Floating Along in the World of Japanese Prints

December 1910 ~ A Courtesan of the Tenpō Era

 

In 1896 the series of triptychs entitled Hana Moyō (Patterns for Flowers), by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), was published. Each design featured a beautiful woman from a specific historical period set against a distant background scene. In 1910, elements of the designs from this series were adapted for use in a woodblock printed calendar that was published to advertise the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama. Specifically, it was published to advertise the Deer and Stag brand, which was the most highly praised of the Kawamata firm's fabrics. I recently received the design for December as a Christmas present, and here it is: 

The text at the bottom of the print tells us that Deer and Stag pure silk 'surpasses all others in its refining method, shows excellent lustre when dyed or printed,' and 'suffers no change, no matter how long it may be kept'. The firm, established by Kutsuna Korejiro in 1899, was highly thought of; following the Anglo-Japanese exhibition held in London in 1910, both English and French silk dealers were eager to buy it, but Kutsuna refused to sell.

The design from Hana Moyō which was adapted to form the subject for December in the Kawamata calendar was the triptych depicting a courtesan from The Tenpō Era (1830-1844), which can be seen below. 

The courtesan is shown before a background scene of men making their way along Naka-no-chō, the famous central boulevard of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. The courtesan's face and butterfly hairstyle, including that plethora of heavy pins, are the same in both the original triptych and the calendar sheet, but, as you can see, her outer robe and sash were adapted to fit the vertical format of the calendar print.

We're Having a Ball

 

Calendar print for 1910, by Hashimoto Chikanobu (1838–1912), originally published in 1897 as part of the series entitled True Beauties (Shin bijin).

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, you'll probably know that I have a thing for advertising ephemera from the 19th to the early 20th century. I am always on the lookout for Japanese prints that were issued to advertise a product, and I recently came across the one above, which was taken from a woodblock printed calendar published for the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama in 1910. According to the text beneath the young woman, Kawamata pure silk:

Surpasses all others in its refining method.
Shows excellent lustre, when dyed or printed.
Suffers no change, no matter how long it may be kept.

Not only is the young woman wearing pure silk, she's holding a ball decorated with silk thread - an itomari (thread ball), also called a temari (hand ball). Young women and children are often shown playing with these thread balls in Japanese prints, especially in ones showing scenes from the New Year.

Temari, from the series Thirty-Six Images of Beauty (Sanjūrokkasen), by Mizuno Toshikata (1866 - 1908), 1893.

The print above shows three young women playing with a temari that is almost hidden in the pattern of the dress of the young girl standing behind it. They most likely had a bit of a sing-song whilst playing with it, as rhymes and ditties were popular accompaniments to ball games. One such rhyme goes:

Ten ten ten Tenjin-sama no omatsuri ni
Ten ten temari o kai mashita
Ten ten temari wa doko de tsuku
Ume no o-hana no shita de tsuku.

On the festival of Ten ten ten, Tenjin-sama,
I bought a ten ten temari.
Where am I to bounce the ten ten temari?
I am to bounce it under the blooming plum tree.*

Puppy playing with a temari. Surimono by Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787 - 1832), 1826.

Temari were made by wrapping cotton threads around a core of tightly rolled material scraps or paper to form a ball shape, to which was then added a decorative geometrical pattern in silk thread. Smaller ones were used in throwing games; the larger ones were usually made professionally and were bought for display in a household’s tokonoma during festive occasions.**

Another form of decorative ball that you might come across is that made using the kimekomi method. The image below shows one I prepared earlier (and when I say prepared, I mean bought online - it's vintage).  Kimekomi means 'tuck in' in Japanese, and this gives you a clue as to the method of this ball's manufacture. The core of the ball is made from wood or compressed sawdust, with the design being carved into it to allow the fabric pieces to be tucked in to form the desired pattern.

* Taken from 'Two Ball-Bouncing Rhymes from Japan', by Gwladys Hughes, in The Journal of American Folklore (April to June 1950). The Tenjin-sama of the rhyme refers to Sugaware no Michizane, a Heian period politician and scholar. A shrine was erected to his memory following his death and deification, and parents wishing their children to grow up to be scholars prayed to his spirit. The 'ten ten' of the rhyme is added for rhythmical effect.*
** The tokonoma is a raised platform within an alcove, used for the display of flowers, paintings, ceramics, etc.

Hear All About It!

 

People have always wanted to know about what's going on in the world; they like a nice bit of gossip too. So, in the days before our modern printed newspapers, how did the Japanese hear about the latest execution, double-suicide, fire, celebrity marriage or sale at Echigoya department store? Well, there were yomiuri to sing the news to them. Sometimes working from temporary roadside stalls, but more often than not wandering through the streets in pairs and performing wherever there were enough people around to form an appreciative crowd, yomiuri sang sections from their latest news broadsheets, hoping to inspire those in their vicinity to fork out the cash for the full printed news article. By the end of the seventeenth century the sedge-hat-wearing news singers were already all over the place, touting for business. They'd started out in Edo (now Tokyo), but eventually made their way all along the Tōkaidō Highway and spread through every province of Japan. The print below, from 1684, shows a pair of yomiuri performing to the accompaniment of a drummer. Some sang the news to the sound of a shamisen, others did without music altogether.

Two yomiuri and accompanying drummer, from Ihara Saikaku's Shoen ōkagami of 1684.

Generally speaking, the news reports provided by these itinerant vendors were far from accurate; in many cases they were based on hearsay or completely fabricated. In 1684, the authorities attempted to curtail the activities of these news singers; yomiuri were to be arrested and questioned if found singing in the streets, and the production of their printed news sheets was banned. The government made similar attempts to put them out of business in 1698, 1703, 1713, and again in 1721. In 1722, the law was tightened further still, but the news singers went on plying their trade regardless.

Two yomiuri with an eager audience, from the scroll Kidai Shoran (Excellent View of Our Prosperous Age) of 1805. Artist unknown.

No event was too insignificant for the yomiuri; they reported on everything from mild changes in the weather to the outbreak of devastating fires - they even included maps to show exactly what had been destroyed in the latter case. They reported on the latest affairs of renowned beauties, goings on at the theatre, changes in fashion, vendettas, suicides, and all manner of other subjects, and all in an entertaining fashion. They delivered just enough information through their singing to snare their punters, then came the all important sales pitch. For just a few coppers you could have all the news, and sing it at home to your heart's content.

Geisha dressed up as yomiuri during the Yoshiwara Niwaka Festival, from the series Seirō Niwaka zensei asobi, by Katsukawa Shunzan, c. 1795.

If the local greengrocer took a fancy to his neighbour's wife and enticed her to run away with him, and just so happened to take an equal fancy to his neighbour's best china and most of his cash, the yomiuri would be good enough to let you know. They'd stop short of telling you how the story turned out though, and who wouldn't want to know if that greengrocer got his come-uppance? If a famous courtesan gave birth to quadruplets, a cart overturned and flattened Mr Hambei's prize turnip, or water sprites were running rampage around Nihonbashi Bridge, the yomiuri would be singing about it five seconds after it had happened - or five seconds after it hadn't happened (nudge nudge, wink wink) - and they'd throw in a dash of drama and a ditty you could sign along to. And if the yomiuri played his cards right, he'd have a queue of people lining up, with shiny coppers in hand, eager to get their hands on the news sheets on offer. Inaccurate for the most part and regularly defamatory, they put more effort into stirring up and maintaining a paying audience than informing the public. When you think about it, our modern news reports on television are not so far removed from these yomiuri performances... though the TV reports do lack music.