Ukiyo-e woodblock prints are often called "brocade prints" (or nishiki-e)
and are polychrome (multicolored) images made by way of a woodblock. The process was long
and involved numerous people before the print could reach the hands of the public
- The print publisher
(hanmoto) planned a new polychrome woodblock as a commercial product.
- He commissioned
an artist or draftsman to create a preparatory drawing for a main image, made up largely of lines in black ink.
a preparatory drawing met the publisher’s approval, he then sought permission from a sanctioned government official
or censor to publish the design, receiving a stamp of approval most commonly in the form of “kiwame”
(“approved”) or “aratame” (“examined”). After the appropriate
approval, production of the print would commence.
- The artist’s or designer’s
preparatory drawing was passed to a block carver, who applied the drawing to a woodblock, carved the block carefully to match
the drawing’s lines, and then printed a test proof in black ink from that block. This test proof is known as the kyogo-zuri, or key print.
- The block carver gave several
copies of the key print to the artist, who then indicated the color areas on the image. The artist used orange-red ink to
designate one color for each individual key-print sheet, such as the red sheet, the yellow sheet, or the grey sheet. He used
the same orange-red ink to fill in the areas of the print that were to have that particular color.
- He then returned the set of
annotated key-print sheets to the carver.
- Once the carver received this
set of sheets, he carved a separate block of wood to print each individual color.
- When the blocks were complete,
the carver transferred the main block and all of the color blocks to the printer. The printer pulled an image from a succession
of the blocks to create an efficient rendition of the painter’s design. This process produced the finished colorful
Getting the Prints to the Public
- The finished polychrome prints
would normally be sent to the publisher in batches of 200 sheets, the approximate number of prints that a printer could produce
in a single day.
- The publisher would then put
the prints on display in the front of his shop, known as an ezoshiya, which was similar to today’s
- He also might have authorized
other ezoshiya shops to sell the prints.
By Laura J. Mueller