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Assigned Number / 規定番号

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106-2

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Theme Identification / 画題識別

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106 Quince Theme / 106 ボケ画題

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ADDITIONAL NOTES FOR THIS DESIGN

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Signature and Seal Markings:

Edition I (only edition):

楽山篁子生

Raku-zan Kou-shi-sei

+ Seal A

[For illustration of seals listed by seal code letter, see the Seals article.]

Series History and Definitions:
During the two years between mid 1933 and mid 1935 Rakusan produced a series of 180 individual woodblock-printed fan designs. These fan designs are printed as negative images with a single impression of black ink. Although all are actually woodblock prints, this traditional negative-image printing style is called 石摺(り), ishi-zuri, lit. 'stone rubbing', from its superficial resemblance to that technique. Rakusan called this series 篁子生石摺画選, Koushisei Ishizuri Gasen, lit. 'Koushisei's Stone-rubbing Print Selection', but it is usually called here the Fan Series.

Rakusan arranged the Fan Series prints into shared-subject groups typically consisting of one design in each of five different fan silhouette shapes. Each of these groups of Fan Series designs are united by a corresponding polychrome 36 Series design which defines the subject. Each shared-subject Fan Series group and its 36 Series design together comprise a theme (画題, gadai).

Rakusan did not include the Fan Series in his main sequence numbering. Therefore, the original number used for each of the 36 Series prints has been modified to identify the Fan Series members of its theme. The five different fan silhouette shapes have been here assigned arbitrary numbers 1 through 5. To indicate a fan design these shape designations are added to the 36 Series number separated by a hyphen. In themes which contain duplicated fan shapes, one has been arbitrarily designated A and the other B. 106-2 indicates that this is a Fan Series design with fan shape 2 in the 106 Quince theme. Like all other designs in this series, 106-2 was only produced in a single print run, and few copies are currently documented.

Theme History:
The 106 Quince theme is one of the many entirely regular themes represented by a complete fan quintet and a color woodblock print. The 36 Series design 106 and all five Fan Series designs have seal A which indicates carving dates around the third quarter of 1933. It was during this period that Rakusan was making his initial plans for the two series. He created and carved all of the designs in the first six themes (including 106-2 and the other designs in the 106 Quince theme) plus a scattering of other designs weeks or even months before publication of the series was to begin. The prints in both series were actually later printed in the same month they were published.

Publication of the Fan Series and the 36 Series began in January 1934 with installment one containing the first three themes. On the documents attached to the Fan Series and 36 Series delivery folio envelopes for installment one Rakusan announced that quince designs would be published the following month, February 1934, in installment two (of twelve). In that announcement he used the theme title ぼけ, boke, 'quince', which was also the original title of the 36 Series design 106.

Unexpectedly, Rakusan failed to make two of his three planned monthly deliveries during the three months between installment one in January 1934 and installment three in May 1934. It is unknown exactly why Rakusan decided to skip those two deliveries, but clearly he had run into production difficulties. The Fan Series and 36 Series designs of the 106 Quince theme were definitely published in early 1934 in installment two. However, because its delivery documents remain to be discovered, installment two could still theoretically have been published in either February, March, or April 1934. Since the wooden blocks for printing those designs had already been carved in 1933, there seems to be no reason why installment two would not have appeared as advertised in February 1934. Other evidence suggests that the two missed months during which major changes occurred in markings and organization were a single two-month block between installment two and installment three.

At least some of the quince designs in this theme were adapted from sketches originally created in the late 1920s during the planning of design 8 in the earlier 100 Series (see below). Rakusan uses the same name for the very similar plant in 8 as ぼけ乃花 and ぼけの花, both boke no hana, 'quince flowers'.

Description:
The composition of 106-2 shows tw0 branches of what appears to be a small quince bush trained as a bonsai. The technique is a combination of simple line drawings for the buds and thorny stems; with additional shading on the branches and main trunk. The ground surface is suggested by groups of dots. Other similar dots halo some of the branches and leaves. Climbing up on the left branch is a bush snail rendered as a line drawing.

The woodblock print of 106-2 was modeled closely on an actual-size original sumi sketch which although lost can be reconstructed by digitally reversing the image of the woodblock print:

106-2 as originally drawn (reconstruction)

Species Illustrated:
The three species of flowering quince are collectively known in Japanese as 木瓜, ぼけ, ボケ, boke, and in English informally as "Japanese Quince". Today the Japanese name is also used particularly for one of the most common garden varieties, Chaenomeles speciosa var. cf. lagenaria, a selection of an originally Chinese and Korean species early imported into Japan. There is also a shorter-growing native species, Chaenomeles japonica. These quinces have been bred into many forms for flower and fruit production and are often used in bonsai. Many varieties of quince have long, prominent thorns.

The land snail shown in 106-2 has a distinctive dark central stripe which suggests one of species of the endemic Japanese arboreal land snail genus Euhadra, often called in English 'bush snails'. It may be Euhadra amaliae, 口紅蝸牛, クチベニマイマイ, kuchibenimaimai, lit. 'lipstick snail'. The general name for any kind of snail (i.e. a member of the molluscan class Gastropoda) is 蝸牛, かたつむり, カタツムリ, katatsumuri. However when used without a qualifier, the name is more often applied to land snails than to marine or freshwater species, and the general name is often applied informally to this species and to other bush snails.