11 - 13 JANUARY 2001
LEIDEN, THE NETHERLANDS
The First Hotei Publishing Conference on Ukiyo-e
A year after its frantic start as a professional publishing house dedicated to producing books on Japanese art, culture, and society, Hotei Publishing, in close co-operation with the IIAS, is hosting a conference on Japanese prints and printmaking for the first time. Two major themes have been selected in an attempt to contextualize this eighteenth- and nineteenth century Japanese art form that had such a profound influence on the development of Western art in more detail.
By CHRIS UHLENBECK
The first theme is the economics of Japanese print production. So far, this research area has been paid virtually no attention, resulting in a distorted view of the original nature of print production. The 'Western' impact on print production following the opening of Japan and the export of prints to Europe and the United States, roughly from the 1860s until the early twentieth century, was entirely different from the position of Japanese graphic art during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the conference we would like to highlight the sheer volume of print production, the economic rationale, seasonal aspects, specialization among publishers, trade organizations, and the organization of paper and pigment supply, etc.Although very limited archival material is available, some well-informed guesses have been made about the volume of the print editions. Hiroshige's famous first Tokaido series (1832-33) was such a success that the total number of impressions of each design must have been as high as twenty thousand. This means that this series alone demanded the availability of more than a million sheets of hosho, the fine handmade mulberry paper used in printing. In another case, the diary of the publisher revealed that eight thousand sets were produced of a series of fifty warrior prints by Kuniyoshi. From these quantities, one can posit that a total number of one hundred fifty million impressions of Japanese prints were made, distributed, and sold over a period of just under one hundred fifty years. Of course, production was unevenly spread: production during the 1770s was unlikely to have been more than two hundred thousand sheets a year, but in the heydays of print-series productions, the 1850s, the annual output was perhaps as high as four to five million sheets. These tentative figures do not even take into account all the derivative productions such as decorated papers, woodblock printed wrapping papers, games, toys, kites and, last but not least, books.
All the sumptuary laws issued by the Tokugawa shogunate to curtail and censor print production were counter-productive. Publishers and artists found imaginative solutions around the restrictions imposed. But, if the figures just surmised prove to be accurate, the 'failure' of the government to enforce its own laws may be more easily understood. Serious restrictions of print production might have had undesirable economic effects.
We hope to shed some new light on the issue of the relationship to the art as it developed and on that of the highly complex and extended economic structure that supported it.
The second theme deals, once again, with an issue of contextualization. Here, we attempt to address the artistic circles in which the print designers moved: What was the nature of the contact between artists? Did the artists have influential literary contacts? Did they look at other forms of art? Were artists working in painting schools such as Nanga, Rinpa or Maruyama/Shijo admired and considered to be a potential source of inspiration? Or, to put it more bluntly: With whom did Hiroshige go to the pub? Did the eternal pressure of the publishers and the public lead to a life of single-minded hard work, churning out designs at an ever greater pace? Perhaps contributions to this second theme will lead to a more accurate description of the organization of artistic life in Japan.
Conference structure
Several keynote speakers from Japan, Canada, the United States, and Europe will address aspects of the two themes broadly outlined above. Each speaker will first be presented with prepared questions from the discussants, after which the wider audience may participate in the discussions. The conference will last three days and will include two excursions to major print exhibitions in the Netherlands. A full programme of collective meals and receptions is being prepared. *
For full details, provisional programme, registration forms, assistance with hotel reservations, etc., please contact:
HELENA HUISMAN
Hotei Publishing
Zoeterwoudse Singel 56
Leiden, the Netherlands
Tel: +31-71-566 3190
Fax: +31-71-566 3191
E-mail: hhuisman@hotei-publishing.com
Or
CHRIS UHLENBECK
E-mail: ukiyo@xs4all.nl