Japanese Woodblock Prints

The other important tradition in Japanese art in this later period is woodblock printing. Woodblock printing is obviously not unique to Japan. We think that woodblock printing was probably invented in China, and from there it spreads both east and west, moving to both Japan and to Europe. However, the way that woodblock printing develops in Japan is somewhat different than the woodblock prints you might have seen in European art. One of the major differences is that Japanese woodblock prints use a water-based ink, which is translucent. You can see through it, at least to some extent, whereas Western European printmakers typically use an oil-based ink. It's opaque. We can't see through it. This means in Western art that when you print something, there's rarely any consideration of the overlap, or there's rarely any overlap at all, whereas Japanese prints use the overlapping of different colors to create additional images and colors. Originally, the place of woodblock prints in Japanese art history was fairly humble. They were inexpensive. They were often sold kind of on the street or out of small print shops, and they were sold as individual images, which cost about the same amount as a bowl of noodles. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, we start to see the status of those prints rise, and by the early 19th century, woodblock prints are starting to be sold in albums, which makes them more valuable and more expensive, and they are starting to broaden the range of subject matter that is considered appropriate for prints from purely kind of pop culture subjects. The early Japanese prints were largely geisha, kabuki actors, courtesans, and these later prints start to think about landscape and other more quote-unquote artistic subjects. The example we're seeing here, the Great Wave off Kanagawa, is probably one of the most famous of the Japanese woodblock prints in both East and West today, and it was made by the artist Hokusai, who is, again, recognized as one of the foremost printmakers in the early 19th century. This particular print becomes particularly famous in part because it's the cover image. This comes from an album of 36 prints, all of which feature views of Mount Fuji, and it really mixes some Western influences or Western ideas in with very traditional Japanese ideas. So the subject matter here is quite traditional. We see landscape, and in particular, we see the featuring of Mount Fuji, a kind of iconic part of the Japanese landscape. And in terms of the composition, the flatness of this composition, the lack of a light and shadow in a Western European style, is all very traditional in the Japanese printmaking tradition. However, several ideas, including the low horizon line here, invoke a more Western influence. The color here also comes from Western influences. This is a color called Prussian blue, which is one of the first synthetic pigments to be developed, and it was developed in Europe. Prussia is an area that compromises mostly Germany and parts of Poland today. And so this is really a print that mixes some of those Eastern and Western influences. Other artists start to bring in Western influences even more obviously. So after Hokusai's death, Hiroshige really becomes a preeminent printmaker in mid-19th century Japan. And like Hokusai, Hiroshige is obviously incorporating some Western influence. So in particular, we can see the use of one-point linear perspective and light and shadow here in a more Western style way. And in part, this Western influence comes from the export of these prints. After around 1850, Japan begins to have a more extensive trade with European and American ports. This was in part a forced move and not necessarily a wished-for development, but once American and British forces forced their hands, this kind of outside influence is incredibly influential in Japan. And artists in particular started to seek out and collect these prints and use them as influential references. Like we see in Japan, these are relatively inexpensive. They're more expensive exports than they are in Japan, but they're relatively inexpensive. And this makes them affordable for artists who might be on a somewhat constrained budget. So for instance, even artists like Van Gogh, who we know was not a very successful artist during his lifetime, didn't have a lot of money, owned several of this kind of Japanese prints. And this makes this kind of print influence both taking in Western influence like we've seen in the last couple of prints, but also in turn influencing Western art. So in a couple of weeks, when we talk about the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, we see a significant influence of this kind of Japanese print on Western art as well.