From 1689 – as the earliest confirmed date – Moronobu also started designing single prints. Even though we  are now used to take for granted that there is something like Japanese prints, either single printed images, or diptychs and triptychs, or so, or prints belonging to a titled series of prints, this must have been some risky enterprise to begin with. We should not forget that this was very different in the late 17^th century when there was no ‘print-buying’ audience at all. For sure, there are many many images of a religious nature, mostly sold at temples, and maybe popular images of Shōki, the demon queller, that one would paste at the entrance of one’s house to keep the demons out, or images of the Treasure Ship, Takarabune, that one would put under one’s pillow on New Year’s eve, so you might have an auspicious dream of Mount Fuji, a falcon, and eggplants. Also, there were many broadsheets, kawaraban, reporting anything mezurashii, unusual, news, in short, of scandals, killings, earthquakes even, anyway news that the bakufu wanted to keep out of the ‘press,’ explicitly forbidden in the city of Edo as early as 1673, so we may conclude that they did exist. But making a print of a group of dancing actors in 1689 and trying to sell it, with no clearly defined market that would be willing to buy such an image, was no doubt quite some risky investment. Alas, we don’t know who this daring publisher was. But maybe, he was inspired by the success of the sale of the individual plates of the Appearance of the Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara no tei よしわらの躰), that was probably published originally in the format of a set of plates in a wrapper, or maybe as a scroll, or bound up in some way, that were offered for sale as twelve single plates in the late 1680s by the publishing firm of Yamagataya Ichirōemon of Tōri Aburachō, Edo.

An additional problem with many so-called ‘prints’ by Moronobu, is that it is often difficult to tell whether these were, indeed, issued in the format of single prints to begin with, or whether we are actually looking at a plate that was detached from some album. In later times, we would be assisted by a signature and the mark of some publisher – that would normally be absent in the case of bookplates. But in the early days, the absence of some signature doesn’t really mean anything. It was simply quite exceptional to add a signature, be it on lacquer works of all kinds, on pottery, or even on paintings, both those sold by the local painters, eshi, and the ones made by established painters receiving commissions to make works that would be mounted as folding screens. Essentially, all of these ‘works of art’ – as we now see them – were made by craftsmen, the notion of works of art being something to start dreaming of more than two centuries later. Apart from the presence of a signature and a publisher’s mark, it would be best to look for vertical formats that would not be plates detached from some album – and there go all 28 ‘prints’ listed in Higuchi, all being horizontal sheets.

As for Moronobu designing single prints, there might be two in the 1670s, twenty-three in the 1780s, and three in the 1790s, indeed, provided they were actually designed and issued as single prints. As for his contemporary Sugimura Jihei, we know of one actor print datable to 1678, four single prints for the 1680s, and three prints that we cannot date.[1] Then, there are ten more designs datable to the 1680 that might also be attributed to Jihei, and six more that are more difficult to date. Although Torii Kiyonobu started illustrating books as early as 1687, his earliest single prints seem to date from 1696. This at least is a vertical composition with a publisher’s mark, making him possibly the first to design single prints if we want to be on the safe side.[2] He would continue to design such single prints of actors of the popular kabuki theatre in role, dating from the 1700s and 1710s, to be discussed into more detail in the next section.

There remain still many questions to be answered related to the first couple of decades of popular printing. For example, are the publishers of single prints the same as the publishers of picture books (I hope to come back to that later)? And what is there really beyond the picture books with plates by Moronobu, Sugimura Jihei, Moroshige, Kiyonobu, and Tomonobu? And also, we shouldn’t forget that paintings may have been much more important than these picture books, at least we know quite some names rather from paintings than from picture books or single prints. And don’t forget, if you don’t work/produce, you have nothing to eat, this is not a vocation, it is work so you can live. Also, we must realize that these picture books were probably aimed at a real well-to-do part of the Edo population – and this was probably not very different in Kyoto with the books illustrated by Yoshida Hanbei.

What is really interesting – and I’ll come back to this again later on – Moronobu signed quite a number of his books Yamato eshi, that is Japanese painter (1680s) and also Nihon eshi, also Japanese painter (1690s), probably so as to make it clear that he considered himself working in a Japanese style of painting, not the Chinese-influenced Kanō manner of painting. Also Sugimura Jihei uses the Yamato eshi as a prefix to his signature (1680s). Interestingly, Yoshida Hanbei uses Rakuyō eshi, Kyoto painter (1686).

