Article and photographs by Iqbal Husain

From Discourse 6

I have loved books since the age of 11. Firstly as a means of learning and then later as an art form. My first contact with books arose from the necessity of learning English as a second language and then much later, as a teacher, books in turn became an essential part of my job. As an adult, my passion for Asian arts made me purchase a variety of beautifully illustrated books to further my knowledge about artworks that particularly interested me. However, it was the world of Japanese kites that led me directly to the Japanese picture book.

After my initial contact with the Japanese world of kites, I became interested in collecting Japanese prints with kites. From there, it was a natural development to also start collecting Japanese woodblock printed books with kites – that is, Japanese picture books. At the very outset it became apparent that Japanese picture books are far rarer than Japanese prints, and consequently much more difficult to acquire, both in terms of the quantity available and the price sought by dealers for these books. A particular problem for me was and is that I am only interested in a book that has a kite image in it. Very often, only a few pages with images are displayed by a seller in their catalogue or on their website, and these page may not contain a kite, but there may be other pages of the book that do, of which I am not aware. In addition, books by well-known artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige often command prices that are exorbitant and beyond my reach. A book with a single image of a kite may be readily available but is sold as a complete set of three books.

Despite these difficulties, I have persisted, and my perseverance has been rewarded by a collection, which – perhaps not as comprehensive as some other collections – is nevertheless varied and representative of the world of the Japanese picture book, and somewhat unique in that it focuses on books with kite images. It includes books from the 1700s up to the 1950s, including most of the major artists of early genre such Utamaro, Hokusai, and Hiroshige. Above all, it is a collection that gives me great personal joy and satisfaction.

For me, a Japanese Picture Book is a thing of beauty. It is the collective work of several craftsmen: the publisher, the artist, the block carver, the paper maker, the printer, and a writer. It is clear that their collective production is a labor of love. These books were made to be picked up and touched, leafed through, held in the hands, and to be viewed from a natural distance, whether sitting or lying down.

The act of picking up one of these books and thumbing through it is a very a visual and tactile experience. The tactile experience often precedes the visual. Many of the Japanese picture books made during the Edo period are printed with a simple plain cover, sometimes embossed with a repetitive design, but more often with no design whatsoever. Therefore the first contact with these books is tactile. The paper, after years of handling, is soft and warm to the touch. You can feel the age of these books and the mind wonders as to who handled these books before myself during the Edo period and in what surroundings.

The fact that Japanese books are read by opening the book from the right, the back of the book, also creates a feeling of expectation different from that of handling a western printed book.

When you open the book, what very often strikes the eye is the importance given to the design and image as opposed to the text, which is often there only as a complement. Sometimes there is no text and the books are pure picture books. The images often evoke a personal emotive response. The eye follows the image and the mind tries to interpret. To me, passionate as I am about Japanese kites, this is as good as it gets.

Initially for this article I had wanted to give a brief overview of the different types of books in my collection. However, it soon became apparent that the field and variety of the genre is so vast that I would barely skim the surface and probably end up by being at best superficial and at worst confusing, given the necessary restraints of time and space of this article. Therefore I have decided to concentrate on only one genre of the books in my collection, namely books that are called gokan (literally, bound books, and in general, extended picture books).

Gokan books belong to the type of Japanese pictures books known as kusazoshi or kuzazoshi (illustrated storybooks, or generically, various books), a term that covers various genres of popular woodblock printed illustrated literature during the Japanese Edo period (1600-1868) and early Meiji period (1868-1912). In its widest sense, the term kusazoshi includes a wide variety of styles but in the narrow sense it may refer uniquely to gokan. Learned scholars of the field tend to categorize kusazoshi as “cheap literature produced for the common people.” Kusazoshi were distinguished by the color of their covers: akahon (red books), kurohon (black books), and aohon (blue-green books). Akahon were mainly picture books for children. Kurohon and aohon contained heroic tales, ghost stories, and romances. Although gokan covered all these fields, generally they were longer works, published from around 1807 until 1888. Gokan are essentially the final development of the Edo- period kusazoshi, popular texts that rely heavily on illustrations to tell the story.

Often lacking the charm and simplicity of other Japanese picture books, the subtle wit and play on words, at times heavily over- illustrated and preposterous in their plots, they nevertheless enjoyed an enormous plebeian popularity during the Edo and Meiji period that surpassed all other genres of illustrated picture books. Their sheer quantity alone is a testament to this.

One interesting aspect of Kusazoshi often neglected is that they were also read out loud. Sometimes after dinner the whole family, including maids, would gather around a brazier and these books were read aloud. Grandmothers would explain and decipher the complexities of the plots for their children and nephews. Children read these books to mothers for practice, and mothers read these books to children for pleasure.

An important aspect of gokan is the inclusion of the calligraphic text (which was primarily Kana) in the illustration, wrapped around the images. This script is cursive script, literally translated as “grass” script, a style of Chinese calligraphy that in modern translation means “sloppy script.” Cursive script is faster to write than other styles, but also harder to read. Most Japanese today who can read standard or printed forms of Chinese characters may not be able to comprehend this script at all.

The early writers of gokan books adapted kabuki plays to this format, aimed at all who were enamored of kabuki, especially women. These books depicted the popular and famous kabuki actors, such as Ichikawa Danjuro VII who made his debut during the 1810s. His followers could see him depicted on the front covers of these books and follow the action through both words and pictures. These books specialized in kabuki-type vendettas and struggle for house successions, and brought theater into the hands of the average reader.

Themes of the gokan included classic novels such as The Water Margin and The Tale of the Genji. They covered popular samurai heroes in impossible endeavors, taking on everything that the writer’s imagination could throw at them – demons of the underworld, supernatural mythical creatures, saints, and sinners – and against all odds, heroes always emerged triumphant. Stories of enduring romantic love were also a popular theme.

All the major writers, poets, playwrights, and illustrators of the period used the gokan as a means of expression for their artistic endeavors. The leading illustrators of the period, Hokusai, Toyokuni, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and Yoshitoshi, all participated in the production of gokan and contributed considerably to their popularity and success. For example, the poet and writer Ryutei Tanihiko adapted the well-known and well-loved The Tale of the Genji and became a household name. He published his adaptation, A Country Genji, over a period of 14 years and 156 volumes. The first volume alone sold more than 10,000 copies. He eventually had to cease publication after the Tenpo Reforms of 1842. The Tenpo Reforms were a series of government reforms introduced to reform the increasingly disorganized military, economic, agricultural, financial, and religious systems and clean up local politics. Their aim was also to cleanse “domestic uneasiness,” which lead to the arrest of many prominent political figures and writers, who were seen by the authorities to promote and encourage decadence and lower moral standards.

Gokan writers did not strive for beauty and perfect form in their writings, but rather for popular acceptance. One single edition of a volume sometimes sold more than 20,000 copies, with a deluxe edition published for the more well-off. These books are so often of interest today because they provide a unique insight into the life, customs, and interests of the ordinary people of the time. For me as a collector, this revolves around kites. The depiction of kites in gokan illustrations clearly indicates the interest in kites that permeated all levels of Japanese society during the period in which they were produced. Its use by writers and illustrators of the time is iconic.

The techniques used to produce gokan books were the same as those used to produce single sheet woodblock prints.

Each page was cut into a woodblock and printed by wetting the block with ink and pressing a sheet of paper against the block. For multicolor printing, several blocks had to be carved, one for each color. The Japanese used vegetable colors for printing until around 1860. This is one reason why still today the colors of some books are so vibrant. The other is that these books are printed on Japanese washi paper that is the result of a very laborious process of papermaking. In general, it is superior to western papers in durability and purity. It is acid-free and thus has helped to preserve the books over such a long time period.

The size of gokan is referred to by the term chūhon, similar to the modern B6 (8.5 by 11 inches) size of paper. They were published in the sewn format. The single pages were folded at the fore edge and kept together with a string using four or five binding holes.

These books have black and white illustrations, with the early outer covers being plain or black and white but mainly color after 1810. The covers are usually printed on stiffer paper and sometimes involve the use of lacquer. The rest of the book consists of thin, translucent, pliable Japanese washi paper and often the images on the back pages show through the front.

