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 Sketch-tour books and prints of the early twentieth century [continued]
Scott Johnson
The resulting book is arresting in impact. Shina Taikan is large and
horizontal in format (23.4x30cm.). The colors range from subdued, even pastel
washes, to intense opaque pigments. Bisen's original sketches must have been in
the form of handscrolls; in any case, as he worked up his sketches for the book,
many of the illustrations employ the conceit of a handscroll with separate,
loose sketches placed here and there on top. This layout gives the viewer a
panoramic view of a locale, and at the same time close-ups of an object, a face
or flowers sketched in that place. The first of the two volumes is devoted to
Yangtse River scenes; the second to scenes of the Yellow River. Frontispiece
prints in each volume were printed with exquisite care. The endpapers show
birdseye maps of the routes Bisen followed. The hardbacked woodcut covers show
richly colored panoramic landscapes encompassing the entire book, from front
cover across the spine to the backcover. These vulnerable covers were protected
by a wraparound chitsu showing a camel caravan near the Great Wall. This
striking design is a color woodcut printed on cloth. The woodblocks were cut by
Okada Seijirô and printed by the seemingly indefatigable Nishimura Kumakichi.
There are 50 color woodcuts in all (including the endpapers,covers and chitsu),
and over 150 pages of collotypes.
The publication of the book was very costly. A high price was set on it in
the Bun'endô booklists, and there was some difficulty selling it. It must have
occurred to Kanao Tanejirô that a portfolio of single-sheet prints would have
been cheaper and possibly more successful. Such thoughts were very much in the
air.
Watanabe Shôsaburô had already published his first Itô Shinsui print in 1916.
This highly successful bijin print is generally considered to mark the beginning
of the shin-hanga movement. The time seemed ripe to take advantage of the
continuing popularity of the sketch-tour idea, but to try it with
artisan-produced prints instead of book illustrations. In 1917 no less than four
landscape print series began publication, by three different publishers.
The first two of these, and the only ones completed in 1917, are Shin
Ryôdo Miyage and Hanshin Meishô Zue, both published by Bun'endô.
Shin Ryôdo Miyage (Souvenirs of the New Territories) consists of four
vertical ô-ban prints with ample borders, originally placed in a large folder.
The scenes are of Sakhalin Island, Korea (two prints) and Taiwan. The artists
are Ishikawa Toraji (1875-1964), Nakazawa Hiromitsu (1874-1964), Nakagawa
Hachirô (1877-1922) and Yasuda Minoru (1881-?).
Yasuda Minoru, the least known artist of this print series, graduated from
the Tôkyô School of Fine Arts in 1903 and then went to Munich for further study.
He represents Sakhalin with a portrait in bold contrasts of what must be a
Russian woman in a long dress. Nakazawa Hiromitsu and Nakagawa Hachiro made
prints of Korea. Hiromitsu's print shows the surrounding wall and buildings of a
country house, with a Korean woman in white. Hachiro's print shows a coastal
temple with a flowering cherry tree. Ishikawa Toraji's brightly colored print,
his first single-sheet print, features boats in the Taiwanese port of Takafu
(Japanese reading).
The southern half of Sakhalin had been awarded to Japan in 1905 at the
Portsmouth Treaty following her victory in the Russo-Japanese War. Taiwan had
been a spoil of the Sino-Japanese War, and Korea was annexed by Japan in 1910.
In the light of our knowledge of Japan's subsequently more aggressive Imperial
expansion and the cruelty of the Japanese army in particular, it might seem
blind patriotism to produce prints of conquered lands. But even Western
observers of the Russo-Japanese War had been impressed with the human concern of
General Nogi's forces. Civilian casualties were avoided where ever possible, and
wounded Russian troops were treated in Japanese field hospitals. With the
British empire as a powerful model, Japan took understandable pride in her new
possessions, and the images presented by the four artists of Shin Ryôdo
Miyage demonstrate keen curiosity about these lands and the people living
there.
© Boston Book
Co. 2001
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