yūzen-zome 友禅染

Keywords
Art History
Crafts

Yūzen style dyeing. A form of paste-resist dyeing with beautiful colors and pictorial designs named after the Kyoto fan painter Miyazaki Yūzen 宮崎友禅 credited with perfecting the technique around 1700. In addition to the brightly-colored aristocratic designs and motifs of kyō yūzen 京友禅 made in Kyoto, regional varieties include kaga yūzen 加賀友禅, from Kaga 加賀 Province (now Ishikawa Prefecture) and featuring more subtly shaded colors, naturalistic design motifs and a plum-juice dye, as well as the more flamboyant edo yūzen 江戸友禅, its bold colors and designs reflecting the *kabuki 歌舞伎 world and objects of daily life. While some varieties of yūzen are combined with embroidery, gold or silver imprint, or other embellishments, Kaga yūzen never is. Based on the method of paste application, yūzen is generally divided into freehand paste drawing tegaki 手描き and stencil kata 型 types. In tegaki yūzen 手描き友禅 both the resist paste and the dyestuff are applied by hand. First, the design is drawn onto the fabric with aobana 青花. Then the cloth is stretched out, with tensors shinshi 伸子 inserted, and the aobana lines are covered with a fine line of paste resist. A thin, liquid resist gojiru 豆汁, made from soybean extract, is spread over the appropriate areas. Water is brushed over the area to be dyed, dye is applied with a small, flat brush, then steam-fixed before the paste is rinsed off. The resist paste may be used for other dyeing, such as the background, before the final steaming and washing. The cloth is then stretched to dry. In katayūzen 型友禅 the design is transferred to the cloth directly or with a dye-infused paste. Each shape is outlined with rice paste to prevent bleeding; then dyes are applied with a brush, and allowed to set before the resist is washed away. In yūzen-zome, the fine white lines left by the paste resist delineate the pattern shapes and direct application of dyes led to the development of detailed landscape and other pictorial representations. The modern yūzen-zome process, although slightly different, is still time consuming, and the final fabric is correspondingly expensive.