As we move closer towards the end of our series of prints, I realize that I have not yet brought you an example of what is perhaps the most important (and popular!) genre of Japanese traditional prints - the bijin-ga (literally 'beautiful woman picture'). Well, that’s easily rectified, and here we are!

Because the physical format of this Mystique series is so small, it is not practical to reproduce an entire o-ban print, so I have trimmed a section from the original. The source is a massive album of ten triptychs entitled 'Hana Moyo', which was designed by the astonishing - and these days mostly unknown - Kobayashi Kiyochika in 1896, near the close of his career.

The album is an embarrassment of riches, and it was difficult to decide which particular image to choose. What caught my eye about this one was that it shows the ya-e-ge technique, in which rather than a straight-forward series of hairs lined up one-by-one, the hairs are grouped together and curved interestingly. I had never had a chance to try this before, and with my eye-sight getting ever weaker I may not have many more opportunities, so I thought I would give it a try. I used a very nice piece of boxwood that I have been saving, and it seems to have worked well!

In one sense, I am perhaps a bit 'lucky' to be able to have an opportunity to do work like this. Other carvers still working in this field rarely get a chance to ‘stretch out’ in this way, because they only carve whatever the publishers choose to issue, and financial considerations make it difficult to instigate such complex projects. But I have no such restrictions (thankfully!), so am able to 'play around' to my heart's content.

There are now three prints left to come in our series, only three more chances for me to have fun making something interesting for you. See you next month!

David

August 2010