How Japanese woodcut prints shaped two iconic Australian artists (2024)

The Great Wave off Kanagawa can be found hanging in many Australian share houses, adorning the walls of Japanophiles and everyday art fans alike.

But Hokusai's iconic ukiyo-e (Japanese woodcut) print — and others like it — also left an indelible mark on Australian art.

Margaret Preston (1865–1963) and Cressida Campbell (1960–), whose careers span two centuries, incorporated the practice into their own renowned and beloved work.

A new exhibition, Cutting Through Time — Cressida Campbell, Margaret Preston, and the Japanese Print, at Geelong Gallery, Victoria, traces this influence.

What is ukiyo-e?

Ukiyo-e translates to "pictures (e) of the floating world (ukiyo)" and is an art form that rose to prominence in 17th and 18th century Japan, a period of peace and prosperity.

Asian art historian Dr Mae Anna Pang writes in the exhibition catalogue: "The term 'floating world' referred in particular to life in the entertainment districts that housed the pleasure quarters and the popular kabuki theatre, but the word also carried connotations of being modern, affluent, chic and fashionable."

The people of the floating world were entertainers, geishas and samurai, and many of the scenes depicted in ukiyo-e were of romance, scandals and violence. While the most popular prints were erotica, landscapes were also common.

"Often the ukiyo-e prints capture the notion of the transience of time and the fleeting moment," Lisa Sullivan, Senior Curator at Geelong Gallery, told ABC RN's The Art Show.

The art form evolved over many centuries and certain artists, including Hokusai, Hiroshige, Kunisada and Utamaro, became household names.

"[But] there were multiple individuals involved with the creation of the prints; an artist might make a design, and then a carver would carve the design into a woodblock, and then [there would be] a printer and even a publisher as well," Sullivan explains.

Sullivan says a key aspect of ukiyo-e is "the bold outline or key block", which gives each print a clear linear form. Then colours are then printed onto the original outline, via additional wood blocks.

It is a precise and exacting art: printing the layers requires applying ink to each block and then carefully laying down the paper every time, perfectly aligned.

Multiple prints were then often made.

"I look at it very much as a process of democratisation of art. As has often been [the case] in various cultures and countries, the printed form has been the way that images have gotten so widely distributed," says Sullivan.

"There were these wonderful poster-like images that were distributed and hung in people's homes. So they had a wide circulation."

Preston impressed by prints

Yet until the mid-19th century, the circulation of ukiyo-e was limited to Japan.

After Japan started opening up, ukiyo-e began to shape the work of European and American artists including Vincent Van Gogh, James McNeill Whistler and Henri Matisse, as well as Australian artists such as Tom Roberts and Louis Abrahams.

"They were interested in the use of vivid colour applied with flowing brushstrokes, the use of black outline, cut-off composition and the use of asymmetry and flat space," Dr Pang writes.

It was while on visits to Europe in the early 1900s, filtered through the work of these Western artists, that the pioneering modernist Australian painter and printmaker Margaret Preston was first exposed to the charms of ukiyo-e.

Preston then studied ukiyo-e at the Musée Guimet, Paris' National Museum of Asian Arts, while on another stint in Europe from 1912–1919.

On returning to Sydney in 1920, Preston started applying ukiyo-e techniques to scenes of home, including Circular Quay and Mosman Bay.

In 1934, Preston studied in Tokyo with a descendent of Hiroshige, which led to Begonia (1935) and Tea-tree and Hakea petiolaris (1936).

She ended up adapting the woodcut method to suit her, using a key block for the black outline of her pictures, and hand painting them with watercolour.

As well as drawing from Japanese art, Preston has been accused of appropriating Aboriginal art with some of her works, including Aboriginal still life (1940).

"She was clearly an artist and an individual who was very interested in travelling and experiencing various cultures… But I think without a doubt, [looking through] our contemporary lens at what she did, it doesn't always sit comfortably with us," says Sullivan.

But the curator says it's worth remembering that, in the case of ukiyo-e and Western art, it was a two-way street.

"When Japan opened up, Hokusai was looking at Dutch landscapes, at Western traditions of composition and equally bringing some of those into his compositions."

Campbell: Drawn to the mystery of ukiyo-e

Cressida Campbell was just 16 when she first saw Preston's work in a Sydney exhibition.

She had seen some ukiyo-e techniques in Van Gogh and Manet postcards and prints, but Preston's work, which she hadn't seen much of before, was "a revelation".

"The woodcuts particularly hit a nerve, because not only did I think some of them were wonderful, but I also was interested to see that the subjects were Australian plants that I'd always been interested in," Campbell recalls.

Now, the renowned contemporary Australian painter and printmaker has her work hanging alongside Preston and ukiyo-e masters in the Geelong exhibition.

"[Ukiyo-e] always have a very bold composition and that's always appealed to me," Campbell says. "But [I was also drawn to] the fine delicate lines of the leaves, patterns of a bamboo fence or delicate flowers."

In 1985, when there were still few Western tourists in the country, a flame-haired 25-year-old Campbell travelled to Japan to study at the Yoshida Hanga Academy (causing a sensation among the locals).

The influence of the ukiyo-e masters quickly started emerging in Campbells' work, including the startling 1986 print Through The Windscreen.

That work is the result of a visit to Greenwich, the Sydney suburb where Campbell grew up. Sitting in a car, she drew a picture of the view through the windscreen — which included petrol tanks — directly onto a woodblock.

Reflecting on that work, Campbell says: "Hiroshige, in particular, did very clever compositions of landscapes … [and] when you think of Kimono patterns, they do often have that combination of man-made objects with nature … and I've always loved the combination."

Campbell points out "the floating world is a mysterious world", and believes many of her works also have a sense of mystery to them, especially those that depict beautiful rooms and domestic scenes, minus the people who live there.

Sullivan says their exhibition is partly about the way art history "ebbs and flows".

"And how contemporary artists are often looking back at art history and learning from previous artists and picking up on things … transforming or applying it and thinking about the contemporary world that they live in."

Cutting Through Time — Cressida Campbell, Margaret Preston, and the Japanese Print is on at Geelong Gallery until Sunday 28 July 2024.