The Japanese have a soft corner for the royal family line, the Edos, that ruled much of their country between the 17th and the 19th century. Well, why not? It was largely thanks to Edo patronage that the Japanese art and craft climbed to its subtle zenith. Be it the multi-registry block-printing using natural dyes, the traditional wooden toys which are tempered as much with the scientific spirit as with artistry and the delicate paintings on silk, cotton and paper.
Well, Chennai got a glimpse into the making of the Edo art, courtesy the ABK-AOTS Dosakai, an organisation involved with boosting Indo-Japanese ties. So, that was how this writer got to try her hand at Ukiyo-e block printing, Komal Beigoma toy making, kimono wearing, silk painting, etc, all under the direction of the 12 members of Edo Artist International Association who had been flown into the city by the ABK-AOTS Dosakai for this. The directions were largely in terms of gestures – traditional Edo artists speak even less English than their Indian counterparts.
“Japan and India have had ties running down centuries,” says Kazuo Minagawa, Consul General of Japan, Chennai, who was there to launch the event. Images of the eclectic Shichfukuijin group of gods are common in Japan today, and the Indian origin of three of them is acknowledged by the Japanese, he says. For instance, Daikokuten, revered by the Japanese as the god of ‘earth wealth’ or ‘Mahakala’ was introduced into Japan in the 9th century A D from the Hindu pantheon of deities. Likewise, the Japanese deity Benzaiten's antiquity has been traced to goddess Saraswati, while Bishamonten's origin has been tied to warrior god Vaisravana.
These three Indian deities, along with three Chinese gods (Hotei, Juroujin and Fukurokuju), and one deity native to Japan, Ebisu – the god of fishermen, are together toasted by the Japanese as the Seven Gods of Luck. These deities were put together as a group by the 17th century monk Tenkai, to symbolise the essential virtues of man – candor (Ebisu), fortune (Daikokuten), amiability (Benzaiten), magnanimity (Hotei), popularity (Fukurokuju), longevity (Juroujin) and dignity (Bishamonten).
The brightly coloured Edo wooden toys bring to our mind our own Kondapalli toys. But while the Kondapalli toys are just decorative, the Komal Beigoma tops spin right across stretched strings from end to end, and Japanese children actually stage mock competitions as to whose top would throw off the other top from the string. While earlier, these tops were made from steel, later they came to be made from a variety of material, popularly wood. The making of these spinning tops too have a curious angle to it. The craftsmen hold the knife stationary while the wooden block from which the spinner is to be carved from spins, powered by a motor! Likewise, when it comes to the application of paint (which happens to be natural pigments) to these wooden toys, the paint brush is held stationary while the top keeps spinning and gets smeared with paint.
Likewise, the Kendama cup and ball game is a popular indoor game in Japan and consists of swinging the wooden ball (which happens to be tied by a long string to the far end of cup) so that it lands inside the cup. Sounds simple? Be wary. It takes a lot of practice to manage to land the ball even a single time into the cup, and Japanese play the game by keeping score. In fact, even today, Japanese kids vie with each other to bag the nationwide Kendama championship held by the NPO Japan Kendama Association.
The Japanese have traditionally been not just good kite-fliers, but also exquisite kite- makers. In fact, since the late Edo period, the belief has been that, kites with warrior images painted on them were believed to bring good luck to the kite flier. The Edo-kite is curiously rectangle shaped, unlike the basic diamond shape sported everywhere else in the world. The charm of Japanese prints
However, it is perhaps Japanese block printing which is most popular among the Edo arts for the global viewer. Consisting of an eight stage registry, Ukiyo-e or Japanese wood block printing demands super synchronisation or otherwise the pigments meant for the background would smudge into the outlines of the subjects. In Ukiyo-e, each print is created through the collaboration of four individuals – the artists who designed the art works and drew them in ink on paper, the carver who carved these delicate designs into the series of eight wooden blocks, each block sporting one particular aspect of the image, the printer who applied pigments to the wood blocks and printed each colour on hand-made paper, and of course the publisher who coordinated the effort of these craftsmen. The simpler of these prints sometimes got transferred into kimonos, while the complicated ones remain enchanting works of art, difficult to replicate.
And finally, did you think that the Indian sari is the lengthiest garment ever invented? Hold your breadth. The Edo kimono takes 15 metres of fabric, and some of them actually consume 18 metres of fabric! Finally, guess what the city of Edo is now called in Japan? Tokyo.
