This week we have a selection of Meiji-era woodblock prints from Hana Fukusa, featuring textile designs inspired by India and southeast Asian calicos and chintzes. First published in Kyoto in 1900 by Yamada Naosaburō, founder of Unsōdō Publishing House, our volume is a from a second print run in 1903 and was originally part of a two-volume set.
Born into a family of bookbinders, publisher Naosaburō established Unsōdō in 1891. His older and younger brothers, Ichijirō and Kinnosuke began to publish kimono pattern books under the name Honda Unkindō in the late 1890s and their intense rivalry spurred each to the top of their game. The textile industry in Japan was experiencing explosive growth at the turn of the century, and pattern books like those produced by Unsōdō were staple reference works for the emerging textile industry and the art schools and technological institutes that fed a skilled workforce into the industry. In 1906, the brothers merged their companies under the Unsōdō name and started to branch out from primarily printing textile pattern books after the merger, but it was their pattern books that continued to fly off the shelves and kept the company financially grounded during the War years and funded their more ambitious projects.
These pattern books would have been used to make textiles called sarasa. Originally imported from India through Portuguese traders at great expense, the cloth was often cut down to make small items, especially for use during tea ceremonies. Domestic production was developed by the late 17th century, often employing the katazome technique. Katazome is a resist dying method similar to batik that utilizes a rice paste and katagami, paper stencils made from layers of washi paper bonded together by a persimmon-based glue. Exportation of Japanese sarasa to Europe in the late Edo and Meiji periods had a major design impact on the European Arts and Crafts Movement and katazome motifs can be spotted in the work of C. F. A Voysey, Walter Crane, and William Morris.
Other notable Unsōdō publications include Kamisaka Sekka’s Momoyogusa (A World of Things, 3 vols., 1909-10) and Takeuchi Seihō’s Masterworks (printed 1937-1942). Masterworks was called “one of the most magnificent printing achievements of the twentieth century” by art historian Jack Hillier. In possession of over 10,000 original woodblocks, the company is still producing traditional woodblock fine art books out of Kyoto today.
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– Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern
