This week on Wednesday we started talking about the middle and late Tokugawa or Edo period and the culture that appears during this era. Some of the art that is prominent during the Edo period are woodblock printing and painting as well as Haikus. The first text we looked at was from the textbook on chapter eight called “Woodblock printing and painting”and “Haiku”. In this text we learned that during this era woodblock printing or ukiyo-e became popular. People originally used the woodblock printing for well printing papers but people realized that they can also carve pictures into these woodblocks and create images with them. This realization would allow the proliferation of many different works of art. Hishikawa Moronobu (1618–1694) is claimed to be the artist that popularized the art form. The text states, “artist who is usually given credit for making the woodblock print an important art form … Moronobu was followed by a galaxy of prominent woodblock artists: Harunobu, Utamaro, Sharaku, Hokusai, Hiroshige, to name a few. These artists created a sense of movement, form, and atmosphere by relying solely on line and color.1” This quote illustrates that not only did Moronobu make this art form popular but gave rise to many famous artists who would define the art form and create techniques specifically for this specific type of art by relying on feeling and subtlety to convey movement, mood, and expression.
The subtlety of woodblock printing can also be seen in the way Haiku’s are written. Haiku’s are written in the 5-7-5 syllable verses but are always connected to a season. This fact is important as the writer can create a specific mood or feeling by the way they write certain words.
For example, Matsuo Bashō’s “Narrow Road to the Deep North (oku no hosomichi) Haiku,
Summer mountains—
praying to the tall clogs
at journey’s start2
This Haiku illustrates through the use of the words “summer,” “praying,” and “journeys start” one gets a sense of anticipation of the journey ahead. It makes a person feel as if they were standing in a temple in the mountains on a hot summer day praying before they start on a journey of a lifetime. I wonder if this subtlety is used intentionally by writers or if it is an aspect of Haikus that will always be there based on the 5-7-5 syllable verse structure.
We also learned on Friday about the misunderstandings that appear around the Dutch and the ways it was trying to be solved. I was shocked by the questions that were asked by these followers. For example one asked, “It is said that “black-boys” who come over on Dutch ships submerge in water easily and grow up practicing swimming or that they are a kind of monkey.3” I am shocked that they would ask such a question. However, if I was to put my mindset into one of that era who has never seen someone like that before I guess my attitude would be inquisitive as well, but that level of derogatory vernacular seems uncalled for, and as such, is uncouth. This question leads me to wonder, would Japanese people view people of color as less than people? Europeans lived with the monsters based on Japanese belief so if the Europeans enslaved these people would Japanese people see people of color as monsters?
Bibliography
Matsuo Bashō. “Narrow Road to the Deep North (oku no hosomichi).” In Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900, edited by Shirane, Haruo, 209-232. 2002. Translations from the Asian Classics. New York: Columbia University Press. (PDF)
Premodern Japan: A Historical Survey, edited by Mikiso Hanen and Louis G Perez. Second ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 2015. https://muhlenberg.on.worldcat.org/oclc/895428280
Ōtsuki Gentaku. “Misunderstandings about the Dutch.” In Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol. 2: 1600 to 2000, Part One: 1600 to 1868, compiled by Wm. Th. de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann, 302-309. Introduction to Asian Civilizations. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001. (PDF)
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