The ukiyo-e woodblock print was a collective industrial process masquerading as an artwork by a single named artist. Understanding how these prints were actually made — the sequence of hands and skills required — changes how you look at them.
It began with the publisher (hanmoto), who functioned more like a film producer than a patron in the modern sense. The publisher identified market demand, commissioned subjects, controlled budgets, and bore financial risk. He owned the woodblocks and could reprint from them for years. The named artist was, in a sense, talent for hire — prestigious talent, certainly, in the case of a Hokusai or Hiroshige, but working within a commercial system.
The artist produced a design drawing (hanshita-e) in brush and ink on thin, translucent paper. This drawing was handed to the chief carver (horishi), who pasted it face-down onto a prepared plank of aged cherry wood. He could then see the lines through the paper and cut away everything that was not line, using a set of specialized chisels and knives to produce the key block — the block that would print the black outline. The original drawing was destroyed in this process: it stayed attached to the block, its paper worn away by the printing process over successive impressions.
The printer made a few impressions from the key block, and the artist used these to indicate, by hand, which areas should be which colors. A separate block was then carved for each color — five blocks for a five-color print, ten for a ten-color print. Registration was achieved through two small cuts in each block called kento marks, which located the paper precisely before each impression. Without accurate kento, the colors would drift from the lines and the print would be ruined.
The paper — typically washi, made from the fibers of the mulberry, gampi, or mitsumata plant — was dampened before printing to make it more receptive. Pigments were applied to the block with a flat brush, then the paper was laid on and burnished with a circular pad called a baren, typically made of bamboo leaf wrapped around a coiled cord. The baren transferred the pigment through friction, not pressure, which is why ukiyo-e prints have a characteristic flatness of color rather than the relief texture of European woodcuts.
A skilled printer could produce two or three hundred impressions per day per block. Early impressions from a freshly carved block, using the highest-quality pigments, are called first editions (初刷, shozuri) and are the most prized by collectors. As the block wore with use, details softened and colors were often mixed differently to compensate. A late impression from a worn block can look like a different print.
The whole system — publisher, artist, carver, printer — was highly efficient and remarkably flexible. A successful series could be reprinted for decades. An unsuccessful one was remaindered quickly. The floating world ran on market logic as much as aesthetic ambition, which may be one reason it produced so much that was genuinely great.