Snow at Yomei Gate by Shiro Kasamatsu. Dated 1952

How Woodblock prints are made

When we think of pictures and drawings in western art, we tend to think of an original picture somewhere in a museum that people could visit - if you want to see Da Vine’s Mona Lisa, you have to visit the Louvre In Paris, or the National Gallery in London to see the (4th version) of Van Gough’s Sunflowers.

The artist would have painted the picture themselves, and whilst the artist might paint several versions of a painting during the life, there is really only one ‘original’ of each painting.

Japanese Woodblock printing is fundamentally different, for the prints produced during the Edo era (1603 to 1868) there are generally 4 different people involved in creating the print, of which the artist is only one part of the process. The roles off each people are described below.

The process was designed with the intent of mass-producing pictures (or books), so the concept of an ‘original’ Woodblock print does not apply.

  • This is who funds the production of the print, and commissions either an individual print, or series of prints from an artist. These prints could be published individually, as part of a series, or even a book of prints.

    During the Edo Period, the concept of copyright did not really exist - who ever owned the wood blocks used to produce the prints effectively had control over how many prints were produced.

  • The artist would be responsible for drawing the outline sketch of the print. The sketch would be drawn on thin ‘washi’ paper called gampi.

    The artist might produce coloured sketches to show how they expect the colour to be represented in the finished print.

  • The carver takes the sketch that the artist produced, and then pastes the paper sketch side down onto a wooden block of cherry wood. Oil would then be applied to the paper to make the lines of the sketch (on the underside of the paper) more visible.

    The carver would then carve the wood away along both sides of the sketch outlines, leaving the wood underneath the sketch lines raised up compared to the carved away wood either side of the sketch lines.

    This block is called the Key Block, as it for the basis of the print. Black ink would (normally) be applied to this key block, and a test print produced to make sure that enough wood had been carved away from the woodblock to give a clear print of the outlines of the sketch.

    The woodblock carver would then carve additional blocks based on the key block, to create blocks that will be used to add colours to different parts of the print. The sketch artist may or may not be involved in this process. Typically there would be one block carved for each colour that is used to build up the final print.

  • The Printer takes the Wood Blocks created by the carver, and then (usually) starting with the key block applying black ink to the block before placing the paper on the inked block, and applying pressure on the paper by hand using a ‘baren’ - a round, flat disk, which would be made out of a coil of string wrapped in a bamboo leaf.

    When using multiple Wood Blocks to build up a print with different colours, accurate positioning of the paper on the wood block is vital, to ensure that the colours that each block add to the print are in the right position. To help with alignment, the wood blocks will have special notches cut into them to accurately position the corner of the paper.

    In the above print you can see where the paper has been cut in the bottom right hand corner of the print to fit into the alignment notches on the colour blocks.

 

There are some facts to consider when comparing woodblock prints to western prints:

  • When the Wood Block carver creates the key block, the original sketch by the artist is destroyed, the carver is literally carving thought the paper on which the sketch is drawn to cut away the excess wood to make the key block.

  • The Wood Block Carver has considerable impact on the final appearance of the print - possible more so than the artist, as whilst the artist might have offered guidance on how the colours should be built up in the print, it was the carver who determined how the individual colour blocks would be carved. This was especially true for prints produced during the Edo period, when the rolls of printer, artist, carver and printer were undertaken by different people. The Sosaku-hanga (Creative Prints) movement (1910 - 1960) advocated the principals of “self-drawn” (jig), “self-carved” (jikoku) and “self-printed” (jizuri) where the artist was the sole creator of the print. The Shin-hanga (New Prints) movement ran parallel to the Sosaku-hanga movement, but retained the traditional ukiyo-e collaborative system of artist, carver, printer, and publisher.

The printing process does take a physical toll on the woodblocks - estimates vary from 2,000 to 10,000 prints before the blocks need minor repairs, but eventually the blocks are too worn, and new blocks need to be cut to make more copies. Prints made on new blocks are known as recuts.

The fact that woodblocks allow additional printing runs after the initial publication, and that woodblocks wear out over time, resulting in repairs or even new woodblocks being cut, has resulted in some terminology to describe when a woodblock print was ‘struck’.

  • Original, or Early Edition - the first publication ‘run’ of the print. The publisher would decide the size of the print run - how many prints would be made.

  • Later Edition - a few years after the first publication. The woodblocks could be starting to show signs of wear at this point, meaning the quality of the impressions may not be as good as the first prints. The original woodblocks would be used.

  • Recuts - Prints made using a newly carved block made from a print from the original woodblock.

  • Reprints - Impressions made using the original wood blocks - as with Later Edition prints, the original woodblocks are used, but the quality of the impressions is likely to be less due to the wear on the blocks.

  • Postumous - an impression made after the artists death

  • atozuri - Late printing, but from the original blocks

  • shozura - Early Printings

 

The following video demonstrates the process of the carver creating the first ‘key-block’ carving based on the artists sketch, and then shows how prints are made up using additional carved blocks for each colour