CHAPTER IX
THE FAN COLOUR-PRINTS
One of the most characteristic articles of Japanese personal equipment is the fan. Before the change of costume and habits which followed the revolution of 1868, it played a part in the daily or ceremonial life of everyone, rich and poor, from the Emperor and Imperial Court to coolies. It was given as a souvenir to parting guests; exchanged with the fan of a new acquaintance of distinction; presented by a bridegroom to his bride; or to a youth, as a symbol of good luck, on attaining his majority at the age of 16 years. On attaining the honourable age of 77 years, an old man would also be offered fans by his relations, inscribed with the character ki, which is composed of the numerals 7, 10 and 7. He also would return the gift in the form of small-sized fans autographed with the same character. Incidentally, it may be remarked that the attainment of this length of years was an occasion for a great family celebration. It was denied to Hiroshige; but it is for this reason that one finds prints by Kunisada, and in a few cases some in which the second Hiroshige had collaborated, proudly signed by the former, "Made in his 77th year" (1862), and evidently to be associated with the ki-ju no ga festival.
Apart from certain classes of fans, such as those used by generals in the field, for religious processions and similar special occasions, the fans in popular use were of two kinds: the folding fan, forming the segment of a circle with the apex cut away, which is also commonly used by Western nations (ogi); and the rigid form, also struck from a circle, but with the top and sides cut square and a flattened curve at the base (uchiwa). The latter is believed to be of very ancient Chinese origin, and to have been introduced into Japan, through Korea, in the earliest periods of its history. The invention of the former is attributed to the widow of Atsumori, who became a nun at Kyoto in A.D. 1184, and is said to have devised the folding fan to relieve the father-superior when sick of a fever. The Chinese fan was in common use up to the fifteenth century, when it was generally superseded by the folding form; but the nineteenth century seems to have seen a reversion to the older type, at all events among the class of people to which the Ukiyoye painters belonged, for a large number of this sort must have been made, judging from the examples still sometimes to be found. These fans were often hand-painted and sometimes elaborately mounted with handles and frames of lacquer and other rich material; but those with which we are now concerned consisted of colour-prints of the requisite shape and size, on frames made of a single piece of bamboo, the upper part split to form the ribs and stiffened with a bent strip of the same material. Among the Ukiyoye artists who designed colour-prints for this purpose, Hiroshige is pre-eminent; but Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and some of their pupils also issued a considerable number, generally in the conventional style of their school. Hiroshige also designed folding fans (ogi).
These prints are rare; for it is obvious that most of them, being made for use, must have been easily worn out and destroyed. Yet they are to be picked up, here and there, and well repay the patience of the collector who is content to wait for his opportunities. Often they bear the marks of the ribs, having been removed from their mounts and cherished by someone who appreciated the artistic value of them; but, now and again, one can find examples free from the marks of usage. That indefatigable collector, Mr. Happer, could include but 9 ogi and 16 uchiwa in the great collection sold in 1909. Only 10 were exhibited in the Memorial Exhibition. Sir R. Leicester Harmsworth has managed to secure about 18 or 20; but it is pleasant to be able to record that no fewer than 130 have been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum, so that visitors to London have there, at all events, an opportunity of studying a representative collection of a phase of Hiroshige's work which merits far more attention than it has yet received. For that reason, we have thought it advisable to devote to this subject a larger proportion of the illustrations to this volume than might otherwise have been the case, at the expense of some of the better-known prints which have frequently been reproduced elsewhere.
For to this class Hiroshige devoted some of the best of his talent. The forms alone offer a problem to the designer, which is attractive and calls for a particular effort. But he never fails. The composition is, though restricted in its opportunities by the rigid boundaries of the object, inevitably right and perfectly adapted to its purpose. It implies a concentration of design on a central base, with radiating lines outwards and upwards; and he either follows or contrasts with these, with a sure instinct that defies criticism. They cover the ground from his best period to the time of his death; and display an extraordinary variety of treatment - pure landscape in the exquisite, restrained and intensely poetic style of the three great Hakkei, the more vigorous method of the First Tokaido with its added human interest, birds, flowers, tortoises, and other natural objects; and a whole series of brilliantly coloured landscapes with the graceful female figures in which he shows, more than in any other of his work, a hint of his inheritance from his master Toyohiro. And a word must be given to the blue prints (aizuri), and particularly the brilliant "Fuji" from Schichi-ri Bay reproduced herein and dated 1855 - the powers of the man who made this superb design were hardly failing then!
These latter are the work of his later years - perhaps the best of it. But the fans, in date, as well as in style, reflect the whole course of the artist's career. In the class of blue prints, for example, we can refer to an example to be placed even earlier than his first Omi Hakkei; an uchiwa design consisting of three smaller fanshaped compartments with views of Okina-Inari, Myoken and Ryodai-shi, and published by Marukyu; while three superb aizuri, from the house of Marusei, the "Nightingale, Full Moon and Plum-blossom" and "Cranes and Bamboo" - with which should be mentioned a group of Iris flowers and leaves, in blue, green and purple, belong to the period of the first and best Flower and Bird tanzaku. Such as the "Famous Produce of the Tokaido" in black and grey only, and the "Famous Flower-gardens of Yedo," will appeal to the collector of curiosities; but a print like that reproduced from the "Eight Views of Post-stations," the Kumagai Embankment with its distant view of the Usui Pass, challenges comparison even with the three great Hakkei series and may have preceded them in period. It is singularly restrained and correspondingly effective - but the contrast of the winding embankment through the marshes, perfectly in perspective, with the mass of the mountain, is the sort of success in composition that is only achieved by an artist of the first rank. The key to the design is supplied by a device, easy, natural, and yet absolutely convincing - a veritable epigram of art just a flight of geese descending into the marshes.
Everyone who has written about Hiroshige has tried to do justice to his rendering of rain. There are many famous examples; but to those already so well known we must add the fan-print from Dansendo's Koto Meisho series - "Yeitai Bridge in Evening Rain." Everything is still - under the oppressive, almost perpendicular downpour. The colours are blurred; the very river seems drenched; and yet the scene has a beauty all its own. We owe this and another fan to the visit paid by the artist to Kisarazu, as related in the diary printed elsewhere in this volume. While, in contrast with the flowers and birds and landscapes, mention must be made of the boldly drawn and brilliantly coloured "Cock and Hen with Autumn Flowers" (published by Sanoki); as strong and virile a piece of drawing as is other of Hiroshige's work tender and delicate. How well, too, he could draw the figure in motion when he chose is demonstrated by the Kishiu Festival dance from the series of "Ancient and Modern Festivals in the Provinces." The young and graceful group of dancers is absolutely alive - here is nothing of the rigid, statuesque convention that fettered his contemporaries of the expiring theatrical school.