The starting page of a Japanese book is what westerners would consider the last page. Text is read not from left to right, but from top to bottom. Most volumes are made up of pieces of folded paper bound together, and each piece of paper is known as a cho.

Most gokan are published as two matching volumes bounded together, as illustrated in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2. Even if the story line was continued for an extended period over many years, the volumes were usually published as two matching sets.

Nevertheless, I have seen some illustrated gokan volumes that have had nine matching covers which, when laid out together, make one continuous illustration.

Perhaps some of the most rare books for me as a collector of kite-related gokan books are five illustrated books, each of which depicts a kabuki actor painted on a kite. All five books have matching covers. However, inside these books there is no illustrated scene with a kite. Four of these books are shown in Fig. 3.

The gokan books were usually sold as a set of volumes that were covered by a folding sheet. Only a very few of these survive today, given the age of these books. I am fortunate enough to have one of these sheets with a kite on it (Fig. 4).

On the other side of the illustrated cover (the first page of the inside of the book), there is usually a black and white illustration (Fig. 5) that serves as a backdrop to descriptive text or a short poem. Sometimes the illustration inside the cover is in blue and white and more rarely in other colors, as illustrated in Fig. 6 with a rectangular Edo kite and another Yakko kite. In one of the books I have, the blue and white illustrations extend to four pages with a wonderful double page illustration of a kite (Fig. 7).

One of my favorite prints is a well-known print, sometimes illustrated in modern day kite books when describing Japanese kite prints. It depicts a wonderful detailed kite with a meditating or praying personage painted on the skin (Fig. 8). The kite is tied to a kite reel and conveys the sense that it is ready for flight or has just flown. Looking at the kite in a meditative gaze is a priest, who could well be a toy. To the right, almost in front of the priest, is a wooden toy pigeon wheel that in turn stares at the priest.

A sad aspect of collecting Japanese picture books today is that many are broken up, their pages torn, and sold individually. As Dan Mackee states, “One of the greatest (and bitterest) ironies in the Japanese print market at present is the fact that because Westerners assume that their pictorial art must be in two dimensions – that books are merely practical and flat pictorial surfaces ‘art’ – the picture book is relatively ignored while plates from picture books sell easily. The result of this ignorance has been the destruction of one book after another, and by the time the general market wakens to the value of complete books, it may be too late to find many of them still whole.”

Despite what Dan Mackee has written, I believe that there are still many Japanese books that remain on the market to collect. One reason for this is that some forms of them were printed in prolific quantities to meet the huge demand for them. This was partly due to their popularity, partly to the large population of Edo Japan, and last but not least to the development of lending libraries during the Edo period. This in turn led to some 90% of the Japanese population being literate by the late Edo period, which in turn stimulated demand.

New collectors should not despair. There are still old collections coming up for sale and the internet has made it much easier for dealers and collectors to meet and transact business, no matter what part of the globe they may reside in. I for one am still hopeful and in search of books that are missing from my collection, which I know are out there and may one day become a part of my collection. Funds permitting, of course!

I would like to conclude my observations with a quote from one of the most noted experts in the field of Japanese books, Dr. Roger S. Keyes. He has eloquently summed up in words why I have come to love Japanese picture books and why they give me so much pleasure. He writes, “When I look at them carefully, they deliberately direct my attention to states of mind that increase my sense of joy, reverence for life, and appreciation, expand my awareness, stretch my intelligence, and deepen my capacity for human feeling.”

A SHORT AND SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Early Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology, 1600-1900, Haruo Shirane.

E-hon: Picture Books Beyond the Confines of the Floating World (Artlino), Dan McKee.

EHON The Artist and the Book in Japan, Roger. S. Keyes.

The Japanese Picture Book, Jack Hillier.

The History of Japanese Printing and Book Illustration, David Chibbett.

Text and the City: Essays on Japanese Modernity, Ai Maeda, James A. Fujii.

Egoyomi and Surimono, Matthi Forrer.