Japanese Popular Prints: From Votive Slips to Playing Cards

by Rebecca Salter

Overview

In the West, Japanese woodblock printing tends to be associated with the ukiyo-e tradition and the familiar portrayals of kabuki actors or courtesan beauties. These well-known images were produced by a publisher and artist using the extraordinary skills of carvers and printers, whose identities are rarely known. The same craftsmen also produced woodblock-printed objects for use in everyday life such as decorative paper (chiyogami), votive slips (senjafuda), playing cards (karuta), and board games (sugoroku). As the market changed in the late nineteenth century, the craftsmen increasingly turned to the production of these low-value, essentially ephemeral objects. Although the prices were kept low, many were imbued with the same glorious visual sophistication that had attracted Westerners to ukiyo-e.

Approaching the subject as an artist rather than a print scholar, Rebecca Salter focuses on the craftsmen and the complex visual culture within which they worked. Through information gained from interviews with some of the remaining practitioners and analysis of the objects themselves, she builds up a picture of the quiet role woodblock played in the lives of the Japanese as they moved from the isolation of the Edo period to embrace modernization in the early twentieth century.

This book is a fascinating exploration of this area of cultural history and the numerous color illustrations encourage a playful investigation of the many threads of Japan’s visual culture.

Rebecca Salter is a well-known British printmaker. She lived in Japan for six years and is an acknowledged authority on Japanese woodblock printing. She is the author of Japanese Woodblock Printing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780824830830
Publisher:	University of Hawaii Press, The
Publication date:	06/30/2006
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

Notes     6
Foreword     8
History, method, context     10
A brief history of printing in Japan     12
The woodblock technique     19
Edo society     23
The art of play     28
Knowledge, news, views     40
Books     42
Calendars koyomi     47
Programmes and lists banzuke and zukushi     51
News-sheets kawaraban and shinbun nishiki-e     58
The art of travel - maps, guides and gazetteers     62
Advertising hikifuda     72
The outside world Nagasaki-e, Yokohama-e and saya-e     80
Faith, fortune, general well-being     92
Votive slips and exchange slips senjafuda and kokanfuda     94
Catfish prints namazu-e     108
Medicine prints baiyaku-e     114
Smallpox prints and measles prints hoso-e and hashika-e     120
Obituary prints shini-e     125
Leisure, pleasure, play     130
Playful prints and toy prints asobi-e and omocha-e     132
Board games sugoroku, jurokumusashi and menko     164
Playing cards karuta     183
Decorative papers karakami, chiyogami, pochibukuro and futo     193
And finally...     202
Artists' outlines     204
Glossary     205
Selected bibliography     207
Index     208