In the current update there is a Kunisada aizuri-e. Why were prints produced in just blue ? The history of ukiyo-e is one marked by the development and assimilation of technical innovations in the printmaking process as well as the adaption of the numerous regulations imposed by the Tokugawa bakufu (shogunate) as a result of the economic climate of the Edo period (1600-1868). Mismanagement of the economy by the government and weak Shoguns led to the issuing, intermittently, of regulatory edicts in an attempt to raise funds, to cut spending and to encourage thrift. The impression offered here shows all the attributes of the earliest printing: Extremely beautiful and careful wiping of the blue block to render the currents of water; careful modulation of the gradation on the fish at top and also on the sea-weed at the bottom. The later printings – even the first with Matsui Eikichi – lack finesse in the printing of the water and in the republished version there is often no attempt to gradate the foreground sea-weed. The pigments are also of a finer quality on this early state , a better red being used on Cho Jun’s trousers. It was the job of the printers to breathe life, so to speak, into the image, to give form and depth by means of skilled bokashi; to augment a design by wiping on clouds or spraying pigment to imitate dust or snow. This all took time rather than relying on a key-block outline and blocks of colour.The only other difference, of course, between early and late printings is the quality of the impression. The more prints that were pulled, the more the blocks wore down producing weak outlines. These decrees were also frequently aimed at raising moral standards, and as ukiyo-e – related as it…
