Studio: international art (3.1894)

Woodcut Printing in Water-Colours

along"'the plank in accordance with the earlier
European habit. The knife employed alike by
Diirer and the Japanese has in Europe, since the

FROM A WOODCUT AFTER KEIBUN

time of Bewick, given way to the graver worked
on a surface cut across, not with, the grain.

The manner in which the artist works is shown
in Fig. i, from a Japanese drawing, a is the block
itself; b a whetstone for sharpening his knives and
chisels; and c the box for holding his tools. The
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position of the knife is clearly shown, but whether
the worker in cutting a line draws it towards him,
or pushes it from him, is not explained.

As an interesting detail, although of no great con-
sequence, it may be noted that the Japanese wood-
block for a single printing has strips nailed at each
end. These prevent the warping of the block,
which is made of sakura, a variety of cherry,
although a species of boxwood and other woods of
hard pine are occasionally employed. These strips
also permit free access of air when a number of
blocks are stored on top of one another, and facili-
tate identification and removal of a single specimen
from a pile, as the strips bear numbers and titles.
For colour-printing such strips would be in the
way of the " register,'' so they are omitted. The
" register," it may be said, is the ordinary Euro-
pean trade term for certain mechanical appliances
which govern the readjustment of the sheet of
paper so that each successive colour falls upon its
right place. In European chromo-lithography, or
block-printing, this registering is effected by a
somewhat elaborate arrangement of pins, so that
it is easy to replace each sheet in precisely the
same position, no matter how large the number of
printings. Thirty-two successive printings is by
no means uncommon in the best commercial work
here, yet despite our perfection of mechanism the
Japanese, by a far simpler system of " registering,"
by notches at the right and left of the block, is able
to print a number of impressions with precision
and accuracy equal to anything we know. This
he effects by placing each sheet by hand in its
allotted place, with no guide except the notches
in the block, as shown in Fig. 3.

The most characteristic prints employ but five
colours, which afford by dilution and mixing all
the needful shades and tints. For black, a kind of
Indian ink is used. After mixing it with water, a
solution of glue is added to the pigment in a
basin, or else rice paste is added to the pigment on
the block by means of a brush. For white, white-
lead is employed, both alone and for mixing with
pigments when light tints or body colours are
needed. For red, a kind of carmine is chosen; this
is called Yo-ko ; it has superseded the safflower,
Ki-Jo-Mi, formerly employed.

For blue, Ai-ro, a paste obtained by extraction
from rags of threads dyed with indigo, was formerly
used ; of late ordinary Prussian blue has become
general. The brilliant violet, often taken for an
aniline colour, is obtained by boiling a certain
quantity of red and blue with water. For yellow,
once supplied by zumi, a wood-stain, orpiment is