Japanese Posters: The First 100 Years

Abstract

Fig. 1) Kunisada. Handbill for cosmetics (1800-1860). Japan's most familiar form of arts and crafts is the ukiyo-e, or wood block print, which was developed from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. The simple compositions depicting popular actors, courtesans, and views of Japan avoided sculptured effects and shadows to suggest a three-dimensional quality. When they were first seen by Western poster artists during the European trade fairs in the 1860s, they provided a memorable and graphic vision of the mysterious Orient that had an immediate influence on Western poster designers. Early American and European designers, such as Maxfield Parrish, Edward Penfield, Ludwig Hohlwein, and Jules Cheret, were excited by the simple graphic images of these prints. Cheret was particularly impressed with the elimination or subjugation of backgrounds that projected the subject into the foreground an ideal design for a poster. Toulouse-Lautrec also borrowed from the ukiyo-e and based his monogram on the Japanese signature seal or chop. Ukiyo-e and other Japanese arts and crafts attracted Westerners because they were developed while Japan was almost completely independent of Western technological and esthetic development for 260 years. Arising out of the genre of ukiyo-e were Japanese first posters. Called bira, they were more like handbills posted at important social intersections, for example, major travel crossroads and public baths. An example of a bira is the illustration for cosmetics, produced by the artist Kunisada sometime between 1800-1860 (Figure 1). In appearance it matches the best ukiyo-e prints, with its image of a sensuous woman viewed through her mirror while she applies makeup to the back of her neck. The delicate handwork, soft colors, and subtle use of calligraphy evoke comparison of courtesan prints by Utamaro. Early handbill artists, such as Kunisada, copied the style of ukiyo-e, combining calligraphy and pictorial images in a single print. The idea of calligraphy as part of the print came from China and has a long history as part of the print's total esthetic image. Ukiyo-e artists produced prints much as today's graphic designers do. The artist acted as an art director in supervising the printing process. Artists drew original sketches with brushes in black and white, made appropriate notations on patterns for carvers to cut, and indicated choices of colors for printers. Several wood blocks, one for each color, were cut and organized for a mass production of multicolored pictures, a process that was rare in the