write 400-500 words Discuss the materials, processes, and subjects of Japanese woodblock prints. Post an image to support your discussion. please go through the file grading process and class note
Unit 4 Introduction
This is the era of the military (samurai) rule by the Tokugawa Shogunate until 1868 when the Meiji emperor is reinstated. We often think of countries ruled by the military as not being very culturally inclined. This is certainly not true of Japanese culture which thrived under the rule of the Shogun from Edo, modern-day Tokyo. Ink painting develops as monks travel to China to study. Zen Buddhism becomes the religion of the samurai and is responsible for many of the new art forms including the austere tea ceremony of Sen no Rikyu, a Zen monk, as well as the design of tea houses, their gardens, and the tea implements. Different painting schools evolve that appeal to the imperial court in Kyoto (the emperor is no longer head of State at this time) as well as to the samurai class. Individuals become educated. Woodblock prints evolve from simple ones in black and white to the elaborate coloured ones of the 17th century. The modern art of the 20th century continues to pay homage to much earlier Japanese customs.
Japanese Art after 1333
Zen Buddhism reached the height of its influence between the 14-16th centuries.
It is during this time that the military rulers of Japan, the Shogun and the local lords, daimyo, and the samurai, became fond of Chinese ink paintings. In particular, they enjoyed the monochromatic ink paintings, which were being imported. The rise in prestige of Japan’s priests trained in ink painting during the 15th and early 16th century had a profound impact not only on the growth of the medium in Japan but also on the development of the rock gardens. One of the most famous was Sesshu Toyo who had studied under Tensho Shubun. Sesshu had also studied ink painting in China. He was initially influenced by Song dynasty ink and wash landscape paintings with their suggestion of spatial depth. He would have seen any number of these, but Sesshu also moved beyond the work of the Chinese. His imagery contained none of the portraits in a landscape so typical of the Song models. Sesshu’s brushwork is full of energy and a pure stillness that belies its complexity.
The most famous Zen dry or rock garden is that at Ryoanji, The Temple of the Peaceful Dragon, in Kyoto. The site on which Ryoanji was built belonged to a mighty member of Kyoto’s Buke clan who donated his property to the monastery. The garden covers an area of 334 sq meters. It is a kare-Sansui garden prototype, which had gone through several incarnations until in the 15th century it meant ‘withered mountain-water’. To date, no one knows who designed this space, one of Japan’s most famous rock gardens. It has fifteen stones set into a white pebble landscape. Those stones are grouped into three compositions - of seven, five, and three - respectively. In Japan, the word for ‘sit’ is also the same word for ‘meditation’: zazen. And at Ryoanji individuals sit on the covered porch meditating on the nothingness or the emptiness of the garden.
According to legend, Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen, struggled to stay awake during zazen. He ripped off the lids of his eyes, threw them to the ground and from them grew tea plants. During the Song Dynasty, Japanese monks travelled to China to study. They returned with knowledge of the ink landscape paintings, but they also came back to Japan knowing about tea and its qualities. It was in the 12th century, however, that the Rinzai School of Zen was introduced to Japan by a returning monk, Eisai. Eisai brought with him the knowledge of mixing powdered green tea in a bowl with hot water with a whisk as opposed to steeping the leaves in lidded pots. The method was called Chado, ‘cha’ means ‘tea’ and ‘do’ means ‘way’. He also planted tea bushes around his temple. This was the earliest connection between Zen and tea in Japan, and while other tea masters were encouraged to learn the art, it was only Zen monks who were the teachers making the link even stronger.
Additionally, Zen priests started the relationship between Zen and the tea ceremony and the arts associated with tea. The very first scrolls to hang in the teahouses of the monasteries in Japan were those done by Chinese priests of the Song and Yuan dynasties. Later the monks of Japan become expert calligraphers. It is not until the 15th century that some elements of the tea ceremony we know today began to be incorporated into Shogun and samurai life as a result of the connection to Zen.
A Zen monk, Shuko Murata, was the adviser to the Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa. Shuko introduced tea not as a medicinal practice but a spiritual one that involved a concept, Wabi, meaning austere or straightforward beauty. Shuko served tea to the Shogun and his guests in a particular room within the Shogun's villa. Space was small, a 4.5 tatami area, with a low door so that anyone entering had to bow (a tatami mat measures approximately 2 meters by 1 meter). The only decorative element was a hanging scroll. Murata replaced the delicate Chinese porcelain (or Korean) tea bowls with earthenware ones. The practice became known as Wabi-cha (plain tea), and the tea ceremony became chanoyu emphasizing its deeper spiritual aspect. The disciplined mind and the shared code of ethics by host and guest appealed to Zen as well as to the samurai class. The most influential Japanese tea master was Sen no Rikyu, also a Zen monk, who lived during the 16th century. He first served as a tea master for Oda Nobunaga and later Toyotomi Hideyoshi, two of the most powerful men in Japanese history. The disciplined process that Rikyu developed, temae, was aimed at establishing harmony, reverence, purity, and calm in the ceremony, the setting, and the mind. The tearoom, the manner of preparation, and the objects used were stripped of everything but the most essential. This type of tea ceremony was strongly influenced by samurai culture and Zen Buddhism, with its focus on discipline and simplicity.
