About and After Ukiyo-e


	“Japanese Contemporary Woodcut Prints” From the introduction of catalogue for the exhibition, “Japanese Woodcut Prints -at insight into contemporary practice-” by Tatsuo Matsuyama (Managing editor of "Hanga Geijutsu", the Japanese quarterly printmaking magazine)
	It is well-known that Japanese ukiyo-e artists like Hokusai and Hiroshige had a great impact on the late nineteenth century fashion for Japonisme in Europe. It also provided the source for the famous art noveau style. Later, ukiyo-e entered a period of decline, but saw a brief revival in the 1920s as the“Shin-hanga” (New Prints) movement. The old ukiyo-e system, under which production of prints was divided equally between artists, engravers and printers was replaced by individual artists who drew, engraved and printed their own works. These works were known as sosaku hanga (creative prints). Of course, the awareness of Western art and the modern conception of the artist formed the background to this development. But as a consequence, we lost the professional techniques of the artisan engravers and printers. The creative prints movement may have established the legitimacy of artistsﾕ freedom of expression, but it meant that many traditional techniques died out. But in one sense, the historically cultivated technique of woodcut printing still continued to exist vibrantly as contemporary prints even after WWII. One of the characteristics of ukiyo-e was that because it used water-based inks, the image seeps through to the reverse of the paper. This unique taste and texture has been carried on through to contemporary Japanese prints. In the literal sense of the word, if expression in Western art is to turn the artist's idea outwards, layering the paint on to and away from the canvas, in water-based ink printmaking, the artistﾕs idea is soaked in to the paper. In the 1950s, Fumiaki Fukita developed a technique for creating woodcut prints using oil-based inks and an etching press. Using these techniques, it became possible for artists to free their expressive powers and create huge prints with a scale and dynamism unlike anything that had come before. Artists like Seiko Kawachi, Shuko Takagaki, Nana Shiomi, and Shigeyuki Kimura have carried on these developments, wrestling with conceptual themes, and using their own techniques like wood intaglio and reverse-side printing. On the other hand, Gen Yamanaka, Mieko Kawachi, Ayomi Yoshida, Satoru Matsushita and Mana Aki are pursuing pure abstraction, or symbolic representations of contemporary life. But here again, the characteristic expression of these artists incorporates neutral tones which seep into the paper and matt colours roughly printed by hand. From large-scale press-printed oil prints to these new works which have developed new approaches to water-based printing, Japanese multi-coloured woodcut prints encompass a vast range of expressivity. Printmaking remains a form of contemporary art of which we can be justifiably proud.
	“Hanga Geijutsu”, the Japanese quarterly printmaking magazine web-site: http://www.abepublishing.co.jp