Just looking back at the Genroku period, it must be said that the Chronology of Edo in Musashi Province (Bukō nenpyō [武江年表], I-105), mentions Hishikawa Kichibei (橘町菱川吉兵衛) [i.e. Hishikawa Moronobu (菱川師宣)] of Tachibanachō, the same (i.e. Hishikawa 菱川) Kichiemon (同吉左衛門) [died 15/II/1662], Furuyama Tarōbei (古山太郎兵衛) [i.e. Hishikawa Moroshige 菱川師重], Ishikawa Izaemon (石川伊左衛門) [aka Ishikawa Tomonobu?), Sugimura Jihei (杉村治兵衛), Ishikawa Tomonobu (石川流宣), Torii Kiyonobu (鳥居清信, lived 1664-1729), and Hishikawa Sakunojō (菱川作之丞) [i.e. Moronaga 師長]. Moreover, it also makes mention of Miyagawa Chōshun (宮川長春) coming up around the Genroku-Hōei periods (1688-1710; lived 1683-1753).

[1] This is a print of Tamagawa Sennojō as Izutsu and Suzuki Sanshirō as Narihira, after a performance in the Ichimura Theatre (KN 1:132). See Higuchi 1.

[2] The print portrays the actor Sodezaki Karyū as Tokoyo no mae, in the play Shitennō yome kagami, performed at the Morita Theatre in XI/1696 (KN 1:203), published by Shichirobei.

In relation to Japanese prints, the three most misconstrued terms are the Primitives, the Decadents, and Ukiyoe. The Primitives refers to all print designers who happened to work prior to full-colour printing, first practiced from 1765 and becoming the standard from 1772; the Decadents refers to all print designers working in the nineteenth century, with the two exceptions of Hokusai and Hiroshige; and the third, Ukiyoe, has recently become a more and more common term to denominate all Japanese prints of whatever period and of whatever subject. The use of the words Primitives and Decadents is probably over by now, at least, that is what I hope. Anyway, even the Japanese have begun to recognize Kuniyoshi and Kunisada, maybe not really as designers of merit, but at least as designers of prints who deserve to be taken seriously. Although, in the case of Kuniyoshi, it is hard to say whether he is deservedly appreciated as one of the greatest talents of the nineteenth century, or just as a designer of prints of ghosts and torture scenes, or maybe as a supplier of designs for body tattoos, or for his prints of cats, or for his humour. These, at least, are the most common subjects for recent Japanese publications on Japanese prints, and I guess that publishers just hope that these may appeal to a younger audience. But maybe the most popular subject in present-day Japan may well be erotic prints and bookplates. And, indeed, for many Japanese, ukiyoe was always sort of synonymous with shunga, as became clear from the understanding nods in my conversations with taxi drivers and cooks when I sat at the counter in restaurants.

Although I will not contest the existence of something like a Floating World, the Ukiyo, probably best defined, or re-defined if you like, by Asai Ryōi (d. 1691) in his Ukiyo monogatari (浮世物語, 1666) as follows:

“/…/ living only for the moment, savouring the moon, the snow, the cherry blossoms, and the maple leaves, singing songs, drinking sake, and diverting oneself just in floating, unconcerned by the prospect of imminent poverty, buoyant and carefree, like a gourd carried along with the river current: this is what we call ukiyo,”

the earliest work that can tentatively be associated with Asai’s definition of this ‘floating world,’ ukiyo, is probably the so-called Hikone screen, an anonymous picture of a man talking to a courtesan and a party with three musicians making music, and two people playing sugoroku, dating to c.1624-44. Also Iwasa Matabei (岩佐又兵衛 1578-1650) is often mentioned as the founder of something like an ukiyoe tradition, even though we cannot really identify any painting by him that would meet the criteria. But almost by nature, screen paintings would not work to spread some notion or launch some new direction in imagery or handling of a theme.

Anyway, something that seems to be foreboding what this floating world might be, probably has its origin in Kyoto, with illustrated jōruri ballad books dating from as early as 1625, and becoming more common from the 1630s. Even before the official establishment of the Kyoto entertainment centre of the Shimabara, in 1640, there is already a lively tradition of courtesans’ critiques, pretty shamelessly discussing the qualities of various courtesans. From the 1650s, we also find simple kanazōshi novels with illustrations in Kyoto. We shouldn’t probably forget that Kyoto had been built and developed as a city from 794, and that Edo was, for sure, a rapidly growing city, but it would probably only be from about the last decade of the seventeenth century, the Genroku period (1688-1704) to be more precise, that we can see something like the beginnings of a typical Edo popular culture.

