Japanese prints: panorama of works

We have seen, in a first article, how the Japanese prints appeared and developed according to the political and social context in which they were registered.This evolution is marked by very different types of works, an often unsuspected variety in our time.Indeed, when we think Japanese print, we imagine landscapes or large portraits, intended to adorn a wall.In reality, the art of prints is plural.Engravings represent multiple subjects and cover a large panel of use.Some were simply decorative.Others served as advertising or games.Focus on the various roles they were able to occupy, as well as on the themes treated.

Advertising prints

The Edo era develops an advertising activity which, by many aspects, prefigures certain contemporary practices.The prints play a pioneering role there and some of the most emblematic subjects of engravings enter this category.

One of the very first themes treated by painters is that of courtesans.The growth of Edo concentrates a large male population in the Shoginal capital: samurai, craftsmen, daily workers ... For a long time, Edo has more men than women, phenomenon that attracts a number of prostitutes.Yoshiwara, the Plaisirs d'Edo district, opened its doors in 1617.His courtesans become one of the favorite subjects of prints, giving birth to the Bijin-Ga, genre of Ukiyo-e devoted to female beauties.Engravings constitute an effective advertising for houses brothels by their way of magnifying prostitutes.The artists illustrate the guides of Yoshiwara presenting the various establishments and their residents, and carry out numerous portraits of courtesans, identified by their name.They thus help to establish their celebrity.From 1793, an edict tried to limit the scope of these works, deemed contrary to good mores, by prohibiting mentioning the identity of portrait women.The genre is however too well anchored to fade as easily.

Besides their advertising vocation, courtesan prints are also used to convey fashion: the women of the people are inspired by the refinement of prostitutes in terms of hairstyle or makeup.In addition, Bijin-Ga opens up to another repertoire, which leaves the world of pleasures.Mothers, wives, workers and legendary figures add their features to those of courtesans.The painters represent them in all possible situations: with their children, occupied by their work, in the middle of the toilet or walking or playing.It is interesting to observe the stylistic evolution of these engravings which reveals that of the feminine ideal throughout the time Edo.At the turn of the 18th century, the type that is essential is that of a proud and haughty woman, with a arched silhouette.The criteria evolve under the pen of Harunobu towards graceful and androgynous girls with rounded faces.After 1750, we find rather affirmed women, of a more mature age, while the 19th century will be the time of slender silhouettes and oval faces.

In parallel with courtesans, another figure in entertainment is essential in prints: that of the actor of Kabuki.Appeared at the beginning of the 17th century, Kabuki is a much more popular theater than ô.It is very appreciated by the general public for its dramatic action, its colorful costumes and make -up and its developed scenic effects.The owners of theaters quickly perceive the interest of engravings to have posters and programs made, disseminating the name of their establishment and that of the actors.For their part, the spectators appreciate being able to keep a memory of a piece or an interpretation which particularly marked them.Shini-e, necrological prints, are also published on the death of the most popular actors, as adored as contemporary stars.

Sumo wrestlers are also forged a leading place alongside courtesans and actors.Originally practical ceremonial intended to promote harvests, sumo became a professional sport at the time Edo.Its popularity continues to grow until you have a real golden age at the end of the 18th century, coinciding with that of Ukiyo-e.It is quite natural that the wrestlers in turn appear on the prints.These engravings play the same role as those of Kabuki actors: they serve as advertising support to celebrate the fame of a wrestler and that of the school to which he belongs, and allow spectators to keep a memory of their favorite wrestlers.The genre becomes so popular that a school, the Katsukawa school specializes on the subject.

The effectiveness of prints in the advertising field does not fail to be noticed by the merchants.The scientist Gennai Hiraga (1729-1780) is one of the first to have the idea of printing engravings and prospectuses to highlight a toothpaste powder of his invention.Many other traders follow his example with, sometimes, original ideas.We can cite Kyôden Santô (1761-1816), letter and tobacco merchant, who uses Utamaro prints including rebus like packaging for his items.Many do not hesitate to take advantage of fashionable artistic genres and request Kabuki actors to serve as a model in advertisements praising the merits of their products.The success generated by this type of engravings proves how sensitive Japanese were there.

Decorative prints

The city dwellers of the Edo era are very fond of engravings with purely ornamental vocation.We hang in particular in the Tokonoma, a small alcove located in the main room of a house where calligraphy, paintings and works of art are exhibited.Even the most modest homes have a Tokonoma.Failing to have the means to acquire a painting, their owners rather buy prints, at the much more affordable price.

