The Making of Silk Floss
Original title: The Making of Silk Floss
kurzbeschreibung
Kitagawa Utamaro's colour woodblock print 'The Production of Silk Fiber', made around 1790, presents a group of women in traditional dress carrying out the successive stages of silk production. The sheet is executed as a Japanese woodblock print in ink and colour on paper.
Description
Several women stand and crouch along a long row of tables, above which glossy silk threads hang. One of them is just drawing up the fiber, while the others arrange and further process it. Kimonos and hair ornaments dominate the image; toward the rear appear a vessel and more skeins of silk. Earthy tones prevail, with accents of blue and red providing contrast. The contours are sharply drawn and the lines clear—exactly as traditional Japanese woodblock printing demands.
Context
Utamaro ranks among the renowned artists of ukiyo-e, whose fame rests above all on depictions of women. During the Edo period, when silk production was one of Japan's key economic sectors, he created several prints showing craft processes and the everyday life of women. Such motifs were highly popular in the art of those years, as they offered insights into the world of work and the social position of women.
Impact
A calm, comfortable order emanates from the picture; one senses the concentration with which the women go about their work. Muted colours and even light give the scene something harmonious, almost idyllic. Looking longer, one can discover the individual movements of silk production, so precisely is everything rendered.
Technique
For printing, the design was cut into a woodblock and inked; each colour required its own block, so the colours were printed in several layers on top of one another. The sharp lines and clear contours characteristic of this technique, widespread in eighteenth-century Japan, stand out distinctly here as well.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)