context: painting > prints

Uses

The first major thing that distinguishes this great area from most other in the history of art, west or east, is that these works were produced for reproduction, for mass consumption (in the mid-19th C, a print sold for about the same as a bowl of noodles), and therefore for a different audience from most other art, where one original was created for sale to either a rich individual or some organisation, often religious. These were produced in thousands for a broad audience - it's normally suggested that this was down to the increasing numbers of wealthy merchants in Edo, and there seems no great reason to doubt this. There is reason to doubt where many critics wander off to next: the assumption that a new audience of parvenu merchants indicates a crudity of taste. You don't have to read many books to find circular arguments in discussions of this area, with hopelessly inadequate questioning of received ideas. Most also neglect to note that there is evidence of samurai, from the old aristocratic classes credited with greater refinement, buying these prints - nonetheless, the lack of samurai and miltaristic subjects suggests these weren't their major audience.

I'd be very interested in evidence of who the audiences were, what the numbers and demographic statistics show; and also what else these merchants were buying - from what I've seen of the lacquerware they bought, inro in particular, their tastes seem to have been very sophisticated and subtle, and maybe it's only in comparison to a Rikyu flower arrangement in a minimal tea house in a tea garden that their tastes seem in any way unrefined - and on those terms, there isn't much in human history that doesn't fall short, so this seems a very dumb yardstick. Anyway, these prints show sophistication, subtlety, imagination, originality, power and flair, and we don't need to argue from the supposed qualities or faults of the audience to assess the art. They weren't greatly respected in Japan at the time or soon afterwards (weirdly, a Japanese reassessment seems to have arisen from their popularity in Europe), but again there is no need to be swayed by that.

Another point is the use I am proposing, in particular, of images of women as fashion plates - and occasionally a series title will support such a view, such as Torii Kiyonaga's 'Fashions in Brocade of the East' (brocade is a term for a multi-coloured print). Similarly, erotic prints surely had parallels with porn mags; kabuki prints were star pinups for fans; and travel prints doubled as works of art and travel documentaries. In the 19th Century they became routine souvenirs of a trip to glamorous Edo, and were sold alongside the main departure points - they were more or less large picture postcards. These uses are neglected, but shouldn't be ignored. This won't be the only place I say this: parallels with Vogue, Playboy or postcards don't damage any assessment of them as fine art.

One other difference that mass production made, on a personal level: I have actually held a bunch of original 18th and 19th Century prints in my bare hands, including several by Hokusai and Hiroshige. There's no reason to make any claims based on that, for the work or me, but it did mean something to me emotionally. I don't get to do that with works by Monet, Picasso, Michaelangelo and so on.

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