JAPANESE CULTURE, EXPLAINED

Nishiki-e: building colour one impression at a time

錦絵

Nishiki-e are Japanese multicolour woodblock prints. Separate printed impressions combine on one sheet, allowing a design to be reproduced without painting every copy by hand.

How several blocks make one print

A division of work

Key block: outlines of the figure and clothing.

Light-red block: selected areas of colour.

Indigo block: another set of coloured areas.

Finished print, reversed relative to the blocks.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tsurikane Yazaemon. Blocks: National Museum of Japanese History; finished print: Harashobo. Selected from the Sumida Hokusai Museum exhibition material; only part of the block set is shown.

Carved corner and edge registration marks on a woodblock. — Registration guides: corner at right, edge at left. Dashed lines mark the paper.

Paper covers most of the carved registration marks. — Paper positioned on the guides; most cuts are covered.

A commercial print normally involved a publisher, designer, block carver and printer. The publisher coordinated the project and sale; the artist’s signature therefore identifies only part of the work behind the sheet. Kentō registration guides position the sheet: an L-shaped mark locates its corner and a straight mark its bottom edge. Once both are aligned, the printer gently lowers the paper.

From a drawing to a relief surface

White paper touches blue-inked raised wood and bridges the uninked recess. — Schematic relief contact: inked high areas touch the paper; carved recesses remain clear. Heights and thicknesses are not to scale.

The drawing is pasted face down on the block. Cutting around its lines and removing the unwanted areas leaves the printing surface raised. Taking an impression reverses the block image again, restoring the drawing’s orientation. Proofs from the completed key block provide a common outline on which colour areas are indicated; these become the guides for carving the colour blocks.

How the colours meet

Applying pressure through the back of the paper with a baren. A holding demonstration from Musashino Art University’s Zokei File.

A key block carries the outlines and colour blocks add selected areas. The printer brushes pigment onto a block, positions the paper and rubs its back with a baren. Accurate registration keeps later impressions aligned with the design already on the sheet.

Why paper, moisture and paste matter

Spreading pigment and a little paste over the block, illustrated.

Illustrations of objects and activities, not historical originals or named people.

Adachi uses mountain cherry for its blocks: the hard, fine, even grain supports delicate lines such as hair, and the wood changes little between wet and dry states. Strong kōzo paper withstands repeated rubbing with the baren. Sizing limits bleeding, while dampening prepares the sheet to receive pigment; uneven drying within a stack makes printing harder to control. A little paste mixed with the colour changes its consistency and helps it spread evenly.

The development of colour printing

Colour before nishiki-e

Ukiyo-e developed from illustrated books into independent sheets. Early sumi-zuri-e used black printing, sometimes followed by hand colouring. Benizuri-e introduced printed colour areas in a limited palette, often including red and green. Nishiki-e developed fuller polychrome printing. The change concerned reproducible colour as well as a richer palette: a carved colour area could be printed repeatedly instead of painted anew on every impression.

A picture could also be a calendar

Contemporary figures in Harunobu’s picture calendar, with details of reeds and a sash shown below. — Suzuki Harunobu, Mitate of Saigyō’s Autumn Evening, a 1765 picture calendar. Chiba City Museum of Art. Collection / image source

Detail of the reeds containing short-month numbers. — Short-month numbers concealed among the reeds; some strokes are faint. Collection / image source

Detail of the patterned sash containing long-month information. — Long-month numbers on the sash, identified by the museum. Collection / image source

Calendar-print exchanges in Edo around 1765 encouraged elaborate multicolour printing, with Harunobu among the major contributors. His Saigyō calendar print in the Chiba City Museum of Art conceals short-month numbers among reeds and long-month numbers on a woman’s sash. Long months had 30 days and short months 29; their arrangement changed each year. The print also reworks a classical autumn-evening theme associated with Saigyō, placing contemporary figures and clothing within the literary allusion.

Read the printing through the image

Lines, colour and relief in Harunobu’s prints

Suzuki Harunobu, Narcissus, about 1768. Ōta Memorial Museum of Art.

In Harunobu’s Narcissus, black contours define clothing and the sliding screen, while broad colour areas fill the robes and kotatsu cover. The key block supplies the linework, colour blocks add pigment, and registration keeps the impressions aligned. In the modern reproduction of Lovers Walking in the Snow shown below, the white robe has a different effect: a pattern pressed into the paper without colour.

A block can print more than flat colour

A brush spreads a blue gradation on the wooden block. — Gradation prepared on the block, illustrated.

The blue impression on paper fades from dark to light. — The gradation transferred to paper, illustrated.

The gradation passes from the inked block to the paper.

To make bokashi gradation, the printer prepares a gradual change of colour on the block with water, pigment and paste, then transfers it to the paper. Karazuri uses a carved block and pressure from the baren to impress a pattern without pigment. Alongside the coloured image, these techniques create tonal transitions and a textured surface.

A pattern impressed into white paper

Modern Adachi reproduction after Harunobu’s Lovers Walking in the Snow. Image supplied by the Adachi Institute; Ōta Memorial Museum commentary.

The same reproduction: angled light reveals diamond-shaped relief in the white robe. Adachi Institute.

Carved grooves in the wooden embossing block. — The corresponding embossing block, with grooves carved into its surface. Adachi Institute.

Angled light reveals diamond-shaped relief across the white robe in the Adachi Institute’s reproduction of Harunobu’s Lovers Walking in the Snow. The corresponding block presses that texture into the paper without pigment. Both the reproduction and the block shown here were made in modern times.

Later printmaking and later impressions

Later paths for printmaking

In the later Edo period, Utamaro and Sharaku developed images of beauties and actors, while Hokusai and Hiroshige expanded landscape and bird-and-flower subjects. Lithography and photography challenged traditional prints in Meiji. Early-twentieth-century sōsaku-hanga encouraged artists to design, carve and print their own work; shin-hanga continued the collaboration of specialist makers. Kawase Hasui worked with publisher Watanabe Shōzaburō, carvers and printers on shin-hanga landscapes. After the 1923 earthquake destroyed works, blocks and sketchbooks, his third Souvenirs of Travel series drew on journeys, while Twenty Views of Tokyo depicted the recovering capital. Moon at Magome (1930) belongs to the latter series.

Old designs, reused blocks and new impressions

Takezasadō prints from surviving old blocks and also carves new blocks to reproduce earlier designs. The design, the blocks and the printed sheet can therefore have different dates. A modern reproduction after Harunobu uses newly made materials to demonstrate historical printing techniques.

Check your understanding

Are ukiyo-e and nishiki-e identical?

Nishiki-e is one major print form within ukiyo-e. Ukiyo-e also includes paintings and prints produced by other methods.

What does the baren do?

It presses and rubs the paper against the inked block to transfer the image.

How can an uncoloured area carry a pattern?

Pressure transfers relief from a carved block into the paper; lighting changes how clearly that relief appears.

Does an Edo-period design prove that a sheet was printed then?

No. It may be a later pull or a newly carved reproduction. Design, block and impression dates are separate questions.

Sources and images