Newman Huo
JAPANESE mezzotint printer Takeshi Katori believes his mission is to popularize the mezzotint technique in Chinese printmaking circles.
Katori not only brought an exhibition of contemporary Japanese prints to Shenzhen on Thursday, but also staged a two-day workshop from Friday to Saturday to teach mezzotint technique, a method of engraving on a copper or steel plate by scraping or polishing parts of a roughened surface to produce impressions of light and shade, to more than 50 art lovers in the city.
The exhibition of contemporary Japanese prints, featuring 63 prints by 12 Japanese artists, will run in Guan Shanyue Art Museum until Friday.
All the participating printers, including Tadayoshi Nakabayasi, Tetsuya Noda, Michiko Hosino, Seikoh Kawachi, Yosito Arichi, Harumi Sonoyama, Takasuke Nakayama, Hidemitu Takagaki, Yukio Fukazawa, Toru Iwaya, Katsunori Hamanishi, and Takeshi Katori, are internationally acclaimed Japanese print artists.
“The participating artists are made up of eight printers representative of traditional types of printmaking such as relief print, intaglio, lithography and silk-screening, and four printers representative of the mezzotint technique,” said Katori, professor of Bunka Women’s University in Tokyo.
“All the works on display feature their own strong images and unique techniques, through which Chinese audiences can easily feel the pulse of Japanese society today,” he said.
Katori has been endeavoring to introduce the mezzotint technique to China by opening special workshops in fine arts colleges in Tianjin, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing over the past five years.
While teaching in the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou in 2005, Katori got in touch with Qi Fengge, dean and professor of the College of Art and Design in Shenzhen University, and Zhang Fengying of the research department of Guan Shanyue Art Museum.
After two years’ preparation, Katori finally brought the exhibition of contemporary Japanese prints to Shenzhen.
Following the opening of the exhibition Thursday, Katori’s workshop on mezzotint technique was staged in Guan Shanyue Art Museum on Friday and Saturday, which attracted more than 50 art lovers from the city, most of whom are young students from Shenzhen University and Shenzhen Polytechnic.
Born in Tokyo in 1949, Katori decided to become an oil painter when he was 19 years old.
In 1972, he accidentally caught sight of an exquisite mezzotint print in a bookstore in Tokyo, and was immediately fascinated by the unique mezzotint technique. He then decided to give up oil painting to specialize in mezzotint prints.
The term “mezzotint” derives from the Italian words “mezzo” and “tinta,” which mean “half” and “tone” in English.
Specifically, in this type of intaglio print, subtle gradations of light and shade, rather than lines, form the image.
The mezzotint printmaking method was invented by a Dutch officer Ludwig von Siegen (1609-1680).
The technique involves engraving a metal plate by systematically and evenly pricking its entire surface with innumerable small holes that will hold ink and, when printed, produce large areas of tone.
It was widely used in Britain from the 17th through the 19th centuries to create reproductions of paintings.
With the widespread adoption of photographic reproduction methods in the late 19th century, the mezzotint technique almost became extinct.
However, due to the efforts of Japanese artist Kiyoshi Hasegawa (1891-1980) who lived in Paris for 50 years, mezzotint was brought back to life in the 20th century as a modern printmaking method which has since been used mainly for creating original images.
Katori has two reasons to justify his ambition of popularizing the mezzotint technique in China.
First of all, he believes Chinese printmakers today lag far behind their Japanese counterparts in both their techniques and art achievements, despite the fact that the ancient art of woodblock printing originated in China.
“During the past years working in China, I saw few Chinese prints had appeared at influential international art exhibitions around the world and few Chinese printmakers had won grand prizes at these events,” said Katori.
Instead, after more than 50 years’ development, Japanese printmaking has been widely acclaimed around the world today.
From the 1950s through the 1970s, free and open ideas prevailed among Japanese printmakers and in art schools as artists began to seriously reexamine their traditions, and art students were encouraged to cultivate their creative powers.
Secondly, Katori believes mezzotint printing is essentially an Oriental technique because the method conforms to the principal in traditional Chinese ink painting that “ink has five colors.”
“It is very difficult for Westerners to feel and understand that black ink alone embodies a rich grading of colors,” Katori said.
“Because this aesthetic principal originated in China, I’m sure Chinese artists will be able to become masters in this technique in the end,” he said.
“But today’s reality is that, compared with woodblock printing, mezzotint technique is almost totally new to Chinese printmakers,” he added.
Katori’s two-day efforts won praise from art critics and participating students.
“It is a good practice for the city’s art lovers to learn what mezzotint printing is about through trying it at Katori’s workshop,” said Qi Fengge, professor of the College of Art and Design at Shenzhen University.
“Printmaking has been widely popularized in Japan, especially among children,” Qi said, who studied in Japan between 1988 and 1990.
“Printmaking machines can be found in almost every primary and middle school throughout Japan, but in the College of Art and Design at Shenzhen University, we have only one mainly for the use of postgraduates,” Qi said.
“Since I have never tried printmaking before, I would like to thank professor Katori for providing such an opportunity of learning mezzotint printing by making a print with my own hands in two days,” said You Jiang, 27, a graduate from Nanjing Academy of Fine Arts in Jiangsu Province who began to work at Shenzhen Art Museum this year.
