Ukiyo-e is a style of woodblock printing created and developed during the Edo era (1603-1867) and has more than 300 year history. The word Ukiyo-e was originally Buddhist and meant "sad world" but by the seventeenth century, this evolved to mean, "floating world".Within Ukiyo-e there were two distinct styles, the dominant Edo school (Tokyo) and the Kamigata-style (the region including the cities of Osaka and Kyoto).The most obvious difference between these was the subject matter used. Where Edo prints depicted everything from beautiful women, geisha, courtesans, to domestic scenes, militia, even ghosts and demons. The Kamigata prints portrayed actors almost exclusively.
The roots of Ukiyo-e can be traced to the urbanization that took place in the late 16th century, from this came class of merchants and artisans who began writing stories and painting pictures. Ukiyo-e were often used in these books, but came into their own as single-sheet prints and posters.
When making Ukiyo-e prints a master drawing was first produced in ink. An assistant, would then create a tracing (hanshita) of this master. Craftsmen glued the hanshita face-down to a block of wood then carved a relief print of the drawing on the block. This was inked, printed and given to the artist for a final check. The same was done for the coloured areas, one block per colour. The resulting woodblocks were inked in different colours and sequentially impressed onto paper. The final print bore the impressions of each of the blocks, some printed more than once to obtain just the right depth of colour.
No comments:
Post a Comment