Partners in Print: Artistic Collaboration and the Ukiyo-e Market by Julie Nelson Davis (review)

In Partners in Print, Julie Nelson Davis presents an “inquiry into the collaborative enterprise of making printed pictures of and for the floating world” (p. 19). This inquiry is based on four case studies, each of which consists of an analysis of images, texts, and (hidden) meanings found in popular prints and books and an involved appraisal of the producers of these works, who are interrelated in a number of ways. Davis wishes to do away with a dreamy appreciation of aesthetic qualities: “By recasting these printed works as evidence of commercial and artistic cooperation, this book seeks to expand our understanding of the dynamic processes of production, reception, and intention in floating world print culture” (p. 1). Given the scholarship that exists both in and outside Japan on the commercial and cooperative nature of the Edo-period printing industry, there is little need for concern, in my view, that traditional art historic approaches have disregarded such aspects of floating world arts outright. Proving that commercial and artistic cooperation was the norm is not what makes the study under review valuable; it is the endeavor to expand our understanding of how these processes in floating world arts and print culture played out that constitutes the contribution to the field.

The introduction to the book, entitled “The Floating World and Its Artistic Networks,” outlines the scope of the study—which is, namely, the world of popular arts that appeared in print, in Edo, during the last part of the eighteenth century. Davis writes of “social and aesthetic networks that supported these partnerships in print,” reflecting the fact that she relies in part on sociological approaches to the study of Edo-period cultural production, such as the approach taken by Eiko Ikegami.¹ Davis’s disciplinary framework also includes scholarship on the history of the printed book and the history of (Japanese) art. She makes a point of including both ukiyo-e prints and popular literature, for the reason that both of these primary source materials represent the same fictional world. Her claim that “modern disciplinary boundaries tend to separate” the study of each is by and large correct, and the view that this boundary ought to be crossed more often is wholeheartedly supported by this reviewer (p. 2). Recent trends notwithstanding, art historic studies traditionally incorporate images from illustrated books only when they serve as documentation of the particulars of an artist’s life and work. Davis blames “nineteenth-century romanticism” for generally seeking out a “solitary genius” (p. 7). Indeed, especially in the case of publishing in Edo-period Japan, any attempt at understanding the production, reception, and intention of printed works should obviously include all materials produced and consumed, and all players involved. At the risk of stating the obvious, I would argue that since many printing houses of the time commonly published both prints and books, the coupled investigation of both is only logical.

In chapter 1, Davis presents a case study that illustrates the collaboration between a teacher of painting and his student(s). More specifically, she examines the transmission of the privileged Kano-style painting practiced by Toriyama Sekien (1712–1788) to his student Kitagawa Utamaro (1753?–1806), who was active in the arts of the floating world. The discussion revolves around a surimono (privately commissioned print, usually featuring popular poetry) of ca. 1786, illustrated by Sekien and two of his students, Utamaro and Toriyama Sekichūjo (1763–?). That Sekichūjo was female—a fact indicated explicitly by the last character of her artist name—is not mentioned by Davis. The gender of this student is of no particular importance to the argument made in this chapter, but the information could have contributed to greater understanding of the positions and roles of each player in the collaboration. Similarly, it might have been helpful to have had a brief explanation of the difference between “Sekichūjo” and “Sekich...