Printing and Publishing

An ukiyo-e key block, carved to print just the outlines and other black sections of the design. Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Woodblock carving tools, and baren (used for rubbing the image onto the paper). Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Japan has, since the 18th century, continually been among the highest-publishing countries in the world. For lengthy periods of time, Japan published annually more individual titles of books, magazines, and other bound materials than any other country on Earth.

Publishing in Japan, largely in woodblock prior to the Meiji period, took off especially in the Edo period. Printing in Japan, however, has a much longer history. The oldest extant printed materials from Japan, and indeed some of the oldest extant printed materials from anywhere in the world, date to 764-770. At that time, upon the orders of Empress Kôken, one million slips of paper were printed with Buddhist charms called dhâranî, using copper-plate printing technology; these slips of paper, along with the tiny wooden pagodas into which they were inserted, are known as the hyakumantô darani.

Pre-Modern Printing

Throughout the pre-modern period, up until the late 16th century, printed materials in Japan were largely Buddhist texts, and were almost exclusively produced or sponsored by Buddhist temples, Shinto shrines, court nobles, the Imperial Court, or samurai elites. The vast majority of these, it is believed, were not produced to be read, but rather were produced as religious offerings. The donor or patron gained religious merit through commissioning and funding the production of the work, and from then donating it to a temple; the work, stored away inside a temple's storehouse or otherwise buried or hidden away, would then go unread.

The printing of religious texts in significant volume took off beginning in the 11th century, the one exception being the 8th century production of the Hyakumantô darani.

In the Muromachi period, non-Buddhist texts such as the Confucian classics and books of Chinese poetry began to be printed as well, sponsored chiefly by Zen temples. However, none of these enjoyed widespread circulation, and the vast majority of literary and other non-religious texts continued to circulate, to the small extent that they did, through hand-copied manuscript copies.

Tokugawa Period

Moveable-type printing technology was introduced to Japan via Korea in the 1590s, essentially stolen along with many other technologies, and artisans, by forces participating in Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea. The Korean presses used metal type, but the Japanese quickly moved to carving type blocks out of wood; roughly 300 titles were produced in the 1590s-1630s using moveable type, but afterwards, for a variety of reasons, moveable type was all but abandoned in Japan in favor of woodblock printing, which made use of single pieces of wood for a full page, or two pages.

Scholars cite a number of potential reasons for the dominance of woodblocks over moveable type in early modern Japan. Japanese calligraphic script, and the way it was integrated into the composition of a page alongside images, was more well-suited to woodblocks, as moveable type would have demanded a shift from long strings of connected (running script) calligraphy to separated, distinct characters which could be printed each from a separate type block. Woodblock printing also allowed for the inclusion, for example, of glosses such as what is today called furigana - small syllabic kana characters placed next to the logographic kanji to identify the reading. This provided not only the pronunciation in the strictest sense of the word - meaning, the sound, and thus the ability to read the word out loud - but also served, often, as an important indication of the identity or meaning of a phrase, since one generally knows one's mother tongue more natively or fluently by sound rather than by visuals. While moveable type works best with strict grids of characters, the inclusion of such glosses, at a smaller size, and nestled up next to the "main" columns of text, called for either a much more complex system of moveable type, or for woodblocks carved for a whole page - text, glosses, images, and all.

Woodblocks were also better suited to the production of multiple editions, as a publisher could simply hold onto the blocks for a given book and reprint new copies later, never having to take apart the stereotype (the formatted, laid-out type blocks for a given page) and reassemble it for each page, or each work, as one would have to with moveable type. Finally, a third reason given for the popularity of woodblocks, and for the explosion of publishing in early modern Japan using woodblocks, was the relatively inexpensive entry cost for starting a publishing business. Rather than investing in a press (or multiple presses) and a collection of thousands of type blocks for individual characters, an entrepreneur could simply deal with one set of blocks at a time, hiring professional artisans (e.g. block-carvers and printers), or doing the work himself. The Japanese process of woodblock printing, furthermore, did not require any heavy, expensive, or technologically complex printing press, but rather was done largely by hand, using a tool called a baren, made from lacquered disks covered in a thin sheet of bamboo, to rub a piece of paper on top of an inked block.

