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SCRC Virtual Museum at Southern Illinois University's Morris Library

The Parts of a Woodblock Print

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There are 4 typical components for a woodblock print: the title, signature, seal, and publisher's mark. In this print by Kobayashi Toshimitsu, all 4 are clearly laid out. The title is set in the center-top of the print, the signature is in the bottom right-hand corner, and under the signature in the bottom right-hand corner is the seal. The publisher's mark is the scroll looking object in the bottom left-hand corner. Let's take a look at the different parts of these prints closer up.

 

 

 

            

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The Signature

The signature of a woodblock print artist isn't signed like a modern day artist would. In many japanese artworks of the time, no matter the specific medium, the artist would still hand-draw their own signature on, to mark their work. However, with woodblock prints, the artist would carve their signature mark onto the wood, to be stamped on the paper with the rest of the print. Since it was a chisel that was responsible for making this signature and not a brush, the signatures were seldomly very similar, making identification difficult unless one knows how to read the Kanji character style.

After the artist's name, the words "designed by" were often carved after the name itself with either a 'ga' or 'hitsu' character. 

These signatures are, of course, to link an artist to a print, so on some of the prints in this collection, (for example "Attacking Genbu Gate") when the print is supposed to be a source of propaganda for the public about the war, the artist didn't want his mark on the print, so a carved signature was ommited, and in most cases, just the publisher's mark was left. Aside from propaganda, in the case of regular war reports, the artist would often still leave their signature.

 

 

       

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The Publisher's Mark

The artist is only the designer of the print. They draw and color it on a nondiscript paper. The real work of transformation to the final print is in the charge of various other workers that work under a publisher. The publisher, a professional that oversees the wood cutters, the inking of the wood, and the overlay onto the print, will leave his own mark on the page. This publisher's mark is an outline that has writing inside of it, and the outline is typically a recognizable design. This mark is oftentimes located at the bottom left, opposite of the signature, but this isn't always the case. The most common mark found in this collection of prints is the outline of two fish side by side; this is the mark of publisher Fukuda Kumajiro

Inside these marks, the text may be different, as different workers might have worked on different prints, but the publisher is still the same.
In the case of prints created as propaganda, even if the artist omits his signature, the publisher will still put their mark on said print.

 

 

    

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The Artist's Seal

Below or right next to almost every signature on a ukiyo-e woodblock print is a seal. This seal, always done in red, is the secondary mark of the artist. An artist may decide to either use a certain seal for most or all of their career, or use several different ones, changing them periodically. If the latter is done, the seal may be crucial in order to date the print. Each seal is created by the artist and therefore may reflect several different aspects of his life. These can include family crests, studio crests, family names, emblems used by an artist's master, names of masters, etc. These seals can change dramatically, or follow a simlilar structure. For example, Utagawa Kokunimasa did a lot of work using a "plum blossom" seal. This seal started out simply, and then got slightly more ornate, before he changed it to a completely different, rectangular seal. All four of these are shown in the center, red-highlighted section of the image to the right. The other seals present in this collection are shown around Kokunimasa's four seals.