The earliest illustrated works published in Edo seem to date from 1657, when the city recovers from the devastating Meireki Fire of I/1657. From the late 1650s, we also find jōruri ballad books and simple kanazōshi novels published in Edo, and in 1660 even two critiques of courtesans, the Mirror of the Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara kagami 吉原かがみ) and the Yoshiwara Pillow (Yoshiwara makura 吉原枕). Indeed, from the 1660s, there is a small group of people publishing such popular works that discuss the qualities of courtesans and of actors of the kabuki theatre, or provide the texts of jōruri ballads and of simple novels, among them Urokogataya, Yamamoto, Yamagataya, and Masuya.

Looking for something that could be seen as a harbinger of something that might look like that floating world, we would probably have to focus on book illustrations or picture books to begin with, which brings us, indeed, to Hishikawa Moronobu (菱川師宣 1618-1694, act. 1659-94), who illustrates and designs eighteen books in the 1670s, another 53 in the 1680s, and still about nine in the 1690s. Please note that 33 of these 80 publications are works of an erotic nature, enpon, a part of his artistic oeuvre totally ignored (especially in Japan) until recently. This makes him, indeed, the number one illustrator of books, both novels and picture books, ehon, as well as erotic works, in the 1670s, in the 1680s, and, erotic works excepted, in the 1690s. He is soon, from 1680, joined by Yoshida Hanbei (吉田半兵衛 act. 1680-93, in the Kansai) – whom we can identify with seventeen books, all but six being erotic works – and from 1681, by Sugimura Jihei (杉村治兵衛 act. 1681-97) – for whom we can also identify fourteen books, and again, all but two erotic works.

The last designer to join these three early masters is Torii Kiyonobu (鳥居清信 1664-1729, act. 1687-1728), who actually moved from Osaka to Edo with his father in 1687, who had been working there painting the large billboards displayed outside the theatres, focusing on some of the dramatic moments in the play that was currently being staged. We can identify twelve illustrated books by him, four of which are popular novels, three are picture books dating from the 1690s, and five (only, I would almost add) are erotic works, mostly dating from the 1700s.

Some time ago, I was reading a general history of Japanese prints that was at times interesting as it contained both information that I was not familiar with, and viewpoints that had never occurred to me. And yet, I was sometimes also really appalled by the oversimplification of the phenomenon of Japanese prints. And so, I began to take notes that might come in handy when I, sometime somewhere in the future, would find the time to sit down and pen down the ideas that I have developed over time and what I have come to consider as important.

In general, I can say that I am more and more convinced that it is due time to

◊ Pay attention to the often close interrelation between Edo and the Kansai, that is the cities of Osaka and Kyoto;

◊ Consider single-prints as just one format that cannot be seen separate from both illustrated novels of various kinds, collections of kyōka poetry (kyōkabon), and picture books (ehon);

◊ Also take into consideration books of erotic content (enpon) that were, until recently, totally ignored in Japanese discussions of Edo-period printing, resulting in a highly corrupted art history (but also in Western literature on Japanese prints, there isn’t yet a rewritten Utamaro monograph, taking into account that close to one third of his picture books is of erotic content);

◊ Avoid terms such as ukiyoe, bijinga, yakushae, and quite some other Meiji/Taishō constructs as well;

◊ Otherwise, I will try to base my discussion of Edo-period printing culture as much as possible on factual information, that is facts and figures.

I have always considered Binyon & Sexton the best discussion of the theme. It is clearly arranged by the Japanese periods, nengō, which sometimes makes sense, but at times, it is also totally arbitrary. But I immediately admit that my own subdivision, into periods of ten years, is equally arbitrary. Anyway, I’ll try to make it work by treating the decades more loosely when a certain phenomenon or new developments make such necessary or desirable. Sometimes, I will also break up a discussion of, let’s say the 1760s, into two, three or four, or more parts.

Coming back to the Binyon & Sexton handbook, this is really a quite impressive accomplishment, considering that Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) was primarily a poet, working at various departments of the British Museum, publishing many works on English arts, as well as on Asian, Japanese, and Persian arts. His four-volume catalogue of the museum’s English drawings came out in the years 1898-1907. From 1913, he was appointed Keeper of the Sub-Department of Oriental Prints and Drawings and only three years later he published the museum’s Catalogue of Japanese & Chinese Woodcuts (1916), which must have been at the base of the Binyon & Sexton handbook. Actually, this Japanese Colour Prints of 1923 came out in between his Court Painters of the Grand Moguls (1921), Drawings and Engravings of William Blake (1922), and Arthur: A Tragedy (1923). Of J.J. O’Brien Sexton we know only very little. We found him to be John Joseph O’Brien Sexton who lived 1866-1941. Otherwise, he is known from some series of articles in both the Studio and the Burlington Magazine in the 1910s.

Part One, Japanese Popular Print Culture – A Critical Review – 1670s, will be published this coming weekend.