The earliest printed works, such as the hyakumantô darani, were printed on a paper made from hemp (J: asa); however, in the Tokugawa period, paper made from kôzô, that is, fibers from a plant called the "paper mulberry," became the most commonly used, along with paper made from similar plants known as mitsumata and gampi. Each of these differ somewhat in their qualities, with gampi being a little darker, browner, in color; sometimes paper was recycled, with the ink residue from its previous usage turning the paper grey. Bamboo paper (J: tôshi, gasenshi) was also sometimes used. Kôzô, however, overall, tends to be quite resilient, and soft and flexible, bending rather than creasing or breaking, and yellowing & growing brittle to a far lesser extent than modern/Western forms of wood pulp paper.

Publishers would often initiate projects, deciding on themes and hiring illustrators or print designers. The illustrators would then submit their designs to the publisher, who would then take over much of the remainder of the process. A highly skilled professional hangiya (板木屋, block-carver) would lay the design over the block - sometimes using a reproduction of the design created for this purpose by a copyist or hanshitagaki (版下書) - and use that as a guideline for carving out key blocks, showing just the monochrome outlines. Hangiya were professional artisans, and highly organized as such in craft guilds, working most often with publishers in a manner akin to independent contractors; some of the largest publishing houses had their own in-house blockcarvers, however. Once these initial blocks were cut, a printer (also a professional skilled artisan) would produce a number of impressions from the key block, and send them to the illustrator, or the publisher, who then indicated which colors should be applied and where. These drafts were sent to the blockcarver once more, who now carved separate blocks for each color, sending those to the printer, to produce the actual final commercial copies to be sold.

Originally, cheaper and softer woods were used, and designs were cut more deeply, but the use of more expensive woods such as cherry, carved more shallowly into much thinner woodblocks was spurred by the popularity of prints by Suzuki Harunobu in the late 1760s in the new multicolor nishiki-e mode that he pioneered; by 1800 or so, materials and techniques previously used only for surimono and other much more expensive and exclusive publications came to be used more widely, and the costs of producing and buying works produced in this manner dropped dramatically.

A recreation of an Edo period storefront selling ukiyo-e prints and books, at the Edo-Tokyo Museum.

Publishers owned the rights to reproduce works for which they owned the woodblocks. It was this possession of the woodblocks, known as zôhan (蔵版), whether physically or simply in name, by contract, that served as the rough equivalent to modern concepts of copyright, which were not introduced until the Meiji period. The idea of "intellectual property" as enforced today was not legally protected in any way at that time, and "artists," or, rather, illustrators hired by or otherwise working with publishers, had very little rights over reproduction of their works. In fact, publishers frequently repackaged illustrators' works, republishing them under new titles, sometimes mixed with illustrations from other publications, and sometimes cropped or otherwise altered; publishers also frequently sold woodblocks (or the zôhan rights to them) to other publishers, who might then reissue new editions.

The earliest publishing houses emerged in Kyoto around 1600; simply called hon'ya (bookstores) they engaged in both printing/publishing and retail. By around 1626, woodblock printing had become definitively the predominant form, and use of moveable type had fallen away. Publishing came to Osaka in the 1660s, and to Edo relatively late by comparison, but grew rapidly over the course of the 17th century, and by the year 1800 dramatically eclipsed the Kyoto-Osaka (combined) publishing industry. The first half of the 19th century saw the continued growth of publishing in the three major cities, as well as the emergence of commercial publishing operations in a number of provincial centers. The three major cities combined accounted for roughly 89% of publishing production; among the secondary or provincial centers of production, Nagoya was the most active, with roughly 104 independent publishers operating at one point or another (not simultaneously) in the Edo period. Other major publishing centers included Nagasaki, Wakayama, Ise, Hiroshima, Sendai, and Kanazawa.