The teahouse was meant to create a calm and meditative atmosphere.
Rikyu moved the ritual away from the large lavish halls to a humble thatched tea hut. The tearooms were small. They usually were the 4.5 tatami mats of Shuko, but Rikyu designed a tearoom of only 2 mats which was named Tai'an. The ceilings were made of bamboo, the walls were bare and the sliding doors covered with handmade paper, shoji, stopped the glare of the light. The bowl that was initially used as a typical rice bowl. The only decoration was a scroll with calligraphy or a vase of flowers placed in the cubicle, the tokonoma. Participants would walk through the garden where they would be greeted by the host. There would be a silent bow at the inner gate to the teahouse. The guests would then purify their hands and mouth at a stone basin and enter the tearoom through a low opening. You can see the tokonoma of the Taian Tearoom with its hanging scroll in your text.
Part of Rikyu's aesthetic was to eliminate social difference. The host would add charcoal to the fire and would serve the guests sweets while they admired the scroll and the flower arrangements in the alcove. If time permitted, guests were allowed to view the tea utensils. If not they would proceed to where they would sit. The host ritually wipes all of the utensils. Tea would be prepared, and the conversation would typically have focused on the utensils used in the day's ceremony. Individuals would place the chawan in their left hand and turn it with their right. This was to avoid drinking from the front. This was a sign of modesty. The guest would then use their thumb and index finger to wipe where they had swallowed with a pocket paper known as a chakai. They would then turn the chawan back to where the front faced them and would place it in front of them. Subsequent guests would follow this same procedure.
Chojiro was the first potter to take the name Raku. The XVth Raku master continues to live in Kyoto, where the house and workshop were built during the Momoyama period. The restrained designs, modest shapes and colours continue to appeal to the Japanese as the Raku master's exhibitions are always sold out on the first day. Rikyu's disciplined tea ceremony is the form most practised today.
Beginning in the 14th century, the Japanese princely class, the aristocracy and the local daimyo or feudal lords began to have special tearooms created in their gardens. These served as places for essential meetings and as a way of displaying their wealth. The growth of the merchant class in the 17th and 18th centuries saw the development of other forms of tea ceremony, including the use of geisha. The term means artist and these young women were trained in music, dancing, conversation, and the tea ceremony.
In Japan, the term shodo means ‘the path of writing’.
In the West, we use the term calligraphy. In Japan, shodo is different from other art forms because the goal is simplicity, beauty, and a keen focus that is intent on making the mind and body one. In studying and perfecting calligraphy, the artist has to take into account the line, shape, and the space available to them for their image. Lines are drawn with a mental focus that requires determination, mastery of the brush, and a clear mind. Strokes are then made by dragging, pressing, and sweeping the ink brush across the paper or silk. As a result, most of the shapes are organic, natural, and fluid as opposed to inorganic or geometric figures. Typically, calligraphy was done by an artist on sheets of paper or silk laid on a flat surface and then mounted onto some type of support. Calligraphy can be found on fans, made into small albums, mounted as handscrolls known as e-makimono, hanging scrolls known as kakemono, moveable folding screens known as byobu, or attached to sliding door panels known as fusuma. Usually, screens were six folds, but on occasion, two-panel screens were constructed. It is believed that one is only able to achieve a masterful level of painting if one is a good calligrapher!
Woodblock printing is a team effort. The term ‘ukiyo-e quartet’, coined by Tijs Volker in 1949 simplifies the individuals who worked on prints. The ‘quartet' was the publisher, the artist, the engraver, and the printer. The artist designed the image, the engraver or carver cut the blocks, and the printer managed the inks, while the publisher owned the studios, financed the projects, and managed the sales. The publisher hired the artist who most often worked in his or her own studio on the original sketches, done in black and white, requested by the publisher. Another person would trace the artist's original drawing onto thin paper, which would then be given to the engraver. Engravers pasted the paper copy face down onto a block of cherry wood.
Wild Cherry (Sakura) was preferred for its fine texture and straight grain. They would gently rub the paper until all residues were removed and only the lines remained. Hempseed was often rubbed onto the paper to make this job easier for the engraver. What was left was an image that was the reverse of the artist’s original sketch. The drawing would then be chiselled. This unique block had a registration mark, a Kento, to help the printer align the blocks so that all subsequent blocks would be in the precise position for adding colour. This first block is called the key block. When the first block had been fully carved with the kento in place, the engraver would print a copy, which would be returned to the artist. The artist would then hand colour the print. Each colour had to have a separate carved block. The printer would paint or rub the dyes onto the block, and then the impression would be made by hand (not with a press that is done in the West) onto dampened washi or mulberry paper. The printer would rub the back of the paper to make sure that all of the ink was absorbed. The tool used was a rubbing pad called a baren. The publisher would decide how many prints would be created. The average number during the Edo era was 200. A favourite image, in the 19th century, could, however, have as many as 1000 copies made. When ‘the run’ was finished, the artist’s seal, the printer’s seal and a date seal would be added to the front of the print.
