Muneyuki ga rōtō tora o utsu (Muneyuki's soldier slays a tiger), Yashima Gakutei

Exhibition Label: "Inspired by Japan," Mar-2003, Cori Sherman David Bull has been studying the world of Japanese woodblock prints for more than twenty years. His recent albums of prints are stunning demonstrations of technical virtuosity. In these albums, Bull faithfully copies prints by historical masters, carving and printing them with great fidelity to traditional Japanese techniques and materials. The print displayed here is from Bull’s second portfolio of Surimono prints. Surimono are privately commissioned prints that were often used for announcements or gifts. The historical example used by Bull as his model, Yashima Gakutei’s Muneyuki’s soldier slays a tiger is also displayed here (in fact, Bull worked specifically from the Spencer’s impression of Gakutei’s woodcut). To make this print, Bull carved fifteen blocks of cherry wood to print all the different colors and textures. Archive Label date unknown: This is an illustration for Chapter 155 of Tales of Uji, a collection of stories compiled in the thirteenth century. Gakutei's warrior is brave enough to face the tiger alone and strong enough to overcome it without shooting a single arrow. The event takes place in Korea. The prints in this series look like album leaves with pictures and poem slips mounted side by side against a colored background. Both poems celebrate the comforts of a peaceful reign. Archive Label date unknown: Gakutei's lavish design, complete with deep embossing (karazuri, or "empty printing"), detailed patterning, and exquisite color printing, was commissioned among a small series by an Edo poetry circle. These types of privately-published ukiyoe prints (called surimono, or "printed things") were produced in enormous numbers during the first decades of the nineteenth century, paralleling the flourishing economy. Planned in small editions of about 25 to 75 for gift-giving, surimono could be as extravagant as the consumer wished, regardless of current sumptuary laws that hampered production for the public market. Thick, quality paper was used to support a myriad of colors and shading, precious metal and mica dusts for sparkle, and multiple layers of black lacquer for a glowing surface shine. Gakutei's surimono above shows a samurai warrior single-handedly defeating a ferocious tiger that was ravaging a Korean province, a story related in the thirteenth-century literary collection, Tales of Uji. Two poems are matched with the scene, both reflecting on the benefits of a peaceful land.