The earliest trade catalog, wakan shoseki mokuroku ("Catalog of Chinese and Japanese Books in Print"), published in 1666, listed nearly 2,600 titles; this number leapt to over 3,800 only four years later, to nearly 6,000 in 1685, and to over 7,000 in 1692. Over the course of the entire period, according to one scholar, roughly 100,000 titles were published - 195,000 if we include renamed later editions of older titles; the same source estimates that roughly 236 new titles were published each year, on average, between 1600 and 1730, and approximately 510 new titles each year, on average, between 1730 and 1868. Determining the average or typical print run is difficult, but some scholars estimate that it was not uncommon for books to be produced in first edition print runs of 1000-2000 copies. Books were sold at retail storefronts (hon'ya), but also by kashihonya, traveling booklenders who journeyed into the countryside, and to most of the provinces, making books available far outside of just the cities; furthermore, samurai on sankin kôtai journeys to and from Edo also carried books to their home provinces. This circulation or distribution of published materials throughout the realm was a crucial element in the creation of an archipelago-wide popular discourse, popular culture, and proto-national conception of "Japan" and of "Japanese" identity.

All three of the major cities published the full range of types or themes of publications, but each also came to be known especially, or more strongly, for certain types of works. Kyoto remained the center of production of Buddhist and Confucian texts, as it had more or less always been, while Osaka publishers produced a great many more practical works, such as encyclopedias; popular literature, meanwhile, took off especially powerfully in Edo. Publishing in Kyoto and Osaka also tended to be more heavily directed towards smaller print runs of more expensive, high quality printed works commissioned by poetry circles or other relatively exclusive groups, while Edo publishing was more heavily directed towards high-volume production of less expensive, less high-quality popular materials.

Publishing in Japan was dominated chiefly by the chônin commoner class, and by commercial interests. This was in stark contrast to the situation in certain places elsewhere in the world, such as in Joseon Dynasty Korea, where the court maintained control over nearly all publishing. In Japan, certain publishers enjoyed exclusive rights granted them by the shogunate to publish daimyô directories called bukan, calendars (the publishing of which was restricted otherwise), and city maps, but outside of this, and the occasional commissions from the shogunate for the production of given publications, for the most part the Tokugawa shogunate was relatively uninvolved in publishing. Formal edicts continued to be issued in manuscript form.

Under the repressive regime of Matsudaira Sadanobu (1787-1793), much intellectual production came to be circulated in manuscript form. Anything discussing, let alone criticizing, the shogunate's policies would never pass the publishing guild censors, and could earn the author some serious punishments. Utamaro was among the most prominent ukiyo-e artists to fall victim to the censors. Placed under house arrest in 1804 and manacled, he never recovered, producing very little work afterwards, and dying just two years later. Fearful of the censors, many writers of political treatises and the like, instead of submitting works for publication, submit them directly to prominent or well-connected samurai officials, in the hopes of influencing policy in that manner.

Literacy among urban dwellers in the Edo period has been estimated by some scholars at 80% for men, and 50% for women; including both urban and rural populations across the entire archipelago, the male literacy figures may have been closer to 40-50%.

Pigments

For the most part, illustrators, printers, and publishers chose colors which would seep into the paper and become fixed, rather than sitting atop the surface of the paper, where they might easily flake off. That said, in more expensive, higher-quality, books, certain materials such as gold, silver, and mica, along with thicker pigments which did sit atop the surface were used, and affixed using a hide-glue called nikawa (the same material used to suspend and affix the mineral pigments in traditional painting).

Some of the most common pigments used in Tokugawa period printed materials include:

• Sumi - the same black ink used for painting and calligraphy was used for printing blacks and greys.
• White pigments made from seashell (gofun) or lead oxide (enpaku)
• Dayflower blue (tsuyukusa) - a light blue hue which reacts easily to moisture, turning yellow.
• Prussian blue - the first chemical/artificial pigment developed in the world (i.e. deriving directly from neither vegetable or mineral sources); first used in Japan in 1829; a deep, rich blue that does not fade or discolor.
• Beni (safflower red), used to produce various shades of red, pink, orange, and yellow.
• Purples obtained by mixing dayflower blue with safflower red, or by other means.

References

• Keyes, Roger. Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan. New York Public Library, 2006.
• Smith, Henry. "The History of the Book in Edo and Paris." in James McClain, et al (eds.) Edo & Paris: Urban Life and the State in the Early Modern Era. Cornell University Press, 1994. pp332-352.

See Also

• Printing in China