A boatman ferrying visitors to coastal sights, from the series Toshi fafu no uchi (Drawing Album for Chinese Poems)

This Japanese woodblock print is an attractive example of a surimono. These limited-edition, privately commissioned works are finely crafted; smaller than an ōban, they often combine verse and image in complementary arrangement. The atmospheric blue of the surimono chūban landscape by Totoya Hokkei (1780–1850) seen here is unusual in several ways. First, each work in the series bears a kiwame ‘approved’ censor’s seal, suggesting a commercial rather than private publication arrangement. Second, the small chūban format was not typically adopted by surimono designers. Third, each composition is designed in the Chinese style, with a vertical-format, ‘corner-centred’ asymmetrical disposition, and atmospheric, largely monochrome veils of transparent blue pigment.

Each composition in the series is enlivened with the soft red blush of the morning sky. The Chinese idioms complement the theme of Chinese verse, and also acknowledge a debt to the Chinese aesthetic traditions that inform centuries of Japanese taste. Conversely, the scene of a boatman poling his small craft perilously through a rock arch was very much a part of the local Japanese scene. The reed cover, often seen on fishing craft, here suggests the man is ferrying tourists, and the dramatically arched rock formations and cascading waterfall are all conventional matter of the meishō-e‘famous place pictures’, so popular with travellers. The melding of Chinese and Yamato drawing conventions, and the linear detail of rocky surfaces, moving water and vegetation, all reflect the pervasive impact of Hokkei’s great teacher, Katsushika Hokusai.

See: David Bell, 'Floating world at Te Pap: the Heriot collection', Tuhinga, 30 (2019), pp. 56-81.

Dr Mark Stocker  Curator, Historical International Art    May 2019