Fig 19
6. Cut away CH, DH, holding down firmly the end done.
7. Twist up the ends tightly, pull over to the centre, and tie tightly together; cut off ends.
8. Polish on board and oil slightly.
Twist the inside part of the baren occasionally to save wear by changing its position within the sheath.
Several substitutes have been triedin place of the Japanese baren, with coverings of leather, shark's skin, celluloid, and various other materials, but these necessitate the use of a backing sheet to protect the paper from their harsh surfaces.
An ingenious rubber of ribbed glass which works directly on the paper has been devised by Mr. William Giles, who has produced beautiful results by its means.
If one is using the Japanese baren, its surface needs to be kept very slightly oiled to enable it to run freely over the damp paper. A pad of paper with a drop of sweet oil suffices for this, and may lie on the right of the printing block where the baren is put after each impression is taken.
An even simpler method is that of the Japanese craftsman who rubs the baren from time to time on the back of his head.
Japanese printing brushes are sold by some artists' colour dealers, but theseare not essential, nor have they any practical superiority over well-made Western brushes.
Fig 20
An excellent type of brush is that made of black Siberian bear hair for fine varnishing. These can be had from good brush-makers with the hair fixed so that it will stand soaking in water. Drawings of the type of brush are given above.
Three or four are sufficient; one broad brush, about three inches, for large spaces, one two-inch, and two one-inch, will do nearly all that is needed. Occasionally a smaller brush may be of use.
To begin printing, one takes first the key-block, laying it upon a wet sheet of unsized paper, or upon wads of wet paper under each corner of the block, which will keep it quite steady on the work-table. A batch of sheets of printing paper, prepared and damped as described in Chapter V, lies between boards just beyond the block. The pad lies close to the block at the right on oily paper pinned to the table. To the right also are a dish or plate on which a little ink is spread, the printing brush (broad for the key-block), a saucer containing fresh paste, a bowl of water, a small sponge, and a cloth. Nothing else is needed, and it is best to keep the table clear of unnecessary pots or colour bottles.
When these things are ready oneshould see that the paper is in a good state. It should be rather drier for a key-block than for other blocks, as a fine line will print thickly if the paper is too damp and soft. In fact, it can scarcely be too dry for the key-block, provided that it has become perfectly smooth, and is still flexible enough for complete contact with the block. But it must not be either dry or damp in patches.
If the paper is all right, one lifts off the upper board and top damping sheet, placing them on the left, ready to receive the sheets when printed.
The key-block, if quite dry, must be moistened with a damp sponge and then brushed over with the broad printing brush and ink. If a grey line is wanted the brush should be dipped in a little of the paste and scarcely touched with ink. For a pale grey line the key-block also must be well washed before printing. Even if the line is to be black a little paste should be used. This is best added after one has brushed the black ink onto the block, not mixed with it beforehand. The ink and paste are then broken together smoothly and completely over the whole surface of the block. The last few brush strokes should be of the full length or breadth of the block and be given lightly with the brush held upright. The inking of the block must be thoroughly done, but with no more brushing than is necessary to spread the colour equally. When properly charged with ink the block should not be at all wet, but just covered with a very thin and nearly dry film of ink and paste.
No time should be wasted in lifting the top sheet of printing paper on to the block, placing first its right corner in the register notch, and holding it there with the thumb, then the edge of the paper to the other notch, to be held with the left thumb while the right hand is released to take up the baren (fig. 21). Beginning at the left, the baren is rubbed backwards and forwards, a full stroke each time, to the outside limits of the block, with a moderate,even pressure, moving the stroke in a zigzag towards the right end of the block (fig. 22). Once over should be enough. A second rub makes heavy printing of the finer lines. Then the paper is lifted from the block and placed on the board to the left.
Fig 21
Particular attention must be given to the careful placing of the paper home in the register notches, and to holding it there until the rubber has gripped the paper on the block.
Sheet by sheet all the printing paper is passed in this way over the key-block, and piled together. There is no fear of the ink offsetting or marking the print placed above it. As the work proceeds the block will give better and better impressions. Spoiled or defective impressions should be put together at the top of the pile when it lies ready for the next printing, for the first few impressions are always uncertain, and it is well to use the defective prints as pioneers, so as not to spoil good ones.
