Art of Ukiyoe

Autumn Smoke

Autumn brings sadness. The days fade away, the air chills, the darkness of winter looms with every sunset. Yet there is beauty – bright blue skies, clouds limned with gold, maple leaves turning flame-red before floating to the ground.

It's been a hot summer in Tokyo, but we are feeling the first hints of the crisp new season. In New York City, my friends tell me, the trees in Central Park have started to turn. And my hometown of Guangzhou? Not so much – it's always hot there.

To mark fall's arrival, I've chosen a personal favorite from Art of Ukiyoe's inventory for my new featured print: Suzuki Harunobu's autumnal and deeply melancholy Courtesan Burning a Love Letter from the 1760s. A subtle palette of oranges and gentle yellows, and a folding screen depicting fall flowers such as Chrysanthemum and Japanese silver grass (susuki), are two hints of the time of year.

But really, it's the mood that creates the feeling.

The young courtesan, her heart broken, burns her lover's letters in a flaming brazier. And then, in the smoke – his image appears, evoking all the deep emotions of love and affection she'd sought to destroy. She is a classic Harunobu beauty – delicate, ethereal, dreamlike, neither of this world nor out of it. And isn't the end of summer like the end of a beautiful romance?

It's a somber, magical image. We see the disheveled futon waiting to keep our beauty warm against the cooling night. Or perhaps she's just thrown it off when, unable to sleep, she decided to set the letters on fire. Her pipe lies on the ground, as does a packet of tissues surely used to dry her tears.

Harunobu is considered by some to be the father of color Japanese woodblock prints. While the printing technique had been invented in ancient China by Harunobu's time, the technology had advanced very little over the centuries. He devised methods to use more color blocks, and to keep them properly registered. Thus, his were the first designs reproduced in full color as Nishiki-e, or “brocade pictures.” Untold thousands would follow in the ensuing centuries.