Wakana わかな

FSC-GR-780.65

Commentary by Jeannie Kenmotsu

Posted December 3, 2017

The privately published Wakana (Young leaves) was produced by a group of haikai poets commemorating the seventeenth anniversary of the death of their teacher, Shimizu Chōha 清水超波 (1702–1740). [1] This single-volume work is among the most significant early examples of multiple-block color printing in illustrated booksand signals the importance of literary coteries to the production of such works in the mid-eighteenth century.

Wakana contains eighteen images, divided equally between monochrome illustrations by the artist Hanabusa Ippō 英一峯 (1691–1760) and color-printed illustrations by Katsuma Ryūsui 勝間龍水 (1697–1773). The artist of each picture is clearly identified by a printed signature on each illustration. The first picture, by Ippō, is a portrait of Chōha, holding a folded fan and seated in the manner of a judge at a poetry contest (utaawase-e). Ippō’s other designs vary in style and subject. The subjects of Ryūsui’s color illustrations are likewise varied, and include two court ladies in Heian dress, flowering plants, fauna, and landscapes.

Like the subsequent 1762 haikai anthology Umi no sachi (FSC-GR-780.169.1–2), Wakana demonstrates the use of sophisticated color printing techniques in private publications (kubaribon) by haikai poetry groups. Although limited in scale compared with later publications, one of the most remarkable features of the work’s printing is the layering or overprinting of colors to produce an intermediary hue. As seen in the open folding fan held by the female figure on the second double-page opening (pp. 6–7 on the website), blue has been printed onto the yellow fan, producing a design in green of a young plant—the wakana of the book’s title. [2] This is one of the most elegant features of the book’s use of color.

By this time, both Ippō and Ryūsui had contributed to earlier illustrated poetry anthologies. Both artists were involved in producing the 1730 Chichi no on 父の恩 (A father’s love), which honored the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjūrō I (1660–1704) on the twenty-seventh anniversary of his death. In this anthology Ryūsui was credited as the calligrapher, while Ippō contributed illustrations printed in monochrome, along with four color illustrations drawn (not printed) by the artist Ogawa Haritsu 小川破笠 (1663–1747). Additionally, Ippō had already published printed painting albums transmitting the work of his teacher, Hanabusa Itchō 英一蝶 (1652–1724) (see Ehon zuhen FSC-GR-780.64.1-3).

Other contributors to Wakana indicate the significance of the haikai network to the production of color-printed illustrated books during the Hōreki (1751–1763) and early Meiwa (1764–1772) eras. The preface is signed by Susōan Gijō (須叟庵祇丞) and the postscript by Dokuan Baimei (独菴買明), poets associated with haikai anthologies published in the Kan’en (1748–1751) and Hōreki eras. Their names also appear in the aforementioned Umi no sachi.

The quality of the Pulverer impression is excellent.

Selected readings:

Jack Hillier, The Art of the Japanese Book, 2 vols. (London: Sotheby’s Publications by Philip Wilson Publishers Ltd., 1987), see esp. vol. 1, 235–37.

Kira Sueo 雲英末雄, “Shoshi to naiyō o chūshin toshite” 「書誌と内容を中心として」, in Eiri haishoshū 『絵入排書集』, Nihon koten bungaku eiin sōkan 31 『日本古典文学影印叢刊31』(Tokyo: Nihon Koten Bungakkai, 1986), 363–82.

Sasaki Eriko 佐々木英理子, “Hanabusa-ha no ebaisho” 「英派の絵排書」, in Shiika to imēji: Edo no hanpon ichimaizuri ni miru yume『詩歌とイメージ：江戸の版本・一枚摺にみる夢』, edited by Nakano Mitsutoshi 中野三敏 and Kōno Minoru 河野実 (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2013), 69–96.

Suzuki Jūzō 鈴木重三, “‘Chichi no on’ to ‘Wakana’ no hanga gihō”「父の恩」と「わかな」の版画技, in Eiri haishoshū 『絵入排書集』, Nihon koten bungaku eiin sōkan 31 『日本古典文学影印叢刊 31』(Tokyo: Nihon Koten Bungakkai, 1986), 383–94.

Copies in other collections:

Art Institute of Chicago

British Museum, London

Kakimori Collection, Japan

National Diet Library, Tokyo

Nishogakusha University, Tokyo

Tenri University, Tenri Central Library, Nara Prefecture
University of Tokyo
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

[1] Kira Sueo has suggested that Wakana, which lacks a colophon, was originally intended to be the first of a pair of volumes dedicated to Chōha. See Kira 1986, 377. The second volume is perhaps the Bashō no ha 芭蕉葉 (Leaves of Bashō) published in 1758 (Hōreki 8), but this author has not had the opportunity to examine this work. A copy is held in the Toyama Prefectural Library.
[2] Analysis of this detail by microscope in the Freer/Sackler East Asian Conservation Studio has confirmed that the green color was achieved by overprinting two separate color blocks, blue on top of yellow.