Studio: international art (3.1894)

Woodcut Printing in Water-Colours

only available entrances into the various dry-docks. -w- -w- OODCUT PRINTING IN

Lavender Wharf is especially a grateful and safe m /% / WATER-COLOURS

station to sketch in, and there still remains a great % / % / AFTER THE JAPANESE
deal of its picturesque camp-shiding and dolphins. MANNER
It is exactly opposite that beautiful half-mile of
old-fashioned water front that extends from the I.—An Interview with an Expert.
Regent Canal entrance to Limehouse. Its name Even without the power of reference to his
carries with it associations of lavender-beds, as collection of Japanese coloured prints, as either
Cherry Garden higher up suggests fruit orchards, texts for, or illustrations of, his remarks, it is un-
it is not worth while going farther down towards doubtedly interesting to hear what a Japanese
Deptford; retrace your steps to the Globe Stairs, expert has to tell one of the processes by which the
and taking again the steamer you cross over to beautiful objects have been produced.

FROM A WOODCUT, AFTER KORIN IN TWO COLOURS

1 imehouse Pier, from which quite the best views of
the crowded river are to be obtained. There is a
noteworthy stretch of foreshore scenery as you
look up stream ; there is a hospital for barges and
lighters which are receiving tender treatment and
embrocation of boiling pitch ; and the river down
to Greenwich, which is almost visible, astonishes
one in the wealth of its picturesque and varied
craft. The Thames barges (most of which hail
from Rochester) are the most picturesque freight-
carriers in the world. The Venetian bragozzi are
certainly more fanciful in colour, but their be-
haviour under sail is not so dignified as our own
topsail barges, splendid in the red and russet
brown colour of their sails, always steady and
erect, though seas are constantly washing com-
pletely over their low freeboard. H. M.

I TO

Time was when the fortunate lover of Japanese
art could pick up, for a few pence, examples of
coloured prints which now command many times
the prices asked ten or twelve years ago.

I remarked on this to Mr. Eida, and asked him
if it was due at all to the fact that the Japanese
engraver struck off only a limited number of cuts
from his block ? " On the contrary," he answered,
" the block is capable of giving as many as two or
three thousand copies, and very often does so.
But (as with you, so with us) the principle of
' proofs ' obtains—at all events to some extent—
for after the first ten or twelve ' wastes ' are taken,
the following fifty or so are recognised as being
the best. And, of course, blocks of which so much
is in line gradually suffer as they produce the suc-
ceeding copies, so that it is quite easy for a judge