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Ichiroya has graciously allowed me to use
images from their site to illustrate my ramblings. This is not
a financial arrangement I have made - I simply believe them to
be wonderful people with whom I enjoy doing business, and wish
to support their endeavors. Ichiroya is a web based treasure
trove of Japanese textiles, antiques, and information. If you
haven't visited them in the past, just click on the icon to the
left! Or, click on any of the images below to be taken directly
to their page for more images and information.
Yuzen. Hmm. On the surface a very easy
subject. If you are at all interested in Japanese fabric, you
will have come across this term repeatedly.
Miyazaki Yuzensai (1650-1736) was a very
popular fan painter in Kyoto for most of his career. As happens
even today, famous painters were often asked to apply their
artistry to many surfaces, including the kimono of fashionable
ladies. The drawback to painters, rather than dyers, practicing
in this manner is in how permanent the imagery. To an
exquisitely painted kimono add a little rain and you have the
recipe for disaster. Miyazaki Yuzensai was able to develop a
method by which he could create imagery on silk that in no way
paled in comparison to his highly sought after fans - and
remained colorfast.
So what is this technique? In a nutshell
it involves painting with a washable fixative - to hold the
dyes in place and keep them from washing or bleeding out later.
Today this is technically referred to as sugaki-yuzen (lit. simple
painted yuzen) or tegaki-yuzen (lit. hand painted yuzen), and is further
subdivided into marubake-yuzen (lit. round brush yuuzen), ebabokashi (lit. pictorial
haori with shadings), nuregaki-yuzen (lit. moist cloth painting), and so on.
hand painted fukusa on chirimen
Later, a resist was employed to create
troughs, or dams, in which the colors could be contained until
dry, giving very sharp, clear imagery in fine detail. The
technical term for this process is tsutsugaki, literally cone drawing.
A cone, much like a pastry tube, is used
to apply the resist. The resist protects areas of the cloth
from absorbing any dye, creating an outline. This is the
process most people believe they are referring to when they use
the term yuzen. It is subdivided into various branches such as noriitome-yuzen
(lit. thread paste yuzen, that is, paste lines as fine as
thread), sekidashi-yuzen, and so on. Easy enough.
However, things became a bit complicated
after new technology entered the arena over time. Today we may
find the traditional cone-yuzen being practiced, as always. We
also find wax resist (batik) yuzen, silk screen yuzen, block
print yuzen, guta (latex) yuzen, shibori (tie-dye) yuzen, and
on and on. Confused? You should be! Read on...
koto cover
The outlines and background were coated
with a resist paste to prevent them from receiving any color.
