“Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari” (# 7, pp. 10-11), ca. 1850
hanshita-e artist: Kanwatei Onotake
8.5 x 6 inch pages, woodblock print book
Coppola Collection

Jiraiya (“Young Thunder”) is the toad-riding character of the Japanese folklore Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari(The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya). The story, first recorded in 1806, was adapted into a mid-19th-century serialized novel (43 installments, 1839-1868) and a kabuki drama, based on the first 10 installments, by Kawatake Mokuami, in 1852. In the 20th-century, the story was adapted in several films, in video games, and in a manga.

Jiraiya is a ninja who uses shapeshifting magic to morph into a gigantic toad. Heir of the Ogata clan, Jiraiya fell in love with Tsunade, a beautiful young maiden who has mastered slug magic. His arch-enemy was his one-time follower Yashagorō, also known as Orochimaru, a master of serpent magic.

Here is an image of Tsunade, one of the three legendary ninjas in this story. She can summon slugs into battle.

Books printed by carved woodblocks were all hand-printed and limited to a print-run that was determined by the fidelity of the woodblock used to page the pages.

“Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari” (# 8, pp. 2-3), ca. 1850
hanshita-e artist: Kanwatei Onotake
8.5 x 6 inch pages, woodblock print book
Coppola Collection

Jiraiya (“Young Thunder”) is the toad-riding character of the Japanese folklore Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari(The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya). The story, first recorded in 1806, was adapted into a mid-19th-century serialized novel (43 installments, 1839-1868) and a kabuki drama, based on the first 10 installments, by Kawatake Mokuami, in 1852. In the 20th-century, the story was adapted in several films, in video games, and in a manga.

Jiraiya is a ninja who uses shapeshifting magic to morph into a gigantic toad. Heir of the Ogata clan, Jiraiya fell in love with Tsunade, a beautiful young maiden who has mastered slug magic. His arch-enemy was his one-time follower Yashagorō, also known as Orochimaru, a master of serpent magic.

Here is a great image of Jiraiya confronting a warrior spirit. The feel of this page could be drawn from any double-page spread of a modern super-hero comic and it’s got better art than most.

Books printed by carved woodblocks were all hand-printed and limited to a print-run that was determined by the fidelity of the woodblock used to page the pages.

“Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari” (# 7, pp. 4-5), ca. 1850
hanshita-e artist: Kanwatei Onotake
8.5 x 6 inch pages, woodblock print book
Coppola Collection

Jiraiya (“Young Thunder”) is the toad-riding character of the Japanese folklore Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari(The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya). The story, first recorded in 1806, was adapted into a mid-19th-century serialized novel (43 installments, 1839-1868) and a kabuki drama, based on the first 10 installments, by Kawatake Mokuami, in 1852. In the 20th-century, the story was adapted in several films, in video games, and in a manga.

Jiraiya is a ninja who uses shapeshifting magic to morph into a gigantic toad. Heir of the Ogata clan, Jiraiya fell in love with Tsunade, a beautiful young maiden who has mastered slug magic. His arch-enemy was his one-time follower Yashagorō, also known as Orochimaru, a master of serpent magic.

Here is a great image of Jiraiya wrestling with Yashagorō.

Books printed by carved woodblocks were all hand-printed and limited to a print-run that was determined by the fidelity of the woodblock used to page the pages.

“Twenty-Five Views of the Capital” No. 18 (1895 Woodblocks)
Art by Morikawa Sōbun (1847-1902)
5 woodblocks complete (9 printable segments)
39 x 28 cm, double-side carving on 4 of 5 blocks

These are the carved woodblocks, based on the original art of Sōbun, that were used to create Image #18 from the Book: Miyako meisho nijyugokei
Published by: Tanaka Jihei (1895)
Accordion album of color woodblock prints
9 9/16 x 6 1/2 x 9/16 in. (24.29 x 16.51 x 1.49 cm)

Sōbun liked to depict well-known places around Kyoto. He is know for his original painting of nature scenes on silk.

The many international expositions in which Sōbun and the contemporary artists participated were encouraged by the government as it was a way for Japan to display unique products and break into foreign markets. The Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878, the 1873 Vienna World Exposition and the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 featured a growing number of Japanese exhibits. Morikawa Sōbun was represented in the Paris exhibitions and was awarded a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.

Butsuzō zui 仏像図彙(vol 4)
Author: Hidenibu Tosa
Date: 1690 (Genroku 元禄3)
23 x 15 cm, 50 pp. (all illustrated)
Coppola Collection

Using a carved woodblock to press out the pages of a book dates to about 650-700 CE, in the reproduction of Buddhist scripture.

Although the printing press emerged in the mid-1400s, pictographic languages were really not that suitable to moveable type (and lithography required a degree of industrialization), so using carved wooden blocks as the source of impressions was common for hundreds of years in Asian countries prior to industrialization (in Japan) and the introduction of photographic methods, both in the late 1800s.

Butsuzō-zui (仏像図彙), or Illustrated Compendium of Buddhist Images, was first published in 1690, and has since become a landmark Japanese dictionary of Buddhist iconography. The texts include hundreds of black-and-white drawings, with deities classified into categories based on function and attributes.

An expanded version was published in 1783.

Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796-1866) was the first modern scholar to introduce the Butsuzō zui to Europe and western audiences. He included images from the 1783 edition in his landmark Nippon Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan(1831).

The text has remained a primary source on Japanese religious iconography for generations of scholars in the West, including Émile Guimet (1836-1918), the founder of the Paris-based museum Musée Guimet, and Louis Frédéric (1923-1996), who used it extensively in his Buddhism(Flammarion Iconographic Guides).