Fig 22
When the block has been printed onthe whole batch, the sheets should be replaced at once between the boards before one prepares for the colour impressions. Usually the paper will be too dry for colour by this time: if this is so, the damping sheets should be moistened and put in again as before; one to each three printing sheets. In a minute or two they will have damped the paper sufficiently and must be taken out, leaving the printing sheets to stand, between the boards, ready for the first colour-block.
In printing colour the paper may be slightly damper than it should be for key-block impressions, and a heavier pressure is necessary on the baren if the colour masses are large. If the baren is pressed lightly the colour will not completely cover the paper, but will leave a dry, granular texture. Occasionally this quality may be useful, but as a rule a smooth, evenly printed surface is best. It will be found that smooth,even printing is not obtained by loading the block with colour or paste, but by using the least possible quantity of both, and nearly dry paper.
In beginning to print from a colour-block, care should be taken to moisten the block fully before printing, or it will not yield the colour from its surface; but the block must be wiped, and not used while actually wet.
The printing proceeds exactly as in the case of the key-block, except for the heavier use of the baren. The paste should be added after the colour has been roughly brushed on to the block, and then the two are smoothly brushed together. The Japanese printers put the paste on to the block by means of a little stick kept in the dish of paste. Experience will soon show the amount of paste needed. It is important neither to add too much nor to stint the paste, as the colour when dry depends on the paste for its quality. Too little paste gives a dead effect.
Some of the colours print more easilythan others. With a sticky colour it is well to wipe the block with a nearly dry sponge between each impression, so that the wood gives up its colour more readily. In the case of a very heavy colour such as vermilion a drop of glue and water may help; but with practically all the colours that are generally used the rice paste and careful printing are enough.
The amount of size in the paper is another important factor in the printing of colour. If the paper is too lightly sized the fibres will detach themselves and stick to the damp block. Or if too heavily sized the paper will not take up the colour cleanly from the block, and will look hard when dry. One very soon feels instinctively the right quality and condition of the block, colour, and paper which are essential to good printing; and to print well one must become sensitive to them.
Beside the printing of flat masses of colour, one of the great resources ofblock printing is in the power of delicate gradation in printing. The simplest way of making a gradation from strong to pale colour is to dip one corner of a broad brush into the colour and the other corner into water so that the water just runs into the colour: then, by squeezing the whole width of the brush broadly between the thumb and forefinger so that most of the water is squeezed out, the brush is left charged with a tint gradated from side to side. The brush is then dipped lightly into paste along its whole edge, and brushed a few times to and fro across the block where the gradation is needed. It is easy in this way to print a very delicately gradated tint from full colour to white. If the pale edge of the tint is to disappear, the block should be moistened along the surface with a sponge where the colour is to cease.
A soft edge may be given to a tint with a brush ordinarily charged if the block is moistened with a clean sponge at the part where the tint is to cease.This effect is often seen at the top of the sky in a Japanese landscape print where a dark blue band of colour is printed with a soft edge suddenly gradated to white, or sometimes the plumage of birds is printed with sudden gradations. In fact, the method may be developed in all kinds of ways. Often it is an advantage to print a gradation and then a flat tone over the gradation in a second printing.
No care need be taken to prevent "offsetting" of the colour while printing. The prints may be piled on the top of each other immediately as they are lifted from the block, without fear of offsetting or marking each other. Only an excessive use of colour, or the leaving of heavy ridges of colour at the edges of the block by careless brushing, will sometimes mark the next print on the pile. As in printing the key-block, it is well to hold the brush quite upright for the last strokes across the block, and always to give a full stroke across the whole length or width of the form to be coloured.
As soon as one colour-block has been printed, the next may be taken and printed at once, without fear of the colour running, even though the fresh colour touches the parts already printed.
