Jamaguchi Soken

Jamaguchi Soken
Soken Gafu Soka No Bu, 1804-06
2287

11 3/8 x 8 5/8 in. (29 x 22 cm)

Three Volumes. Yamaguchi Soken lived from 1759 to 1818 in Kyoto, a distinguished pupil of Okyo. He was skilled at figures, landscapes, flowers and genre subjects. The link with Okyo, his dwelling in Kyoto and the period of his life make him very central in the Shijo subject. These three volumes described by Mitchell, pages 498-9, show great skill and sensitivity in every use of black and shades of grey, to illustrate plant forms. The compositions across two pages are fine instances of early sensitivity in these books, both bold and in each instance characteristic of the habits of the plants or grasses. Nothing is too simple for illustration and each receives treatment as from the inside of the plant's growth. We again see in Soken's work, or in his engraver's treatment of it, the granulated effect which fascinates Hillier. Many instances of double-page illustrations in this book are extraordinary displays of printing and of design and flower art. These three volumes are in their original embossed grey covers and title labels, though the first volume has probably been united with the other two at some stage for its covers are worn and frayed, whereas the other two are fresh. It could even be an earlier issue, the paper specially soft and delicate, but that is not more than a guess. The Mitchell copy was bound together as one volume. Hillier has a great deal to say about Soken. Of this particular book Hillier writes ' This is a masterpiece and it is as much as triumph of the woodblock makers as it is of Soken'. He becomes quite lyrical about it: 'Soken was not an explicit mystic: he drew his leaves and flowers with firm lines and unerring decorativeness, but occasionally, aided by block cutters who acted like an intensifying prism, his prints reached down to depths of our being with reactions on our part that cannot be rationalised'. This is the book Hillier takes as a particular instance of the effects which fascinated him, achieved by lowering parts of the block and by the granulation of ink tone. Several are reproduced. HIllier 536-7

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