Mokuhankan Collection : Crows and Moon

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Description

Here is the text of the commentary that David included with this print when it was sent to the original subscribers of the Surimono Albums series, back in 2001.

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Time for a simpler image ... after the multi-coloured detail of that fan print, I think your eyes need something a bit more restful ... I know mine did!

I haven't been particularly successful this year in getting the prints well matched with the seasons, but this time I think I hit it right on! Although there is nothing overtly seasonal about this image, the round full moon in the sky is certainly a symbol of autumn here in Japan, so perhaps these crows are huddling together to fend off the chill of an autumn evening ...

I'm not actually sure who to attribute this design to - it is one of those images that has been copied, reproduced and adapted so many times by so many people down the years that it is hard to sort out its beginnings. My 'best guess' is that the original idea came from the brush of Ogata Korin, but I stand ready to be proven wrong. In any case, my use of the design is just one more addition to a very long chain. I'm not quite sure why this particular image has been so enduringly popular; after all, the crow is not exactly the most well-loved of birds. Perhaps it is something to do with the somewhat melancholy mood ...

I have my own measure of how popular this image is - this is the second time I have made a print of this design! Back nearly twenty years ago, when I was still living in Canada and dabbling in printmaking while I worked in a music store, this was one of the designs that I chose for my experiments. The print I made then certainly didn't look like this! It was pretty clumsily carved and printed, but I remember having fun working on it, even though the final result didn't much match the image that I could 'see' in my mind. This time I got a bit closer ...

And just in case the point needs more emphasis, I had another experience with this design just a few years ago, when I received a small packet in the mail from overseas. Inside was a woodblock print that had been carved and printed by an American man. It turned out that he was married to a Japanese, had visited and travelled around this country a bit, was interested in learning to make woodblock prints, and had made this print as an experiment ... and yes, he too had chosen the design of four crows on a branch ...

Unfortunately, it seems that he has not continued with any more experiments, and has instead turned his hand to dealing in woodblock prints, buying them here in Japan and selling them around the world. I say 'unfortunately' because I really feel a bit perplexed just why nobody else from overseas has taken up the same kind of work that I do. In the years since the end of the war, quite a number of westerners have come to Japan to become printmakers, but with the sole exception of myself, they are all modern 'artist-printmakers', not traditional 'craftsman-printmakers'. Their focus is on the creation of images, not on technique, like me. Of course, there is nothing wrong with that, and indeed, if everybody made reproductions like me, there would be no new art created! But why on earth has nobody else taken up this craft? In any other similar field you can think of: shakuhachi playing, washi making, traditional dancing, or of course the numerous martial arts, there are dozens of foreigners studying here in Japan. But in the case of traditional woodblock printmaking, there is only one ...

When I talk with people about this they usually say something like "Well, you should be happy about that - you have the field all to yourself, no competition!" But that's not the way I see it; I myself can't make many more than 200 prints each month - with 125,000,000 people living here in Japan, I think there is a potential market for a few more printmakers! I want some competition! I would love it if there were a flourishing community of us here.

Over the fifteen years since I moved to Japan to become a printmaker, at least a dozen times I have been visited by foreigners who expressed interest in doing this kind of work. In some cases I spent a lot of time with them going over basics and helping them to get started. Some of them even produced interesting prints ... one or two prints ... But no more than one or two, and then nothing else. The pattern is clear - they wander off, and I never hear from them again.

Is this job that difficult? Perhaps so; to make last month's print, I had to make 200+ impressions of 30 colours. That is a lot of impressions to do in just a couple of weeks, and I spent many very long days sitting cross-legged at my workbench, baren in hand. Perhaps indeed, you do have to be crazy to do this work nowadays.

But look at these albums - isn't it worth it!

October 2001

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The blocks for this print are still in very good condition, and it is being reprinted by the Mokuhankan staff printers. You can find it here in the catalogue.