One by one each colour-block is printed in this way until the batch of paper has been passed over the whole set of blocks composing the design of the print. There may sometimes be an advantage in not printing the key-block first, though as a rule it should come first for the sake of keeping the later blocks in proper register. If the key-block is not printed one cannot see how the colour-blocks are fitting. But in the case of a sky with perhaps two or even three printings—a gradation and a flat tone or two gradations—there is danger of blurring the lines of the key-block, so that in such a case the sky should be printed first, and then the key-block followed by the remaining colour-blocks.
At the end of a day's printing the prints may quite safely be left standingtogether between the boards until the next day. For three days the damp paper comes to no harm, except in hot weather, but on the fourth day little red spots of mould begin to show and spread. It should be remembered that freshly boiled paste is to be used each day.
When the prints are finished they should be put to dry as soon as possible. If they are spread out and left exposed to the air they will soon dry, but in drying will cockle, and cannot then be easily pressed flat. It is better to have a number of mill-boards or absorbent "pulp" boards rather larger than the prints, and to pile the prints and boards alternately one by one, placing a weight on the top of the pile. The absorbent boards will rapidly dry the prints and keep them quite flat.
Finished prints should be numbered for reference, and should, if printed by the artist himself, also bear his signature—or some printed sign to that effect. The number of prints obtainable from a set of blocks is difficult to estimate. The Japanese printers are said to have made editions of several thousands from single sets of blocks. The actual wear in printing even of a fine line block is imperceptible, for the pressure is very slight. Certainly hundreds of prints can be made without any deterioration. But an artist who is both designing and producing his own work will not be inclined to print large editions.[5]
Until one has become quite familiar with the craft of wood-block printing it is not possible to make a satisfactory design for a print, or to understand either the full resources that are available or the limits that are fixed.
In beginning it is well to undertake only a small design, so that no great amount of material or time need be consumed in gaining the first experience, but this small piece of work should be carried through to the end, however defective it may become at any stage. A small key-block and two or three colour patches may all be cut onthe two sides of one plank for this purpose.
There is great diversity of opinion as to the conventions that are appropriate to the designing of colour prints. In the work of the Japanese masters the convention does not vary. A descriptive black or grey line is used throughout the design, outlining all forms or used as flat spots or patches. The line is not always uniform, but is developed with great subtlety to suggest the character of the form expressed, so that the subsequent flat mass of colour printed within the line appears to be modelled. This treatment of the line is one of the great resources of the work, and is special to this kind of design, in which the line has to be cut with the knifeon both sides, and is for this reason capable of unusual development in its power of expressing form. Indeed the knife is the final instrument in the drawing of the design.
Typical examples of key-block impressions are given on pages26and33:they show the variety of character and quality possible in the lines and black masses of key-blocks.
The designing of a print depends most of all upon this development of line and black mass in the key-block. The colour pattern of the print is held together by it, and the form suggested. In the Japanese prints the key-block is invariably printed black or grey. Masses intended to be dense black in the finished print are printed first a flat grey by the key-block, and are then printed a full black from a colour-block like any other patch of colour, the double printing being necessary to give the intensity of the black.
Although several modern prints have been designed on other principles, and sometimes a coloured key-block is successfully used, yet the convention adopted by the Japanese is the simplest and most fundamental of all. Outside its safe limitations the technical difficulties are increased, and one is led to make compromises that strain theproper resources of block printing and are of doubtful advantage.
The temptation to use colour with the key-block comes when one attempts to use the key-block for rendering light and shadow. Its use by the Japanese masters was generally for the descriptive expression of the contours of objects, ignoring entirely their shadows, or any effects of light and shade, unless a shadow happened occasionally to be an important part of the pattern of the design. Generally, as in nearly all the landscape prints by Hiroshigé, the line is descriptive or suggestive of essential form, not of effects in light and shade.
If the key-block is used for light and shade, the question of relative tones and values of shadows arises, and these will be falsified unless a key-block is made for each separate plane or part of the design, and then there is danger of confusion or of compromises that are beyond the true scope of the work.
