world-wide fame of ukiyoe color prints to the wonderful hosho and masagami papers on which they were made. For example, it's the paper which is responsible for the sensuous beauty of the women's complexions.''
For most of his prints Onchi preferred a finely textured, firm but absorbent, white paper called edogawa, but true edogawa hasn't been made since the war, and like many of the other artists he mostly used torinoko.
Present-day torinoko has been criticized as being a short-lived paper and therefore unsuitable for making prints, but it is popular among the artists nevertheless. In the old days vellum-like torinoko made from the short silky fiber of the gampi plant was one of Japan's most magnificent papers. Unfortunately, gampi grows only wild in the mountains and cannot be cultivated, so that the supply is scarce and the paper made from it is expensive. Moreover, gampi paper is basically unsuited for making prints because it is not absorbent. The paper called torinoko today is an imitation, made from various combinations of mitsumata and pulp. It comes in a number of grades depending on the amount of pulp which has been added, and of course, the more pulp the cheaper the paper. Grades 1 and 2 are usually considered too pure, that is they do not contain enough pulp to give the paper the proper absorbency. Grade 3 is the most popular and grade 4 is also used. Since torinoko is the paper used to face Japanese doors (fusuma), it comes in rolls about six feet by three, so that there is very little limitation on the size of a print. It can also be obtained in sheets. Some of the artists, like Jun'ichiro Sekino, order a specially made torinoko, of a quality particularly adapted to prints.
Because of Onchi's great range, it is not easy to select a few outstanding prints, but among his portraits one must name Sakutaro Hagiwara (print 10), Shizuya Fujikake, and Impression of a Violinist (frontispiece); in his realistic vein, Among the Rocks (print 9), The Temple of Confucius in Formosa, and Ripples, a study of a Chinese washerwoman; and from his abstract work, Objet Number 2 (print 8), Lyric Number 13: Melancholy of Japan (print 12), Poem Number 8-1: Butterfly (print 13), and Poem Number 22: Leaf and Clouds (print 14).
It was no mere whim that caused Onchi to name some of his prints "Poems," for, like his friend Hagiwara, Onchi was a poet. Almost every one of his major prints was coupled with a poem, free in form, subtle and allusive, often as abstract as the print it attended.
Artist and poet, his emotions were close to the surface, and they quickly welled up in bursts of feeling. In his notes he set down how he came to make the tragic mask called Impression of a Violinist (frontispiece). It was 1947 and he had been invited by his good friend William Hartnett to one of the concerts that Hartnett arranged for Occupation audiences. The evening was a triumph for Hartnett because he had been able to persuade Nejiko Suwa, one of Japan's great violinists, to play. Miss Suwa, a proud person and a perfectionist who seldom plays in public because of the impossibly high standards she sets for herself, had suffered in the war, and Onchi felt the undertones as he watched her play to an American audience at a time when Japan's defeat was still fresh. "A harsh electric light showed the strain in her face," he wrote, "and I saw tragedy there. Suddenly my eyes were blurred with tears."
Though Onchi was easily moved, he usually overflowed with the joy of life. He loved to sing, to others if they'd listen, to himself if they wouldn't. He sang even in his last illness, but his repertoire gradually narrowed to Jesus Loves Me, in either Japanese or English, and one song of yearning for the homeland which was sung so much during the war that the words stuck with him. "I try to sing other songs," he would explain, "but they always come out as one of those two."
Onchi's death was a blow to his fellow artists. They miss the healthy ferment of his work, which kept them all on their toes, and they miss the man—his surging creative force, his bigness of spirit, his imagination, wit, and integrity. Still he left them a creed of vitality, of honesty, and of freedom, and it seems safe to say that, as long as they look to it, the movement will neither stagnate nor crystallize. That, of course, is good. That is a legacy worth leaving.
9. Among the Rocks (1929)
10. Portrait of SaKutaro Hagiwara (1943)
11. Bird (1935)
12. Lyric Number 13: Melancholy of Japan (1952)
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