and son with servant, Hokusai 101
Acknowledgments
I am greatly indebted to the Museum für Kunst and Gewerbe in Hamburg and to Dr. Rose Hempel who heads the East Asia section of this museum who gave permission to reproduce two surimono in this book (Plates 12 and 32). All other surimono presented are from my private collection.
Grateful acknowledgment should also be given to Mr. Usher P. Coolidge of the Fogg Art Museum for his kind assistance, and to Mr. Charles H. Mitchell who very kindly read the first manuscript and gave competent, useful advice for various improvements.
On this occasion I want to express my gratitude to an old personal friend, now deceased, Mr. K. Taki. When I was very young, he did much to stimulate my interest in the beauty of Japanese art and literature, thus rendering the 60 years of my stay in Japan both interesting and enjoyable.
Introduction
Hundreds of excellent books already exist on the beauty, artists, and eminent importance of Japanese woodblock prints. But most of these books mention nothing about the masterpieces par excellence, the surimono. A few others have only little to report. Also in some of the large collections the surimono are completely missing or else only represented by a few sheets.
By no means should the Japanese "surimono" be translated by the English words "printed matter." "Printed matter" can have many meanings and is completely unsuitable to describe a work of art. Japanese woodblock prints, particularly surimono, are on no account mere reproductions of finished pictures. On the contrary, the artist created the exact design for the lines and colours of his pictures. His exclusive aim was to create a woodblock print; these are, therefore, absolute works of art—the work of an artist.
This work limits itself to surimono art. Sum means "to rub"; mono means "thing." The meaning of the term surimono (rubbed tiling) thus stems from the technique of printing. Surimono by no means equal the general ukiyo-e which were ordered and sold by art publishers. Rather, they were made in smaller numbers, in better quality, and for art-loving Maecenases who were experts and connoisseurs.
Surimono often had poems on them. Upon hearing a short poem recited in Japanese and by a Japanese, one may appreciate the elegant form and the softness of the language due to the multitude of vowels in Japanese. A good translator with poetic inclinations may be able to approximate these characteristics in translation; unfortunately, however, a simple art collector such as myself cannot. Therefore, for the translations offered in this work as samples of surimono poems, I must ask the reader's indulgence.
Living in Japan for 60 years and working as manager of a machinery import company, I was able to collect surimono from time to time. Many decades have passed since the first was purchased. As time went on, the collection and knowledge grew hand-in-hand and now there is enough material for a book specializing in surimono taken from my own collection (with the exception of Plates 12 and 32 which were borrowed from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg). My collection includes albums from the years 1787, 1798, 1810, and several other undated albums in addition. My feeling is that surimono, which the well-known French expert Louis Gonse called les plus séduisantes merveilles de l'art Japonais (the most attractive wonder of Japanese art), deserve a presentation of their own.
—Kurt Meissner
One: HISTORY OF
SURIMONO
Historical Background
Fifteen years after the battle at Sekigahara (1600) had been fought, Hideyoshi's son Hideyori had taken his own life in the burning palace of Osaka. Japan had changed. The endless wars between the daimyō were past. Now Tokugawa Ieyasu and his successors had unlimited power in all Japan, and all daimyō had to submit to the Tokugawa shōgun. Peace had come; it had been imposed by harsh laws, but was to last for 260 years.
Such a long peace left the samurai impoverished and unfit even for battle. The merchants, on the other hand, grew rich and developed a desire for beauty in life. The middle-class culture of the Edo period arose. (Edo is the ancient name for Tokyo; the Edo or Tokugawa period lasted from 1600-1867, i.e., the time during which the Tokugawa shōgun ruled over Japan from Tokyo.)
The turning point in Japanese cultural life can be precisely determined. The people who streamed to Edo after the establishment of the Tokugawa rule had considered themselves provincial until the Great Fire of 1657, which lasted for three days and turned, all of Edo into ashes. Not until after the fire, when everything had been beautifully rebuilt, did they consider themselves citizens of the country's capital and residence of Japan's rulers. People in Edo were no longer dependent on Osaka and Kyoto, they had reason to be proud. The military caste still suppressed all other social classes, but people had money for pleasure, theatre, and the Yoshiwara (the gay quarters of Edo). They were in a position to decorate the interior of their homes and to purchase and collect printed pictures designed by first-class professional artists. Obviously this development did not come overnight. There were both good and bad Tokugawa shōgun. During Genroku (1688-1704), many of the arts flourished; but the sumptuary laws persisted until 1854, when Commodore Perry forced the Japanese to open the first harbours to foreigners.
Around about this time, the last great masters of the classical Japanese art of woodblock carving died. But the golden years of this art had already passed decades before. It flourished in a time when the people did not yet know freedom, when craftsmen as well as artists and merchants still belonged to the suppressed lower classes. They had to be careful not to draw any attention to themselves. In former centuries, only the princes and the Buddhist temples had been the patrons and clients of the artists. Farmers, craftsmen, and merchants did not yet play a role at that time. Not until the middle of the eighteenth century did it become apparent that merchants also had taste and appreciation for poetry, good, pictures, theatre, and the like. They founded societies in which they received instruction in art and in 31-or 17-syllable poems. Congenial friends gathered there—artists, art lovers, poets, writers, craftsmen, merchants, and also a few unprejudiced samurai.
The designers of those pictures which were to be multiplied through the process of woodblock printing were called ukiyo-e-shi. They earned their livelihood by painting hand-coloured scrolls, wall hangings,
