David Vaughan Jr., age 15, of Butte, Mont., for his question:
WHEN WERE JAPANESE PRINTS FIRST MADE?
Japanese prints are beautiful pictures that have been printed from carved wooden blocks made by artists in Japan. In the 150 years between 1740 and 1890, the Japanese created more color print designs than any other people.
Printed pictures of Buddhist gods were made in Japan as early ' as the 1100s or 1200s. But the oldest surviving example of Japanese prints is a series of religious charms that were made about A.D. 770.
Some of the Japanese prints are made with only one color while others use many colors. Japanese prints are especially known for their simple lines and strong delicate coloring.
A Japanese wood engraver cuts his design along the grain, on the plank side of a hardwood block. A Western wood engraver usually uses the cross grain end of a piece of wood.
The Japanese artist covers the raised part of the block with ink and presses a sheet of paper down onto it by rubbing it with a bamboo wrapped pad. The Western artist makes his print by pressing the inked block face down onto a piece of paper or cloth.
In the Japanese color print, each color requires a separately carved block. Some colors are formed by overprinting one color on top of another.
Paper used on the Japanese print is usually made of bark fiber of the mulberry tree. It is thin, tough and porous. It is sized, or filled with powder, so colors will not run on it.
During the 1600s, artists made Japanese prints in black and white. Many of the drawings illustrated heroes of the kabuki plays that were popular in the country. Beautiful women were also featured in many of the prints.
Later, publishers paid the artists to make multi plated design drawings so color could be used. Specialists were then hired to cut the wood blocks and printers were hired to apply the color. The artists generally were poor.
A Japanese artist named Moronobu, who lived from 1625 to 1695, became famous as the first person to illustrate a book page in a truly artistic way. He made use of strong outlines and distributed black and white areas carefully. Moronobu made single sheet pictures as well as illustrations. Some of these were colored by hand.
The two color Japanese print was developed about 1742 while prints made with many colors first appeared in 1765. The color prints quickly became a standard Japanese technique.
Landscape and nature prints developed in the early 1800s. About 1828, an artist named Hokusai produced his famous set of "Thirty Six Views of Fjui" and six years later a great artist named Hiroshige brought out his set of "Fifty Three Stations of the Tokaido Highway."
Hokusai composed dramatic scenes of man and nature. Hiroshige sought the peaceful, quiet mood of Japan's scenic countryside, often with one or more men and women at work.
The color print actually was a part of the Japanese feudal system, and it died out with it. But early in the 1900s, artists started to revive the Japanese print along current and international lines.