Shin Hanga prints


  Design: Okada Yoshio (1934-2021)  
  Title: Matsukaze  
  Series title: Genji emaki (Picture scroll of Genji)  
  Size: 33.9 x 28.5 cm (ōban)  
  Original woodblock print    
  Photography: Jacques Commandeur
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Okada Yoshio Matsukaze

Enlargement


Published by Yūyūdō in 1978 or 1979.

Red seal reading Yoshi in upper left area and bottom right margin of the print.

Names of the carver, printer, and paper maker in bottom margin of the print:

Character Reading Meaning Translation
       
ho(ru) carve  
ki(ku) work Carver:
       
matsu pine  
ta rice field  
tora sign of the tiger  
storehouse Matsuda Torazō
       
su(ru) rub  
satsu print Printer:
       
en distant  
wisteria  
tada loyalty  
o leader Endō Tadao
       
shō extract  
shi paper Paper maker:
       
sa assistant  
sa    
ki wood  
hajime one Sasaki Hajime

Yūyūdō publisher seal in lower left margin of the print.

White label with artist’s name and series title on the protective outside cardboard folder (left) and on the dark blue presentation folder inside the cardboard folder (right) in which the four Genji emaki prints were sold:

Okada Yoshio packaging folder Okada Yoshio presentation folder

The kanji on the white labels read:

Character Reading Meaning Translation
       
oka hill  
ta rice field  
yoshi yoshi  
otto husband Okada Yoshio
       
gen origin  
shi family  
e picture  
maki scroll Picture scroll of Genji

The protective folder of the Matsukaze print has the label:

Okada Yoshio Matsukaze label

in which the kanji 松風 read Matsukaze (i.e., pine wind).

The direct inspiration for the Matsukaze woodblock print was the following Okada Yoshio illustration issued in the Shūkan Asahi magazine (click to enlarge):

Okada Yoshio Shukan Asahi Matsukaze

The latter illustration was again based on this water colour painting of Okada Yoshio (click to enlarge):

Okada Yoshio Matsukaze Water Colour Painting

which can be found on pages 72-73 of this book.

This print again shows Akashi no Kimi after she moved from the village of Akashi to a villa by the river Ōi, west of Kyoto. There she meets Genji again three years after their first meeting in the Akashi print of the Genji emaki set. During this first meeting she got pregnant from Genji, and they now have a three-year old daughter called Akashi no Himegimi. The name of the print refers to the sound of the wind through the pines that they hear during their meeting.

Unlike the set I was able to obtain, some Yūyūdō Genji emaki sets also include(d) a four-page information pamphlet* which should be read Japanese fashion, that is, from right to left (this applies to both the pages and the text).

Some of the pamphlets are in black and white (click to enlarge):

Genji emaki pamphlet page 4 Genji emaki pamphlet page 3 Genji emaki pamphlet page 2 Genji emaki pamphlet page 1

and some in full-colour (click to enlarge):

Genji emaki pamphlet page 4 Genji emaki pamphlet page 3 Genji emaki pamphlet page 2 Genji emaki pamphlet page 1

Of the colour pamphlet there are/were again two variants. These are completely identical except for the fact that one colour pamphlet mentions a price of 120,000 yen for the set (like the one shown here) and the other a price of 86,000 yen.


References


Provenance: Mokuhankan


*With many thanks to David Bull for providing me with pictures of these pamphlets.

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