popular kabuki actors (yakusha-e) and fashionable courtesans from the pleasure quarters (bijinga), which was initially conceived by the term “floating world” (ukiyo). These subject matters were not only captured on prints, the ukiyo-e, but also in paintings called nikuhitsu (lit. “flesh brush”). From the very beginning, erotica (shunga) was a major subject that was naturally high in demand in Edo because of its dominant male population, deriving, on one hand, from the many retainers that had to be present by law to guard the provincial lords in town, and on the other hand, from the rapid development of Edo itself that attracted many male laborers from the countryside. Edo was the largest town in the world at that time with a population of one million people—nearly seventy percent of them males. Bijinga and shunga were intertwined as they both addressed—from different aspects— the idealized icon of female beauty, derived from images of courtesans that were in fact prostitutes. Everyone had access to the pleasure quarters and their services but a hierarchy of courtesans developed and the high-ranking, hence very expensive, beauties were for most people unreachable. Their appearance in superb coiffures and luxurious garments became the motifs of bijinga. The initially full-length pictures of courtesans developed in the late eighteenth century to half-length, close-up portraits that focused even more intensly on their refined manners. As beauty pictures were such a popular subject, many of these prints were on the market and the publishers and print designers had to use new means to keep their products interesting to their clientele. Playful juxtapositions, imaginary comparisons called mitate developed as a new trend. The beauties were depicted in settings derived from another context and puzzles were created that evoked the interest of consumers and became the latest thing. A development that eventually would happen with actor prints as well, but at a much later period.
C.1869 Kunichika The actors Nakamura Shikan IV as Hisayoshi, Onoe Kikugorō V as Shibata Katsushige, and Bandō Kamezō I as Shōya Kikuemon in an unidentified play, Nakamura Theater, 1869 Ōban triptych Publisher: Yorozuya Zentarō Museum of Asian Art, National Museums in Berlin
c.1768–69 Harunobu “Snow” (Yuki), from the series “Elegant Snow, Moon, and Flowers” (Fūryū setsugekka). Chūban. Library of Congress. Suzuki 1979, no. 325-1.
The main purpose of actor prints was to portray the leading actors at the height of their performance and to offer the audience a souvenir of the theater experience to take home. The kabuki theaters were frequented by a sophisticated audience demanding new, exciting plays. Many plays were not repeated in exactly the same way but often presented as slightly different versions, sustaining an ongoing demand for new prints. The actors themselves developed stylized ways of performing (kata), speech patterns, and exalted poses (mie) that became their signatures and were passed on to the next generation along with their stage names. On actor prints, the actor’s could be identified by the crests (mon) depicted on their costumes or at other positions on the prints. In the first half of the eighteenth century, it became custom to inscribe the actor’s name on the print but in the second half the name disappeared again but the actors could be identified by their crest. In 1770, Shunsho and Buncho conceived half-length actor portraits that turned out to be very well received by kabuki aficionados. They are the principle developers of “likeness pictures” (nigao-e) that captured the unique personality and individuality of an actor, as opposed to earlier actor prints that concentrated on transmitting the beauty of the costumes and the lively motion on the stage. These half-length portraits took the form of striking bust portraits that hit the market around the turn of the nineteenth century. The output of actor prints increased significantly in the nineteenth century and the competitive market gave way to more technical refinements. The leading designers developed formulas as to how to depict certain actors best and reused these formulas to serve the high demand.
Early 1780s Koryūsai A young woman with the character yoshi on the obi and a scarf in the mouth, attended by a young girl. Hashira-e. Publisher: Nishimuraya Yohachi. Library of Congress. Pins 1982, fig. 385, and Hockley 2003, appendix III, N.12.
Besides beauties and actors many other subject matters became popular during different periods and several print designers specialized in certain subjects. Japan’s long tradition of heroic narratives and rich canon of legends found their way into so-called warrior prints (musha-e). Serial novelettes supported the interest in historical subjects and warrior prints occupied a respectable share of the market in the nineteenth century. Other literary sources found also their way onto prints, especially the eleventh century “Tale of Genji” (Genji monogatari) and its nineteenth century persiflage “A Country Genji by a Fake Murasaki” (Nise Murasaki inaka Genji; 1829–42). The popularity of the latter resulted in a new subject matter, the “Genji pictures” (Genjie), that were on the market from the 1840s until the early 1890s.
Landscape views, another popular subject matter in prints, derived from the Chinese theme of “Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers” (Jp. shōshō hakkei), first found in poetry before it became a painting motif. The “Eight Views of ōmi” (ōmi hakkei), or Lake Biwa, is its Japanese pendant that was first illustrated in prints in the first half of the eighteenth century. The travel and pilgrimage boom since the early eighteenth century supported the wide interest in guide books and landscape pictures. Views of the fifty-four stations along the Tōkaidō road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi) that connected Edo with Kyoto, famous sights in Edo (Edo meisho), and views of Mount Fuji became the principal motifs for hundreds of print series.
The popularity of landscape prints and especially Hiroshige’s Tōkaidō series, provides an example of how publishers effectively returned their investment. For every design, publishers were alert as to how many impressions they had to sell to return their investment. In an ideal situation, a design got sold out and the demand continued to be high enough to produce another print-run. With every additional print-run that followed, publishers gained more profit than with the first, as neither the print designer had to be paid again, nor the engraver, as the woodblocks could still be used (at least for some time). The publisher usually only paid the printer for the production, including his work, the paper, the colors, and refinements, if any. After the engraver prepared the woodblocks, they became the property of the publisher and from some publishers we know that they kept their blocks for many years, waiting for an opportunity to reuse them. Sometimes blocks were brought to pawnshops, sold to other publishers, or the entire business was taken over by another publisher who then automatically came into possession of old blocks.
1899 Shusei “Yoshitsune and his Followers and the Terrible Storm in Daimotsu Bay” (Daimotsu-no-ura ni Yoshitsune shūjū nanpū). Ōban triptych. Publisher: Morimoto Shōtarō. Collection Arendie and Henk Herwig.
Hiroshige. 1857. “Sudden evening shower at Atake on the Great Bridge” (Ōhashi, Atake no yūdachi), from the series “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo” (Meisho Edo hyakkei). ōban. Publisher: Sakanaya Eikichi. Honolulu Academy of Arts: Gift of James A. Michener, 1991 (22745). Sakai 1981, p. 250, ōban no. 62.22.
In a few cases, the period of activity of a publishing house goes well beyond one hundred years, sometimes even over two hundred years. Tsuruya Kiemon, for example, started to produce books in the 1620s, turned then towards prints and his successors were active in this field until 1852. This long period outstretches by far the life of a single person and Tsuruya Kiemon, like many others, developed in fact from an individual publisher to a publishing firm that evidently operated over many generations. Usually, the leadership of the firm was passed on to the next generation who then took the predecessor’s name at the time of inheritance; much like the print designers and carvers did. It is not clear which generation
