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to what e x t e n t should designers consider cultural sentiments in their practice to what e x t e n t should designers consider cultural sentimets in their practice

Jasmine Ami Jones JON!!328295

to what extent should designers consider cultural sentimets in their practice?

A further look to woodcut printing

07977465235 BAGD Jene Mook Sang group 3:6 word count - 2019

By jasmine jones

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When we first got together as a group the thing that brought us all together was the cultural variety of our group. We all came from different places around the world and this was reflected in our individual mind-sets and the way we approached design. Through out the keynote speakers there also seemed to be a big debate about where designers fit in society and their social role and responsibility.

Through out the bigger picture unit and researching various cultures and the designers from those cultures, there was one very distinct correlation. The culture of the country is reflected through out its designers. The designer has a clear responsibility to cater toward a culture, to respond to it. To access the effect of culture in my field, which is illustration; I am looking to Japanese woodcut as a case study to look at design, which is both influenced by culture and influences it as well.

Woodcut is a well-established tradition in Asia and has inspired artists in Europe and North America, primarily in the 19th century. Woodblock printing was originated in the 8th century in Japan. Originally the art form was brought from China to print Chinese religious texts. The first prints were made from one colour using Sumi ink. Early coloured prints were also made by using a single block and black ink, to outline the print and then craftsmen would hand paint the colours, however when a rise in popularity for these prints exceeded the production capacity, the woodblock started to evolve. To meet demand printers employed carvers to make individual blocks for individual colours in the print. The more detailed and expensive woodblock prints sometimes contained 15 or more colours, requiring expertly carved 15 print blocks. The reason they had to be so expertly carved was that the carvers had to ensure that the coloured blocks did not overlap. The earliest images of this type were in private calendars, which were first printed by Suzuku Hornbook (1725-1770),other artists were quick to follow. However in the mid 1760s the newly invented colour prints were sold commercially and their subjects had changed to include both classical and contemporary subject matter, these subjects included literary scenes, the lives of celebrities, beautiful women, travel scenes, erotic scenes and also famous actors in different dramatic roles.

At this time Japanese woodcut printing was shaping the way we saw graphic design in Japan. The linear style and the limitations of depth in woodcut created an extremely flat image. This meant that at this time Japanese woodcut was shaping design culture in Japan and across Asia as it was the primary form of mass communication and showcasing art. Because of its easily reproductive form it was the first time that art and illustration 4

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was brought into the houses of the ordinary, art was becoming accessible and was shaping the way that the Japanese people lived and worked.

Though the techniques in woodblock printing were varied, the technique was critical to the final product. Whilst working the artists were required to think of the end goal, requiring a high level of craft skill because a mistake at any one point could mean ruining hours of labor. This mind set would have been in line with the Japanese tradition of painting, demonstrating precision with the knife, so that the features of the piece and the written characters of the woodblock remained the same as in the original image. So from the artist’s perspective the knife should match identically the direction of the brush, which initially created the picture.

This technique also reflects the Japanese hard working mentality and the importance of patience and work ethic is Japanese society. At this time in Japan it was important that a profession was respected and this meant that woodcut artists were becoming elevated as not just merely as artists but also as social commentators of the times that they were living in. The fact is that these woodcuts are all the pictorial evidence of Japanese society at the time that we have.

Woodblock printing is still frequently used by artists around the world; however the techniques today are quite different compared to the old traditional woodcuts; the carver would have cut deep into the wood where as today the grooves are not as deep, allowing the artist more detail with a shallow groove. The majority of woodblock prints were originally produced in Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Workshops in Kyoto however still sell woodblock prints and execute them in the traditional manner, and they carry on this culturally important and influential style of printing.

However since American ships forced Japan into opening their harbours in 1853 strong social changes rippled through Japan. It caused the shogun to resign and gave power to the emperor Meiji (1868-1912). Japan had been introduced to Western culture. Japan went from a culture where foreigners were forbidden, to a society, which supported foreign influence. This new change in attitude meant that Western printmaking techniques were introduced in Japan and the traditional woodblock print lost its status. It also meant that the art form was no longer regarded as a fine art but as a “craft” by Japanese society. However the prints that were exported to Europe caused admiration and strongly influenced art movements like the Jugendstil (Art Nouveau), the new poster movement and artists such as van Gogh, Gauguin were inspired by 6

the craft. In Japan however the European printmaking techniques of cutting and printing inspired the Shin Hanga(New Print) movement this was initiated by publishers like Watanabe, who wanted to keep the traditional woodblock print alive, who’s prints were done in the traditional collaborative manner.

This brings me on to the concept of orientalism. At the time of Jugenstil there was still a clear sense of “us and them” as both east and west still had idealised views of each other as travelling was both expensive and laborious. This meant that people were not as aware of other cultures as their own. So when they did see other cultures and ways of life, they were almost fetishized. Now we are at the opposite end of the spectrum. With travel now relatively cheap and attainable we are at the point where the world is very familiar with each other’s customs and traditions; to the point where our cultures have merged and blurred to almost create a new one. This newly found ability to explore other countries’ cultures and traditions has therefore made us look more introspectively to our own cultural heritage, Helping us conserve it and allowing us reassess our relationship to it. Having said that we ourselves are the product of our traditions and past and we need to be aware of it. Different countries in general have a collective consciousness and behavioral patterns bound up in their own distinctive cultural language. We cannot and must not deny our cultural identity. At the same time it is our duty as designers to familiarize our selves with other cultures when we are designing for that audience.