It is generally safest to print the key-block in a tone that blends with thegeneral tone of the print, and not to use it as a part of the colour pattern. It serves mainly to control the form, leaving the colour-blocks to give the colour pattern. There are cases, of course, where no rule holds good, and sometimes a design may successfully omit the key-block altogether, using only a few silhouettes of colour, one of which controls the main form of the print, and serves as key-block. Frequently, also, the key-block may be used to give the interior form or character of part of a design, leaving the shape of a colour-block to express the outside shape or contour; as in the spots suggesting foliage in the print on page114. The shapes of the tree forms are partly left to the colour-block to complete, the key only giving the suggestion of the general broken character of the foliage, not the outside limits of the branches. The outer shape of a tree or branch is rarely expressed by an enclosing line in any of the Japanese prints. The key-block is often used to describe interior form when a silhouetteof colour is all that is needed for the contour. The expressive rendering of the rough surface of tree trunks and of forms of rock, or the articulation of plants and the suggestion of objects in atmospheric distance or mist, should be studied in good prints by the Japanese masters. In printed work by modern masters—as, for example, the work of the great French designers of poster advertisements—much may be learnt in the use and development of expressive line.
The Japanese system of training is well described in a book by Henry P. Bowie on "The Laws of Japanese Painting," in which many useful suggestions are given with reference to graphic brush drawing and the suggestive use of line and brush marks.
As part of the training of a designer for modern decorative printing, the experience and sense of economy that are to be gained from the study of wood-block printing are very great. Perhaps no work goes so directly to the essentialsof the art of decorative designing for printed work of all kinds. The wood blocks not only compel economy of design, but also lead one to it.
Even as a means of general training in the elements of decorative pictorial composition the wood blocks have great possibilities as an adjunct to the courses of work followed by art students. The same problems that arise in all decoration may be dealt with by their means on a small scale, but under conditions that are essentially instructive. Colour schemes may be studied and worked out with entire freedom by printing and reprinting until a problem is thoroughly solved. A colour design may be studied and worked out as fully by means of a small set of blocks, and with more freedom for experiment and alteration than is possible by the usual methods of study, such as painting and repainting on paper or canvas or wall; for the form being once established by the blocks, the colour may be reconstructed again and again without limit.
The craft has thus not only its special interest as a means of personal expression, but also a more general use as a means of training and preparation for the wider scope and almost unlimited resources of modern printing. The best use of those resources will be made by artists who have been trained under simpler conditions, and have found their way gradually to an understanding of the secrets of æsthetic economy in printing. One of the many paths to that experience is by way of the craft of the wood-block printer.
A print is shown at the end of this book (page95) as an example of a first experiment in co-operative printing. An actual print was needed to illustrate the method of block printing, and the number required was too great for a single printer to undertake. So the work was divided between four printers (of whom the writer was one), working together. Each of us had been accustomed to print our own prints in small batches of a dozen or two at a time, giving individual care to each print. The printing of 2000 prints to a fixed type was a very different matter, and proved an instructive and valuable experience. It was found that the printing of a large number of successive impressions gave one an increasingly delicate control of a block, and a high percentage of perfect impressions. After the initial experiments and practice, the failures in the later batches of the print were reduced to only 4 or 5 per cent. of the completed prints. The work was done in batches of 250 prints, each print receiving eight impressions, as shown on pages98-109. Each of the four printers took charge of a particular series of the blocks, which were printed in a regular order. It was found most convenient to print the key-block last of all, as the heavy blacks in it were inclined to offset under the pressure of the baren and slightly soil the colour-blocks, if the key-block was printed first, as is usually the practice.
The colour-blocks were printed in the order in which they are placed in the Appendix.
The best quality of work was done on nearly dry paper. The damping sheets were placed among the new paper at the end of the day's work and removed after ten or fifteen minutes, the printingpaper then was left standing over night between boards, ready for work in the morning, and was not damped again until after receiving several impressions. Then it was very slightly damped again by means of a damping sheet to every ten or twelve prints placed there for a very few minutes.
As one printer finished the impressions from one of his blocks, the batch of papers was passed on to the others, each in turn. In this way three batches of 250 were printed without haste in one week, working eight hours a day for five and a half days.
