ordered two kiurushi barens (here’s the link to an earlier entry) from Gotou-san and I was quite happy with them. I found Gotou-san to be a delightful person (taller than the typical Japanese) and loves printmaking as well as baren-making. He’s now 65 (doesn’t look it) and announced while in Hawaii that he now has secured an apprentice to possibly ‘pass the baton’ for future generations of printmakers. People seemed very relieved at the news.

You can see in my Youtube video below how Gotou-san twists a 4-strand (ko) which can be then formed into any number of braiding combinations. The plant-end of the shirotake (white bamboo) leaf is cut into strips, the cuticle is stripped off (see pic above) and the strips are spliced while twisted and braided at the same time.

Some barens take around 12 meters (~36 ft.) of braid to make a single baren coil, As you can see, he is blazing-fast (no, this is not sped-up!) and amazingly consistent.

Afterwards, the 4 strands are doubled (8 ko), tripled (12 ko), or quadrupled (16 ko), and sewn together to form the flat coil. It’s then fitted to the ategawa and a softer rope is laid outside the coil to minimize ‘bumping marks’ from the sides. Gotou-san is, of course, also a master at wrapping the takenokawa around the whole enchilada. The presentation of a new baren is very clean using white bamboo to wrap (which is weak, but pretty), and a photo of the coil is included with the new baren. I have heard that it takes some time to break in a new baren. An article from woodblock.com goes into some detail- see: here

I also did a re-wrap of all of my 22? barens (hoarder?) which was good practice. Plus, I uncoiled and sewed together the old hon baren (seen in the bottom right of above picture. Pro tip: to sew a baren you have to use silk thread and tie an overhand knot in each pass through the coil by tying, winding the coil a quarter turn, tying, etc. and introducing ‘eighth pie sections’ 2/3 of the way through for stability. Very little tension is what you want in order to keep the coil really flat- which is VERY important. IMO, my final product doesn’t look that bad for a gaijin– and thus, I give myself a ‘gentleman’s “B” ‘.

If you’d like to check out Gotou’s baren webpage, here is the link. He speaks a whole lot better English than I do Japanese, but there is always Google translate. He can make a baren to order (takes some months to make and receive)- and he does now have a PayPal account- I think that I made him join! 🙂

A video I took in Hawaii showing Gotou-san twisting shirodake (special white bamboo) strips into a 4-strand (ko). Amazing!

Another baren-making site that you might be interested in is by Aiyumi Ohashi, who I had the pleasure to work with in Asakusa. She was a student of Gotou-san and has a brief how-to page of her own here.

This process animation is from publisher Shōzaburō Watanabe “The Process of Color-Block Printing”, printed in 1935 from an Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) design “Hamamatsu”, no. 30 from the series Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, 1850.

Hiroshi Yoshida is My Hero.

Ever since I picked up the book The Complete Woodblock Prints of Hiroshi Yoshida, in 1991, I have been haunted, nay gobsmacked, by his designs. In fact, I wouldn’t have quit my illustration business, gone to grad school, and taught higher education if it were not for his work. If you’re not familiar with Hiroshi Yoshida (1876-1950), check it out on Google.

Yoshida’s prints fall within the genre of shin hanga (or “new” prints)- a 20th-century movement started well after uniyo-e’s demise and provided a Renaissance of mokuhanga that lasted from roughly from the mid 1910s until the 50s. This movement was started by Yoshijirô Urushibara (1888–1953) through his collaborations with western artists such as Frank Brangwyn. Other notable artists include Charles Bartlett, Elizabeth Keith, Tsuchiya Kōitsu, and many others. The idea of shin-hanga was to use traditional mokuhanga printing techniques in a watercolor effect- lessening the importance of line while layering color over color in a realistic, western manner often creating atmospheric depth.

In the 1920s, two primary shin-hanga artists arose: Hiroshi Yoshida and Kawase Hasui. Even though Hasui seems to get the most credit through his influence on anime, I’d put Hiroshi over Kawase Hasui any day.

True, old man Yoshida couldn’t draw people worth a nickel, claimed prints to be “self-printed”, and used zinc plates, but- Oh!, his Values, his Colors, his Lines!…

As one of the shin hanga heavies, I believe one reason Yoshida’s prints were so consistently superior was that he published his own work early on. Unlike the Hasui/Watanabe Shōzaburō team, I don’t see lulls in quality over his career.

