Ukiyo-e woodblock prints are a vital part of Japan's culture. Exhibitions attract big crowds, and ukiyo-e images are being used as symbols of Japan ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
Despite this, somewhat surprisingly, not a single ukiyo-e print has been designated as a national treasure. It seems ukiyo-e has trouble fitting into the rules regarding Japan's cultural property protection system.
During this year's Rugby World Cup, Japan's team performed superbly in their home tournament. At restarts during the games, when an image of "The Actor Otani Oniji III as Edobei" by Toshusai Sharaku, an artist in the Edo period (1603-1867), flashed up on the big screens inside the stadium, even rugby fans from overseas would join in with the "Iyo" kabuki call that was played over the speakers. This added extra excitement to the atmosphere in the stadium.
In the latter half of the 19th century, ukiyo-e prints helped spark a fervor of interest in Japanese culture in Europe, and they even influenced the works of some Impressionist painters.
However, it is a stretch to say these prints have been carefully protected as cultural properties. Currently, there are 162 paintings designated as national treasures, and 1,869 are listed as important cultural properties. Under the law for protecting cultural properties, the education, culture, sports, science and technology minister can designate significant, tangible cultural properties as important cultural properties, and those considered to be unequaled and of high value to the world's cultural history, can be deemed national treasures.
Strict protections are given to national treasures and important cultural properties, such as tight restrictions on their export. Sesshu, a prominent artist in the Muromachi period (1336-1573), produced six works that are national treasures and many that are important cultural properties, but no ukiyo-e are in the former category and 19 are in the latter.
A direct reason for this is that many ukiyo-e, by their nature, are either prints or duplicates. "From the perspective of designating a cultural property by discerning the quality of a one-of-a-kind item, it's hard to designate ukiyo-e in this way because many existing prints have been created from a single woodblock, so these subtle differences make it difficult to give it a designation," said Minoru Watada, a senior cultural properties specialist at the Cultural Affairs Agency.
For instance, Katsushika Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kanagawa" is widely regarded as one the world's most famous works of art. There are many prints of this ukiyo-e. Even if the government considered designating this as a national treasure or an important cultural property, it would be difficult to present a compelling case for making one copy in Japan more important than other good-quality prints that are now overseas, such as at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States.
Most of the 19 ukiyo-e designated as important cultural properties were upgraded from their previous classification as "important works of fine art" in about 1960, but further designations have been effectively shelved since then. However, since 1997, three works by Hokusai have been designated, but all are original drawings and generally not very well-known among the public.
The popular appeal and availability of ukiyo-e is another reason. In particular, the prints were like toys that could be enjoyed by everyone from children to adults.
According to Chuo University Prof. Toshiyuki Suzuki, ukiyo-e were available at places including shops selling illustrated books, which also doubled as publishers that commissioned artists to draw designs, and at retailers specializing in selling prints.
"If an artist had 200 copies printed, they could break even," Suzuki said. "The prints' themes focused on scenes from plays or the pleasure quarters, and new ukiyo-e were quickly churned out. Ukiyo-e made popular souvenirs from Edo [present-day Tokyo], and shops specializing in selling them spread across the nation."
A picture drawn of one such shop at the time shows a huge pile of ukiyo-e and customers eyeing them.
Ukiyo-e were distributed amid a printing culture of low margin and high turnover, and as the market matured, interest in them began to wane from the Meiji era (1868-1912). Their themes of actors and courtesans also came to be considered vulgar.
Shiki Masaoka, a poet in the Meiji period, even wrote an essay in which he said it was "regrettable" that Utagawa Hiroshige, an ukiyo-e artist famed for his series of prints "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road," had been "unable to shake himself free" from ukiyo-e.
People from overseas who were unaware of its history discovered the appeal of ukiyo-e as something new. Consequently, the volume of ukiyo-e heading overseas quickly increased. Many well-preserved, excellently printed masterpieces by artists such as Sharaku and Kitagawa Utamaro are now displayed in art museums abroad.
The ongoing exhibition at the Edo-Tokyo Museum in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, that is showcasing ukiyo-e prints, including some from museums overseas, proves the high quality of these works.
Actually designating an item as a national treasure is very effective for clearly showing just how valuable it is. In the future, it is possible that sets of good-quality prints could be designated important cultural properties and then maybe even elevated to national treasures, but there will likely be little momentum for this as long as there is no pressing risk of them slipping overseas. However, preservation efforts will be essential to avoid repeating previous failed policies that overlooked the value of ukiyo-e.
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