women preparing ornaments for New Year, Keisai Eisen

Archive Label 2003: Surimono differ from other woodcut prints in that they were privately published, and that they were usually commissioned to commemorate a special event or a special time of the year. Surimono also tended to be more lavishly produced than commercial woodcuts. Printers used higher quality paper for surimono and often decorated the prints with gold, silver or mica dust. Groups of poets frequently commissioned such printings and their verses were incorporated into the design of the surimono. Here, Eisen was enlisted by a group of poets known as Yomo Gawa or the “Four Directions Group” to design a surimono for distribution at the New Year. The print is inscribed with poems by two leaders of Yomo Gawa and five provincial poets from the group. Archive Label date unknown: These three prints are examples of surimono, privately published woodblock prints popular in Japan in the early 1800s. Most surimono were commissioned by poets as New Year's gifts for their friends. The prints celebrated the return of spring and the renewal of life at the begining of the year. The right print depicts a characteristic theme of surimono- beautiful women engaged in a domestic activity associated with the New Year. Here, two women make New Year's ornaments before a screen painting of Mount Fuji, one of three important New Year's images. In the middle print, the artist has assembled objects in a delicate composition: a painted screen, a miniature potted plum tree with tiny blossoms signaling spring, and a decorative set of a bow and arrows that is presented to boys at the New Year. In the left print, a woman dressed in a historic costume lies beside jars in which incense burns to induce a deeper sleep, thus insuring good dreams. As the three poems above her tell us, it is New Year's Eve and she dreams auspiciously of Mount Fuji and of the coming spring.