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Shin Hanga prints

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	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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Enlargement

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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
彫	chō	carve
刻	koku	engrave	Carver:
松	matsu	pine
田	ta	rice field
寅	tora	sign of the tiger
蔵	zō	storehouse	Matsuda Torazō
摺	su(ru)	rub
刷	satsu	print	Printer:
遠	en	distant
藤	dō	wisteria
忠	tada	loyalty
雄	o	leader	Endō Tadao
抄	shō	extract
紙	shi	paper	Paper maker:
佐	sa	assistant
々	sa
木	ki	wood
一	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:

The kanji on the white labels read:

Character	Reading	Meaning	Translation
岡	oka	hill
田	ta	rice field
嘉	yoshi	yoshi
夫	otto	husband	Okada Yoshio
源	gen	origin
氏	shi	family
絵	e	picture
巻	maki	scroll	Picture scroll of Genji

The protective folder of the Matsukaze print has the 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):

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

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):

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

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.

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References

• David Bull’s YouTube video Beginnings part 1 issued in August 2018.

• Eric van den Ing’s Saru Gallery website here.

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Provenance: Mokuhankan

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