Decorative Sunday: Suzuki Harunobu
The polychromatic woodblock print began in Japan around 1765 with celebrated Ukiyo-e artist Suzuki Harunobu (~1725-1770). Today we highlight several of Harunobu’s works from our collection, as well as a book that illuminates this intricate process of color printing.
Harunobu began his art at a time when handicrafts were produced – almost exclusively – for a domestic Japanese market. Ukiyo-e developed as a commercial handicraft, managed (and censored) by guilds that oversaw artists, engravers, and printers. Unlike the more exclusive work of “official artists” who held esteemed positions in society, Ukiyo-e was a commercial industry and part of mass/popular culture.
The three prints above are drawn from the 1959 book Figure Prints of Old Japan. Printed in San Francisco by The Grabhorn Press in a limited edition of 400 for the Book Club of California, the book features reproductions of prints from the large collection of Marjorie and Edwin Grabhorn.
We also highlight the step-by-step images from The Making of a Japanese Print which shows the reader the outline printed from the key block of Harunobu’s “The Heron Maid.” Published by Charles Tuttle and Rutland and printed in Tokyo by Kyoto Hanga-in, the book features an introduction by Reiko Chiba describing the simplicity of the tools and complexity of process. The key block prints as many images as there will be colors in the final work. Each of these is pasted, in turn, onto a separate block, and carved to highlight an individual color. Chiba concludes: “it is a reminder of the enduring beauty brought into being, not by artificial or mechanical means, but by the painstaking skill and care of human hands.”
--Amanda, Special Collections Graduate Intern
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