In the 18th century, the hashira-e developed, engravings intended to be hung on the pillars of houses to hide any spots.Mounted on a support or directly glued to the pillars, these plates are distinguished by a very elongated format.Unfortunately, very few of them have reached us.Exposed in daylight, the emanations of the kitchen and tobacco, they are damaged quickly and are regularly thrown and replaced and replaced.

Another support for decorative prints: the Uchiwa, these oval and non -foldable fans, omnipresent in the life of the people of the EDO era.Very inexpensive, we buy them at the beginning of the summer, before throwing them when temperatures cool.Quickly, engravings with a specific format come to decorate them.Just like for the Hashira-e, very few of these works have subsistent until today, due to the frequent manipulations which they were subject.

All these decorative prints decline the themes dear to Ukiyo-e, those relating to the urban culture of the Edo era, or to the landscapes from the 19th century.However, another type of ornamental print will give painters the opportunity to experiment with different subjects: Surimono.

Luxury prints with private diffusion, Surimono are ordered to artists by literate circles or by individuals wishing to celebrate a personal event, such as a marriage, a birth, a name change or a success.Some stores also use them as a greeting card to send to their most loyal customers.These prints escape censorship control, due to their very limited draw.Funded by wealthy sponsors, manufacturers use the most precious pigments and superior quality papers to make them.These engravings often combine text and image, including poems in the middle of pictorial representations, and are adorned with mica, gold or silver sequins, as well as embossing effects, a technique consisting in giving reliefat certain reasons.

The genre explores the traditional themes of Ukiyo-e, but also encompasses many still luxurious natures representing luxurious objects, often linked to entertainment, as well as patterns of birds or flowers, from Chinese painting and Japanese styleYamato-e of the Heian era (794-1185).The Egoyomi, illustrated calendars whose indications are hidden within pictorial patterns, also become a very popular subject of Surimono.

Entertainment prints

Entertainment is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for artists of the Edo period: children's games, seasonal festivals, shows and fairground attractions are frequently found on engravings.During the Meiji era, some painters will even reproduce acrobatics of foreign circuses invited to Japan.Landscape boards are also part of this vein: from the 19th century, real internal tourism developed and travelers appreciate being able to report home of the prints of the places crossed.It is a memory within the reach of all budgets and easy to transport, a bit like a postcard.

However, prints are not content to represent entertainment, they serve as distraction themselves.A large number of fun prints are emerging.The prints intended for children have a great richness of different types.There are rebus, representations of Chinese shadows to reproduce and many plates to cut or fold to make models, dolls or card games.The Sugoroku, a sort of goose game, appears on the engravings.His boxes are the occasion for various illustrations, often for educational purposes.Appeared from the 12th century to serve as a support for the lessons given in Buddhist temples, this game is popular at the time of Edo, both with children and adults, thanks to the prints that diffuse it quickly and at low cost.By their current use, these playful works have, again, largely disappeared.

Other very specific engravings develop for the pleasure of adults and small ones: those intended for optical boxes and magic lanterns.These instruments giving the illusion of the relief and the movement to the images projected inside are introduced in Japan in the 18th century by the Dutch merchants of the Nagasaki counter.They become very appreciated by the general public and some painters make themselves known for their production of stereoscopic prints, such as Okyô Maruyama.

The stories conveyed by legends and folklore are another source of entertainment.These subjects, with a narrative aspect and a wide variety of characters, humans or minds, allow painters to give free rein to their inventiveness, to play on complex compositions and to vary the silhouettes, the angles and the patterns.The engravings representing tale heroes, such as Kintarô or Momotarô, are very appreciated by children who refer to it as models.For adults, we find Musha-e, warriors prints.They represent personalities and events of past centuries, the government having prohibited painters from drawing contemporary warriors.Sometimes unrolling a story on several successive boards, this genus allows the city class to appropriate the values of honor and valor of the samurai.

Finally, a particular type of print will be very successful with scholars: that of mitate.These are parody prints transposing historical or legendary themes from Japanese and Chinese traditions at the time of artists.Word games, metaphors and riddles are particularly in vogue during the Edo era and invited themselves into these engravings by playing on details to allow spectators to identify the scenes represented.

Educational and informative prints

The prints play a big role in the field of education.Until then reserved for the elite, teaching is gradually opening up to other social classes during the Edo time.Schools called Terakoya are multiplying, held by Buddhist monks, doctors, warriors, notables or widows.They welcome girls as well as boys and teach reading, calligraphy and calculation.The pedagogy of the time easily integrates entertainment into its approach, considering that learning while having fun can prove to be very effective.Illustrated and print books thus become a didactic support much appreciated for their attractive side.