I’ve had Blakeney’s book Yoshida Hiroshi: Print-maker since the 1990s and it’s very informative. It describes his background, travels, and a catalogue raisonné.

Plus, it has a posthumously printed woodblock fronticepiece “Court of Lions, Alhambra 1928” (I have a soft spot for the subject matter since I really liked visiting the Alhambra). 

As usual, the Court of Lions is beautifully rendered and printed. The woodblock is similar to the color prints found within Yoshida’s Japanese Woodblock Printing from 1929, the classic how-to guide that I also treasure. The hand-printed examples in both books are really inspiring- especially considering the thousands of copies that must have been produced.

I’ll be in awe of this man the rest of my life.

Warning: This chapter contains a lot of geeky, technical information often going beyond the basics of Japanese-style printmaking. To add context, please refer to Woodblock.com’s extensive  Encyclopedia entries.

I apologize in advance if you already know these things… That said, Dave Bull would regularly remind me [paraphrased]: “There are often more ways than one to do these things- you should look, listen, and try one way and then another, and then compare the results. One advantage is to think outside the box”. And he is right as evidenced by his, and others’ work and innovations. So to that end, here are a few things to consider…

Printing Brush Prep

Printing brushes (maru and hanga bake) have stiff hairs for a reason- you need the firmness to move pigment and paste around the blocks. On the other hand, a firm, stiff hair leaves a streak. Usually, mokuhanga requires smooth pigment application, so to get the best of both worlds, the tips need to be softened by a mechanical process of rubbing along a rough surface (sharkskin, ‘dragonskin’, coarse sandpaper, etc.). I was able to compare the “pre-conditioned” brushes from Matsumura and the ones at the print studio and the latter were noticeably softer. Here, I am conditioning a maru bake.

The first step: Singeing the Brush Hair

After you get a new brush, the next step is to form it (see brush profile pic above). The traditional way is to melt the hairs using a hotplate. I made my own setup to fit on top of an electric element. It’s a pretty stinky and hot process. Some folks simply trim with scissors although I find that the melting technique is a bit quicker and easier to be consistent.

The Next Step: The Old Grind

Shark skins have unique properties and are valued by craftspeople for a number of purposes. This angel shark skin features thousands of serrated tooth-like dermal denticles [see images]. 90-grit sandpaper can also work if you don’t have access- large sanding belts provide a longer surface to use. I’ve seen folks use powered machinery, but this really isn’t that much work to me.

The technique that works best for me is to:

1. Dampen the brush ends- I use a plate to pick up a few droplets of water.
2. Hold the brush flat and push from the tail to the head in long strokes in North>South>East>West degrees for about 50 strokes each direction.
3. Then on the side fins, vigorously grind the brushes in short, hard strokes pushing the hairs so that you can feel the hairs grab. It helps me to support the brush hairs from the back with my thumbs to make sure a strong contact against the sharkskin or sandpaper is made.
4. It should produce a kinda gross brown powder build-up.
5. If hairs protrude, it’s best to trim them with scissors rather than pulling them out since tightly-packed hairs are what’s keeping them in the brush.

When I was shown the process by experience printers in Japan, I aped what I saw. I wasn’t able to get anywhere for many hours. I did successfully rip the tip of my finger open which got me a little mad, [see pic of my finger] but this also got me thinking: I needed to rip the hairs just as I did my finger.

After doing the ~30 initial strokes to roughen up, I finally was able to feel the hairs ‘grip’ the sharkskin- really grip them.

To consider when to stop, look for a light brown color developing on the face of the brush- an almost velvety look indicative of a well-conditioned brush. I also diagnosed the softness of the tips by rubbing it against my cheek.

Problems: The middle of the brush had a slight dip. We concluded that that area had the most contact with the sharkskin.

I asked Kubota-san why the ‘dip’ in the middle and he explained to me that I should rub the brush 50 times FLAT. He said that I should rub each brush in the following directions: North, South, East, West, 45°, 135°, 225°, 315°, the on the ‘CORNERS’ of the brush in all NSEW directions top and bottom. I’m not good at math, but this is 16 angles x 50= 800 strokes. Maybe I’m lazy, but I found that the brushes didn’t need that much attention.