The chief difficulty experienced was in keeping to the exact colour and quality of the type print, each printer being inclined to vary according to individual preferences. To counteract this tendency, it is necessary for one individual to watch and control the others in these respects.
Otherwise the work proceeded easily and made very clear the possibilities of the craft for the printing of large numbersof prints for special purposes where the qualities required are not obtainable by machine printing. Obviously the best results will always be obtained by the individual printing of his own work by an artist. This can only be done, however, in comparatively small numbers, yet the blocks are capable of printing very large quantities without deterioration. The set of blocks used for the example given here showed very little deterioration after 4000 impressions had been taken. The key-block was less worn than any, the pressure being very slight for this block, and the ink perfectly smooth. The impression of which a reproduction is given on page109was taken after 4000 had been printed from the key-block. Block No. 2 was much more worn by the gritty nature of the burnt sienna used in its printing. It would be an easy matter, however, to replace any particular colour-block that might show signs of wear in a long course of printing.
Other examples given in the Appendixshow qualities and methods of treatment that are instructive or suggestive.
No. 6 is the key impression of a Japanese print in which an admirable variety of resource is shown by its design; the character of each kind of form being rendered by such simple yet so expressive indications. It is instructive to study the means by which this is done, and to notice how interior form is sometimes suggested by groups of spots or black marks of varied shape while the indication of the external form is left entirely to the shape of the colour-block subsequently to be printed.
Plate XVI is a reproduction of a print by Hiroshigé and shows the suggestive use of the key-block in rendering tree forms. Plates XVII and XVIII show in greater detail this kind of treatment.
Plates XXIII-XXIV are key-blocks of modern print designs.
Transcriber's Note: The note stating (actual size) is no longer correct.
An original print in colour, designed and cut by the author and printed by hand on Japanese paper, followed by collotype reproductions showing the separate impressions of the colour blocks used for this print, and other collotype reproductions of various examples of printing and design.
The particulars given in Chapter VIII on co-operative printing refer specially to the original print included in the first edition. In this edition an entirely new print is shown, and only 1,000 copies of it are being published.
Plate VIII
Plates originally printedin collotype are now producedin half-tone
Plate IX
Plate X
Plate XI
Plate XII
Plate XIII
Plate XIV
Plate XV
Plate XVI
Plate XVII
Plate XVIII
Plate XIX
Plate XX
Plate XXI
Plate XXII
Plate XXIII
Plate XXIV
"Tools and Materials illustrating the Japanese Method of Colour Printing." A descriptive catalogue of a collection exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Price Twopence. Victoria and Albert Museum Catalogues. 1913.
"The Colour Prints of Japan." By Edward F. Strange. The Langham Series of Art Monographs. London.
"Japanese Colour Prints." By Edward F. Strange. (3rd Edition.) Victoria and Albert Museum Handbooks. London.
"Japanese Wood Engravings." By William Anderson, F. R. C. S. London, Seeley & Co., Ltd. New York, Macmillan & Co. 1895.
"Japanese Wood-cutting and Wood-cut Printing." By T. Tokuno. Edited and annotated by S. R. Kochler. Report of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, for the year ending June 30, 1892. Issued in pamphlet form by the U.S.A. National Museum, Washington. 1893.
Other works containing descriptions and references to the craft of wood-block printing in the Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, are the following:—
"The Industries of Japan." By J. J. Rein. (Paper, pp. 389.) London. 1889.
"Bungei Ruisan," By Yoshino Sakakibara. Essays on Japanese literature, with additional chapters describing the manufacture of paper and the processes of printing and engraving. (The Museum copy has MS. translations of the portion relating to engraving.) Tokyo. 1878.
[2]The preparation of the ink for printing is described on p.54.[3]See also p.75.[4]SeeCHAPTER VIIIfor further experience on this point.[5]Further experience on this point is given inCHAPTER VIIIon Co-operative Printing.
[2]The preparation of the ink for printing is described on p.54.
[2]The preparation of the ink for printing is described on p.54.
[3]See also p.75.
[3]See also p.75.
[4]SeeCHAPTER VIIIfor further experience on this point.
