Hardness of Lines
Ukiyoe are printed, not handpainted, pictures. The original picture is painted with brushes. Horishi carve the picture on a wood plate using the handpainted original and surishi make prints one color at a time. The
finished prints are visually similar to the handpainted originals but are nevertheless different. The quality of the original is changed by being carved. Lines in ukiyoe have a solidity from being carved
which control the print.
Even if done by the same artist at about the same time, there are differences between the handpainted original and the printed reproductions. The differences are controlled by tension created by the solidness of line drawing. Horishi wood carvings are comparable in qualityto European bronze plates. Carving requires constant and even tension. There is nothing else you can do except carve patiently. Mistakes cannot be corrected.
I understand that the artist Hokusai worked as a horishi from the age of 16 to 20. He became an eshi (original handpainter) after being trained as a horishi Compared with other artists, Hokusai's work have a realism and a hardness of line usually seen only in carving. Although he used techniques from Kanga (Chinese painting) and Yooga (Western painting), his work always has a kind of hardness, which might have lead to a photographicsharpness and a realistic strength, as in Ken Domons photographs.
Hokusais paintings were pictures of carving. The strong touch in his work originates from the relationship between hardness of line and realism of expression. Strength and hardness are consistent in all his work. As an eshi he lived his life like that. His boyhood horishi training determined his
life course. Hokusai drew as he carved. His influence can be seen in the artists Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige and even in Yoshitoshi in the Meiji Era.
Hokusais colorful ukiyoe pictures are actually line drawings of many competent horishis. His art contains detail beyond the capability of brushwork.
Their line drawings were drawn by knives and are hard and strong.