[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking. Baren Digest Wednesday, 15 July 1998 Volume 04 : Number 214 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: steiner Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 22:19:23 +0900 Subject: [Baren 1165] Some history from Richard Steiner, Kyoto Gary: As I have come to understand it, there can be said to exist in Japan more of less four lines or approaches to woodblock printmaking. Starting with the Ukiyo-e of the Edo Period, the Shin or New Ukiyo-e style or approach appeared in the Meiji Period, followed quickly with the Sosaku Hanga, the Independent Print Movement, and after WWII, the modern or abstract (tho not always, of course) line took off with decided influences from the West. All four lines are in evidence today in Japan, the Independents being by far the largest, if you count every skillful amateur and semi-pro out there. By the time Meiji Period arrived, Ukiyo-e had lost all its steam, had become quite trivial, when Hiroshi Yoshida, et. al., took things into their own hands and began to produce prints that excelled anything the Ukiyo-e men did. The major difference between the two was simply that the "artist" himself controlled the path his work took as it went from carver to printer, then back to him for selling. But they rarely ever did any actual carving or printing, continuing to retain professionals in those areas. About this time, some other artists, painters mostly, decided to take up the knives and baren, preferring to do everything themselves. Naturally, quality pummeled, but quality was not the point. Rather, getting some excitement into woodblock printmaking, some punch, as we would put it today, some "heart" or art, seems to have been paramount for the early Independents. Hiratsuka Un'ichi, Munakata, more whose names I can't recall at this moment, threw the door wide open for any one to be able to pick up the tools and make prints, and Mr and Mrs Anyone did. As skillful as the Ukiyo-e and New Ukiyo-e prints, they couldn't excite and still can't excite like a really good, from-the-heart, "homemade" print can. As for the Moderns, for the most part, speaking strictly personally, I do not like most of their work and cannot respect what they are doing at all. This is a foolish prejudice, no doubt, based on living in a state of self-imposed ignorance. Nevertheless, I look at the print magazines occasionally, and then go off into a corner and quietly throw up. A disclaimer: I am not a print historian nor a scholar. The information I know, I have picked up thru experience and thru conversations with other print people. Fuzzy could be my academic middle name. If BAREN has any true historians, it would be greatly appreciated (by me for one) to be corrected as regards dates and names. I have heard "Shin (New) Ukiyo-e often, so am sure it is correct. And every time I utter the words, "Sosaku Hanga", my wife stomps on my foot and says that no one uses that term any longer, it is old-fashioned. But I don't know any other term. Does anyone? Seeing my work? Your suggestion, Gary, to Dave to get up a page of BAREN believers' prints is first-class. As it is, he and I are in contact with regard to having some of KIWA's prints on-line. Stay tuned. Hideshi: are you a Hiroshi Yoshida descendant or not? If so, please correct or augment what I have written above. Richard Steiner, Kyoto ------------------------------ From: Gayle Wohlken Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 09:40:32 -0400 Subject: [Baren 1166] Re: Baren Digest V4 #213 Baren, I just took a look at those wonderful prints on the Kochi Triennial website that Hideshi found for us. I am stunned at the beauty and am grateful to people like Hideshi and others who find prints for us to look at. Opened to the mysterious soul of the artist, we come away awakened to the dreams whispering from our own heavens. > < http://www.pref.kochi.jp/~kougyou/triennial > Gayle Wohlken ------------------------------ From: jimandkatemundie@juno.com (James G Mundie) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 13:25:19 -0400 Subject: [Baren 1167] Re: Baren 1159 (speedball) Roger wrote: >Well, thanks for actually saying what I needed to hear regarding >Speedball inks. Being the proud cutter of -wow- seven woodcuts now, I >guess it is time to graduate from "crayons" to something better. A friend of mine uses black Speedball for quick cutting proofs at home, but even she describes it as "like rolling out bubble gum". But, she gets a quick indication of what's happening, washes it off and she's cutting again within five minutes. >I joined this list to find out more. I want to learn. >At any rate, I'll be trying tube watercolor and rice paste next and I'm looking >into other possiblities. >Thank you for putting up with my beginner mentality. No trouble at all, Roger. That's what Baren is for. If this has helped you on to bigger and better things, then Baren is doing its job. I'd be curious to see the difference in one of your blocks printed in Speedball side by side with the results from latter methods. Somebody once said, "The material teaches the artist." *** Hideshi provided: >< http://www.pref.kochi.jp/~kougyou/triennial > This is indeed the triennial of which I was thinking. Thanks to Hideshi and Don for the clarification. Has anyone on Baren applied to this exhibition in the past? Mise le meas, James Mundie, Philadelphia USA ------------------------------ From: Matthew.W.Brown@VALLEY.NET (Matthew W Brown) Date: 15 Jul 98 08:20:58 EDT Subject: [Baren 1168] Re: Thanks Roger & James, Watercolor and rice paste vs. Speedball water based inks, there is quite a difference here, no? Wouldn't it be more accurate to call the Speedball inks 'rubber-based'. And you are rolling them out and all, no? they are inks, made to behave like (if poorly so) oil inks? ( Dave's little piece on "The Romance of the Woodblock Print" on his personal web-site tells the story of the difference.) Using watercolor and rice paste, or water-dispersed pigments, or dry pigments, you are moving into the hanga world, a world truly of water, and you may want to be replacing rollers for brushes, and start really reading some of the books Dave has posted on the Pedia. I am a bit out of my element here on 'water based inks', but I think I am not off in treating them as still in the oil inks family. Are there not lots of commercial inks that are 'water based', employing some kind of acrylic polymer, and often requiring solvents for clean-up, and are sold by Graphic Chemical, for instance, and . . . .? For myself, I can't begin to control colors with oil inks (though I do enjoy playing with plate oil, whiting, and magnesium carbonate), let alone with what few tubes of this other stuff I have tried , and so am an advocate of the 'hanga' approach. It is, however, a harder way to build up color, and is proving to be a doorway onto a fascinating world, most hallways of which seem to lead to Japan. Dave, I also think Gary's idea of a little "Baren Gallery" on the Pedia is a nice idea. Richard, I am fascinated by your description of the history of the four strains of Japanese woodblock (can we call it 'hanga'?). Would you ever consider fleshing it out a bit and submitting to Dave's 'Pedia sometime? Matt ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V4 #214 ***************************