[4]SeeCHAPTER VIIIfor further experience on this point.
[5]Further experience on this point is given inCHAPTER VIIIon Co-operative Printing.
[5]Further experience on this point is given inCHAPTER VIIIon Co-operative Printing.
Alum,50Andreani, Andrea,xiBaldung, Hans,xBamboo-sheath,62Baren,11,61,62Baren, manner of using,72Baren, to re-cover,63,64Baren, to re-cover (diagram),64Batches, size of,89Batten, J. D.,2Block cutting, materials,17Blocks, cutting of,17,23Blocks, mounting of,18Blocks, planning of,23Books of reference,129Bowie, Henry P.,86British Museum Print Room,43Brushes,65Brushes, drawing of,66Carborundum stone,21Cherry wood,17Chiaroscuro,xChinese ink,55Chisel, grip of,34,35Chisels,20Clearing of spaces,33Clearing of wood between knife cuts,35Colour,56Colour block, diagram of section,42Colour blocks, plan of,39Colour blocks, planning,40,41Colour blocks, printing from,73Colour design,87Commercial development,5Conventions of design,82Co-operative printing,89Craft in Japan,61Craftsmen, training of,24Cranach, Lucas,xCrane, Walter,ixCreasote,56Cutting,25Da Carpo, Ugo,xDamping,14Damping sheets,51Design,27Design, conventions in,82Designing,81Designing wood-block prints, principles of,81Design of key-block,26Diagram of knife cuts,33Drying of colour,77Drying of prints,79Errors of register,43Eve and the Serpent, print of,2Flat treatment,26,27Foliage,85Gelatine,48Giles, William,65Glue solution with colour,58,75Gouge, method of holding,35Gradations, printing of,75Grip of chisel,34,35Hands, position of, in cutting,30,31Herkomer,ixHiroshigé,84Impressions, possible number of,92Ink,54Inking of block,69Ink, preservative for,56Italian woodcuts,ixJackson, T. B.,xiiJapan, craft in,4,23Japanese blocks,43Japanese craftsmen,61Japanese drawing,27Japanese key-block,33"Japanese Painting, The Laws of,"86Japanese paper,54Japanese printers,52,80Japanese prints,83Key-block,25,27,84,85Key-block impressions,5,26,33Knife,19Knife, drawing of,19Knife, use of,24Knife cuts, diagram of,33"Laws of Japanese Painting,"86Light and shade,85Line block, cutting of,32Line, development of,32Line of key-block,26Mallet,21Mallet, drawing of,21Mantegna,xiMillboards for drying,79Modern prints,83Mordant, alum as,50Mould,79Mulberry fibre,47Museums, sets of blocks at,43Number of impressions,92Offsetting,71,77Oilstones,21Orlik, Prof. Emil,7Outamaro,24Pad,61Paper,47Paper, damping of,51Paper, manner of holding,70Paper, mould in,79Paper, need of white,54Paper, sizing of,48Paper, sizing of (drawing),49Paste,58Paste, amount used in printing,74Paste, preparation of,59Plank, preparation of,18Planning of blocks,24Position of hands,30,31Posters,86,87Printing,67Printing, co-operative,89Printing, detailed method of,61Printing from colour blocks,73Printing, general description of,9Printing of gradations,75,76,77Printing pad,62Prints, designing,81Prints, drying of,79Register,71,78Register, errors of,41,43Register marks,36,37,42Register marks, position of,37Register marks, section of,38Rice flour,59Rice paste,58Rubber, glass,65Rubber, printing,61Shadows, treatment of,85Shallow cuts,34Shrinking of paper,41Siberian bear hair brushes,66Size, amount of, in paper,75Size, excess of,75Sizing of paper,48,49Smithsonian Institution pamphlet,2South Kensington Museum,43Spots in paper,79Table, plan of,11Tokuno, T.,2Tools for block-cutting,19Training of designers,86Treatment of form,93Tree-forms,85,93Variety of line,82,83Washita oilstone,22Wood,17Woodcuts, Italian,ix.Work-table, plan of,11