The teaching of the Meiji era, more normalized and open on Western materials, continues to use this process.The artists then carry out plates with encyclopedic aiming on daily life, fauna, flora and, above all, on the many innovations that upset Japanese society, thus offering a precious testimony of modernization in.

Another type of engraving, more informative than didactic, is developing for adults: various facts.From the 17th century, flying leaves were printed to account for accidents, crimes and natural disasters waving the life of the archipelago.All criticism of the government is prohibited by censorship.These leaves are sold or read at the auction.Originally devoid of illustrations, they quickly adorn themselves with engravings.These publications continue at the turn of the Edo and the Meiji era, with the creation of the first newspapers, such as the Nagasaki Shipping List and Advisor, founded in 1861, or the Yokohama Mainichi Shinbun in 1871.

Some prints are also intended to be explanatory, especially in the health field.They establish lists of products and foods to consume to avoid illnesses, as well as those to use if one does not feel good.This type of engraving is to be linked with the anxual boards, works representing deities that are placed at the entrance of your home to keep ill of the diseases and disasters, and attract wealth and success in your home.Some of them even constitute a separate category: the namazu-e, the prints of catfish that we acquire to be spared in the event of an earthquake.A popular belief said that earthquakes were caused by the movements of a gigantic catfish imprisoned under Japan.

Erotic prints

We do not know the exact origin of erotic prints: sex education support for young brides or simple images intended for entertainment?Anyway, Shunga (spring images) appear in the artistic landscape from the beginnings of Ukiyo-e.By their finesse and the variation of their compositions, they are of high artistic quality.They constitute an important part of all the prints produced during the Edo time.The biggest painters of the time, such as Hokusai or Utamaro, all made it.

Several elements can surprise a western eye discovering these works.First, the absence of nudity: the characters in these engravings often remain dressed, at least partially.Traditional Japanese culture has a relationship with the body very different from that of Western countries.Nudity is above all linked to hygiene and daily.Men and women of the people rub shoulders in public baths and sometimes wander with very little clothes.The practice of naked breasts poses no problem.It will only be with the modernization of the Meiji era, then, later, the American occupation in the post-war period, that mentalities will change.During Edo era, nudity is something harmless, very far from any erotic vision, and the idea of the artistic nude is foreign to the modes of thought.

In addition, erotic prints approach their theme with a lot of fantasy.We discover exaggerated sexual organs and extravagant postures, sometimes difficult to decipher.An approach that lights another name of Shunga: Warai-e, image to laugh.Unlike Western culture which has often seen sexuality as a sin, or as something ashamed of which we do not speak, Japan of the Edo era takes a much more free and joyful look on the subject.There is no harm to show it, especially to laugh at it.Kien Yanagisawa, an 18th century scholar, recommends admiring erotic prints to relax from his intellectual work.

Several Western amateurs will be interested in it, notably Edmond de Goncourt who writes in his memoirs: "I bought the other day Japanese obscenity albums.I delight me, amuse me, I enchant my eye.I look at this apart from the obscenity that is there and that seems not to be there and that I do not see, as it disappears under fantasy ".

Concerned about Confucian morality, the Japanese government will sometimes try to limit the dissemination of these works, but without much effect with the general public who continues to appreciate them and acquire them.The large number of erotic prints that have come down to us proves a certain complacency on the subject, censorship proving to be more strict vis-à-vis the boards questioning the social order.

It was not until the end of the 19th century that the marketing of shunga was prohibited for good in order to align with Western morality.Many collectors dare not reveal those they hide at home.Even today, they are often perceived with discomfort and rarely approached in major exhibitions dealing with the art of Japanese prints.An embarrassment far from the culture of pleasures and entertainment of the Edo era.

Through the characters and the subjects dealt with by Ukiyo-e, it is therefore all the culture of the people of the Edo era which is revealed to the contemporary gaze.A culture full of life, laughter, pleasures and appeal for the spectacular, far from the Zen image and stripped often associated with traditional Japanese culture.Certain categories of prints remain unknown to the general public and little approached because they are deemed too secondary or unconventional, or because there are only too few copies left.Many studies deserve to be carried out on the subject to make known the richness of this art which fascinates so much.

Sources: Nelly Delay, L'Estampe Japanese, Hazan, 2018brigitte Koyama-Richard, Les Estampes Japonaes, Scala, 2014Http: // Exhibitions.bnf.FR/Japanese/