Because of this idea we as a group came up with the idea of educating people about different cultures through a book. This allows people to be educated in a fun and design orientated way. Being designers ourselves and therefore predominantly visual people we felt that this was the best way to get our point across, and for other designers to understand and grasp a culture in a quick, yet in depth manner.

This brings me back to the woodcuts of Japan. These woodcuts were originally created to document a culture and now they have become the defining cultural identity for Japan, what they used to mimic they have become. Contemporary artists and traditional Japanese artists now work together to elevate the printing process and continue on the legacy of woodblock printing past. Japanese Woodcut artists still to this day represent their culture whilst at the same time redefines it.

Though relatively unknown Tom Thijsse, a Dutch artist creates very minimalistic graphic forms using traditional Japanese techniques, the out7

come is one of simple form and colour, which has both a feeling of nostalgia, but at the same time is quintessentially modern. Mia O is another artist who exploits the woodblock technique to create minimalistic forms.

In her print “onsen� she depicts a mother and child bathing with three simple colours and two simple forms, creating a strong composition, which is beautifully simplistic. Eva Pietzcker however uses the traditional Japanese woodblock print to portray modern landscapes with a crisp linear style. Unlike the other two artists mentioned Eva Pietzckar does not base her image on compositions but works with simple foundational elements, which connect to the use of the wood grain to create her work. She also says that she highly values spontaneity and wants her images to look effortless; I personally think she manipulates the technique well to achieve her goal. These are all examples of foreign contemporary artists that are influenced by the traditional Japanese technique but have elevated in their practices into a form of self-expression.

In conclusion this process has taught me one thing. That we cannot be ignorant towards other cultures nor can we be prejudiced. It is my duty as a designer and artist to question our cultures and to cater toward it. It is not bad design or dysfunctional design that makes me angry. Instead it is design that does not meet the needs of the people, or that does not fulfill the craving that we have as human beings to be educated. After all we are all products of our cultural past, although we try to fight against our past to recreate and redefine ourselves; much like in the art of woodcut we learn from our past and that informs us of our future. .

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B I B L I O G R A P H Y Faulkner, Rupert; Robinson, Basil William (1999). Masterpieces of Japanese Prints: Ukiyo-e from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Kodansha International. ISBN 978-4-7700-2387-2.

Forrer, Matthi, Willem R. van Gulik, Jack Hillier A Sheaf of Japanese Papers, The Hague, Society for Japanese Arts and Crafts, 1979. ISBN 90-7026571-0 Harris, Frederick (2011). Ukiyo-e: The Art of the Japanese Print. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-4-8053-1098-4.

Kaempfer, H. M. (ed.), Ukiyo-e Studies and Pleasures, A Collection of Essays on the Art of Japanese Prints, The Hague, Society for Japanese Arts and Crafts, 1978. ISBN 90-70216-01-9 Newland, Amy Reigle. (2005). Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints. Amsterdam: Hotei. 10-ISBN 9074822657/13-ISBN 9789074822657 Smith, Lawrence. Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989. New York, London, Paris: Cross River Press, 1994.

Swinton, Elizabeth de Sabato. Terrific Tokyo: A panorama in Prints from the 1860s to the 1930s. Worcester: Worcester Art Museum, 1998. ISBN 0-936042-00-1 Masuda, Koh. Kenkyusha’s New Japanese-English Dictionary, Kenkyusha Limited, Tokyo 1991, ISBN 4-7674-2015-6 Nussbaum, Louis Frédéric and Käthe Roth. (2005). Japan Encyclopedia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 10-ISBN 0-674-017536; 13-ISBN 978-0-674-01753-5 Friese, Gordon (2007). “Hori-shi. 249 facsimiles of different seals from 96 Japanese engravers.” Unna, Nordrhein-Westfalen: Verlag im bücherzentrun.

Lane, Richard. (1978). Images from the Floating World, The Japanese 10

Print. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10-ISBN 0192114476/13-ISBN 9780192114471 Paine, Robert Treat, in: Paine, R. T. & Soper A, “The Art and Architecture of Japan”, Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1981, Penguin (now Yale History of Art),ISBN 0140561080.

Sansom, George (1961). “A History of Japan: 1334-1615.” Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Jenkins, D. Images of a Changing World: Japanese Prints of the Twentieth Century. Portland: Portland Art Museum, 1983. ISBN 0-295-96137-6 Menzies, Jackie. Modern boy, Modern Girl: Modernity in Japanese Art 19101935. Sydney, Australia: Art Gallery NSW, c1998. ISBN 0-7313-8900-X Merritt, Helen and Nanako Yamada. (1995). Guide to Modern Blair, Dorothy. Modern Japanese prints: printed from a photographic reproduction of two exhibition catalogues of modern Japanese prints published by the Toledo Museum of Art in 1930-1936. Ohio: Toledo Museum of Art, 1997.

Brown, K. and Goodall-Cristante, H. Shin-Hanga: New Prints in Modern Japan. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1996. ISBN 0-295-97517-2 Hamanoka, Shinji. Female Image: 20th Century Prints of Japanese Beauties.

Hotei Publishing 2000. ISBN 90-74822-20-7 Japanese Woodblock Prints, 1900-1975. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 10-ISBN 082481732X/13-ISBN 9780824817329; 10-ISBN 0824812867/13-ISBN 9780824812867 Merritt, Helen. Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press 1990. ISBN 0-8248-1200-X Mirviss, Joan B. Printed to Perfection: Twentieth-century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection. Washington D.C.: Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution and Hotei Publishing 2004.

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This was our product that we created for this brief, next is the actual specimen itself 12

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