“Temple Gate” (1913)
by Bertha Lum (1879-1954)
5 x 10 in., color woodcut on cream, thin Japanese woven paper
Coppola Collection

Bertha Boynton Bull studied art at the Institute of Art at Chicago from 1895-1900. She was a student of stained glass artwork with Anna Weston. She then studied with Frank Holme, who founded the Chicago School of Illustration in 1898, and who was trying to print with woodblocks.

In 1903, she married Burt F. Lum, and honeymooned in Japan, which captivated her interests. She returned to Japan over the course of the next 16 years, learning to carve woodblock, make and color prints. She spent some of her later years in Beijing, adapting a hybrid approach to her printmaking.

She is credited for helping to make the Japanese and Chinese woodblock print known outside of Asia.

This piece is striking in person. The tones are muted and the paper, itself, is as light as a feather but super-tough. The other examples I can find all list it as a 1912 edition, but this one is dated 1913. Not all of her work carries the name stamp, but the example held by the Minneapolis Institute of Art does (and do most of their examples). The coloration on theirs is also (clearly) different from mine, although the size is exactly the same.

“Kojorokitsune Tebiki-no-Adauchi” (1822)
by Katsukawa Shunko I (artist, 1743-1812)
and Gekkotei Shoju (author)
18 x 12.5 cm, 30 pp in each of 2 volumes, woodprint on paper
Coppola Collection

There are a few artists with this name, but the signature lines up most with Shunko I. I was drawn to this single illustration (above) because it was so lively and creepy and clearly symbolic of something in the pose.

The story has a giant rat in it, and giant rat’s play a role in old Japanese myths, such as the Iron Rat.

In Japanese folklore, if you make a promise you had better keep it—even if you are the Emperor of Japan. Otherwise, the person you betrayed might hold it against you and transform into a giant rat with iron claws and teeth and kill your first-born son. That is the story of the Emperor Shirakawa, his son Prince Taruhito, and the Abbot of Miidera temple Raigo—better known as Tesso, the Iron Rat; or more simply as Raigo the Rat.

“Kinsei Jinbutsushi Hanai Oume” (08/20/1887)
Artist: Taiso Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)
35.5cm× 24.5cm, woodblock print
Coppola Collection

Yoshitoshi is generally considered the last great master of the Japanese woodblock print – and by some, one of the great innovative and creative geniuses of that artistic field. During his life, he produced a large number of prints, estimated by some authorities at over 10,000 in total.

By the end of his career, Yoshitoshi was in an almost single-handed struggle against time and technology. As he worked on in the old manner, Japan was adopting the mass reproduction methods of the West, like photography and lithography. Nonetheless, in a Japan that was turning away from its own past, he almost single-handedly managed to push the traditional Japanese woodblock print to a new level, before it effectively died with him.

About this print: #11 in this series

“No. 263, Hanai Oume stabbing Minekichi”

‘Kinsei jimbutsushi (Personalities of Recent Times, 1886-1888)

Yoshitoshi produced these prints in the 1880s as furoku, or supplements, to certain issues of the Yamato Newspaper. These prints were distributed to subscribers. While employed by the newspapers, Yoshitoshi produced numerous other prints in other formats.

These prints date from late in Yoshitoshi’s career, during the time that he was producing his well-received masterpiece series, “One Hundred Aspects of the Moon” (1885-1892). At this time, Yoshitoshi was well established as a great artist, and his work was in high demand.

The series features illustrations of a wide variety of personalities from contemporary, and historical times. The portraits are considered exceptional in execution relative to other news nishiki-e prints.

Technical details

• Dates: 10/1886 – 05/1888
• Size: Ōban
• Signed: Ikkaisai Yoshitoshi hitsu
• Seal: Taiso
• Publisher: Yamato Shimbunsha
• Block carvers: Suntetsudō Enkatsu, Yamamoto

“Kanazawa Yajiro Kaikokukidan” (1805)
by Katsushika Hokushu (artist, listed as active ca. 1810-1832) and
Kanwatei Onitake (writer, 1760-1818)
17 x 12.5 cm, 10 pp, woodprint on paper
Coppola Collection

This is a book. What I liked about it were the original sketches and doodles. This is potentially a quite early work, from before the period where he is listed as being active.

Shunkôsai Hokushû Personal name Shima Jinsen; pupil of Shôkôsai Hanbei; briefly associated with the Edo master Katsushika Hokusai during a visit to Osaka in 1818.

Arguably the most important print artist in Osaka during the 1810s-20s, designing many printed masterpieces; influenced by the Edo master Katsushika Hokusai (Keikô Fujida of the Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, Yamaguchi City, identifies the shape of feet and wrinkled garment lines as being particulary derived from Hokusai); credited with establishing the mature Osaka style in the ôban format; widely influential through his printmaking and teaching.

“Katakiuchi Uwasa-no-Furuichi” (1857)
by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769-1825)
35.5 cm x 25 cm, woodblock print on paper
Coppola Collection

Utagawa Toyokuni is often referred to as Toyokuni I, to distinguish him from the members of his school who took over his gō (art name) after he died, was known in particular for his kabuki actor prints. He was the second head of the renowned Utagawa School of Japanese woodblock artists, and was the artist who really moved it to the position of great fame and power it occupied for the rest of the nineteenth century.

This print has fantastic depth in person thanks to its fine lines, rich colors, and thick, weighty paper.

I was particularly keen on this one because it was dated 1857, 100 years before I was born. Was this done from one of Toyokuni I blocks after his death. or by one of the successors to his name? I do not know.