Here’s a short video to get a feel of it:

So, what are we looking for microscopically? There was a bit of deliberation on the question: Are the tips of the brush tapered or ‘frizzed’? Suga-san (who worked at the Adachi Institute for 5 years) and Mr. Kenichi Kubota, master printer at Adachi discussed this. I personally was at a loss with my lack of language skills to comprehend the vast majority of what was said, but I think that ‘tapered’ won out (see diagram).

Brush Jigs for Hanga Bake

Like I said earlier, I use my thumbs to keep the hairs from bending too much while rubbing against the skin (once again, this is a bit tricky to avoid fingers being ground). If you are sharpening a hanga bake (the more ‘paintbrush’ like tool), it’s advised to wrap the brush with a jig and twine so that only the tips are being ground. The printers wrapped them tightly using wooden strips with holes on both sides to keep things stable. If someone knows how to make a jig for maru bakes, please tell me.

Watching a Brush Maker on Asakusa Dori

I stumbled across a brush maker on Moto Asakusa near Ueno Park. I watched Mrs. Miyagawa work and the process looked relatively simple- I’m sure it’s a lot harder than it looks. Hanks of horse hair are cut and gathered,  loop light wire through holes in the wooden brush base. The hairs are threaded into the wire loop half way and the hairs are pulled into the holes. I purchased a couple of smaller maru bake brushes and she gave me a small hanga bake. Nice lady! A more in-depth report on the shop can be found here.

Enter a caption Enter a captionI know the title sounds bad and I should have more respect for my heroes . However, this is an animation assembled from a hand-printed progression in Hiroshi Yoshida’s “Japanese Wood-block Printing” from 1939. I’m fortunate to have a copy of this along with his son’s two manuals. Hiroshi Yoshida was a pioneer of the shin-hanga movement and I find his examples very instructive as far as layering transparent colors. The man especially loved grays and browns which is a bit surprising for me. Each of these four progressive plates have an average of 3-4 colors per page for a total of 15 impressions:

Plate I
Black outline; outline block (I).
Blue sky; sky block (VI).
Brown sail and boat; sail block (II)
Yellow on water; water block (VII).
Indigo reflection on yellow; reflection block (IV).

Plate II

Subdued purple gradation for the sky from bottom upward. The sky block (VI) repeated.
Carmine to heighten the light; the red block (VIII).
Indigo gradation from top downward on the reflection. The reflection block repeated.
Indigo gradation on water from either side; the water block (VII) repeated to kill the red where unnecessary.

Brown gradation on sails from top downward; the sail block (II) repeated.
Brown over the boat; the boat block (III).
Indigo for water to heighten the light in the upper part, and also perforated in the lower part; the indigo block (IX).

Plate IV (Finished)

Indigo gradation from the top of the sky. The sky block (VI) repeated.
Grey-block (V) to darken the masts and give a shade to the boats.
Indigo gradation from the bottom upward on the water. The water block (VII) repeated for this purpose. A baren of sixteen-strand cord was used to produce the horizontal marks on the water.

At the end of the progression, he also includes a night version (left).

Don’t take this the wrong way- I think this guy’s junk looks fanfrickentastiqué!

If you are interested in buying a recently printed copy from Mokuhankan, click here.

I owe a lot to the Yoshida family, particularly Hiroshi Yoshida 1876-1950 who’s powerful color and design choices got me interested in woodblock in the early 90’s after I was struck by his work featured in The Complete Woodblock Prints of Hiroshi Yoshida. As one of the major shin-hanga artists, like Kawase Hasui 1883-1957, Hiroshi was able to take the layering of his watercolor paintings and transpose the process into woodblocks that are some of the most beautiful prints I’ve ever seen.

Below is an animated .gif I put together in Photoshop from images of a simple woodblock, Castle of Himeji, by Hiroshi’s son, Toshi Yoshida 1911-1995. From what I can tell, the impressions are as follows: (1) black keyblock, (2) light yellow sky (3) dark yellow foreground (4) med. gray architecture (5) blue/green sky, foliage (6) light gray details in sky, shadows (7) med warm green> dark cool green bokashi for trees. Note the small details, like the blue on roofs, subtle gray shadows on houses and trees. I hope to be able to print as cleanly and be as efficient in the color use someday.

Toshi Yoshida, Castle of Himeji, ca 1950. Courtesy of Japanese Arts Gallery