UNESCO travelling exhibition: Japanese woodcuts

manner used since the beginning o f Ukzyo-e prints in Japan. i t is not f a i r to call them I N T R 0 D U C T I 0 N "reproductions", f o r they are practically the same as originals. Ukyo-e prints made -. in present-day Japan are all made by this historical technique, and are appreciated by art lovers throughout the world. We cannot overpr&e the chance given its to introduce Ukyo-e, which holds its distinctive position and significance among all fields o f Japanese art, on such a scale and to the whole world. We express our sincerest thanks to Unesco as well as to its Member States f o r affording us this invaluable oortunity. S E I I c m R o TAKAHASHI, Chairman, Commission f o r Protection o f Cultural Properties, hiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan. A P AN E S E woodcut prints o f the Ukiyo-e school are worth studying and easy to enjoy, for they present a body o f work o f wide variety, high techni- cal quality a n d virtuosity o f design. T h e subjects are, a t least primarily, of universal appeal: the passion o f d r ama ; h um a n emotions—love, motherhood; the poetry o f ordinary occupations; the natural world; fine clothes worn with a n air a n d grace. Further, it is the most accessible kind o f F a r Eastern graphic art, a n d ma y thus serve as a gate b y which t he range o f ou r appreciation may b e extended to include one o f the greatest o f t he world's arts. T h e technical excellence is the fruit o f a long period o f the practice and development o f wood engraving i n China a n d J a p a n . Already in the classic age o f T ' a n g Ch i na ( A . D . 6 2 0 - 9 1 8 ) woodcuts were ma d e for the multiplication o f Buddhist images, a n d some o f these venerable ephemera still exist. Two- coloured "rubricated" Buddhist texts followed before the e n d o f the Yuan era (1368), b u t it was only i n t he closing years o f the Mi ng dynasty i n the early seventeenth century t h a t the bibliophiles o f Ch i na perfected i n Nanking a n d Soochow the a r t o f printing pictures from a t least five blocks o n fine paper. But their presses worked only for a limited public a n d o n such limited themes as might appeal to a refined, b u t decadent, academic society. When t he Ma n c h u ma d e a n end o f Mi ng rule, these me n became political refugees o f a kind with which the mode r n world is familiar. Some o f t h em fled to J a p a n , notably i n t h e years 1683-84, taking with t h em examples o f these colour-printed illustrations a n d a knowledge o f how they were produced. T h e Japanese Government o f t he day was favourable to orthodox Chinese philosophy o f Confucianism, which inculcated order a n d reverence; but books were suspect, since they might contain some reference to the Christian religion, whose complete exclusion h a d been decreed i n 1638. T h e window towards China was indeed a t this time the only opening in the closed Japanese economy, a n d it was n o t a wide one. T h e Du t c h were allowed to trade through a factory a t Nagasaki, b u t contact with t h em was restricted to the minimum. Throughout the seventeenth century the quality o f printing i n J a p a n improved as education was extended, for the Government thought b y encouraging learning to check the war-like spirit o f the Samurai which h a d been given so mu c h scope during the long period o f civil wars i n the fifteenth a n d sixteenth centuries. By about 1670 the two necessary crafts of the woodcutter a n d t he printer h a d improved to the extent o f making it possible to copy the fine tone-gradation o f a Chinese woodcut ma nu a l on painting o f 50 years earlier. 6 7