Searching for Edo Red: Beni Safflower
When people think of the colours of ukiyo-e, Prussian blue is probably the first that comes to mind. Hokusai's Great Wave has made that blue almost synonymous with the visual language of nineteenth-century Japanese prints. But for me, the colour that feels most distinctly Edo is not blue. It is red... specifically the warm, deep red associated with safflower, or beni.
I have always been drawn to the reds of Edo period prints. They have a warmth and depth that I find very different from the stronger, sometimes more strident reds of Meiji period prints. I wanted to find a way of bringing something of that colour into my own woodblock printing, rather than simply imitating it with a modern pigment. The problem was finding the material itself.
I looked in various places for genuine safflower beni, but discovered that it is surprisingly difficult to obtain. There are pigments sold as safflower reds, but some are modern chemical pigments rather than the traditional colourant itself. Eventually, after a great deal of searching, I found a Japanese source selling beni that was intended not for artists, but for use as a cosmetic.
It was not cheap. I was also slightly nervous about buying it for printing. But I knew that it was water-based, and I thought that, technically, there was no reason why it could not be experimented with as a colourant on a woodblock. So I bought some and asked a friend to bring it back from Japan for me.
When it arrived, it was unlike any pigment I had used before.
In its dry state it looked almost like a small piece of beetle shell: greenish, dark and strangely glossy. Then I put a drop of water onto it. Almost immediately, the surface transformed into a deep blood-red. It was fascinating to watch. It felt less like mixing paint and more like watching a small act of alchemy take place. A material that had appeared green and almost metallic suddenly released an intense red when water touched it.
I tried it on the woodblock.
The result surprised me again. On paper, the colour was much pinker than I had expected. It did not immediately reproduce the deep red I had imagined from looking at Edo-period prints. I am still learning how best to use it; how much to dilute it, how it interacts with the paper, and how many layers are needed to achieve the particular warmth and density that I am looking for.
It has also made me wonder about the colours we see in historical prints. The colour on a freshly printed sheet is not necessarily the colour we encounter centuries later. I find myself looking again at Edo-period impressions and wondering how much of what I recognise as that characteristic red belongs to the original colour, and how much has been altered by time, light and the ageing of the materials.
For me, this is part of what makes working with traditional materials so interesting. I am not simply trying to reproduce an historical image or copy the appearance of an Edo print. I am trying to understand, through making, something about how those images were actually constructed.
My prints are made in London, using contemporary imagery, but I want them to have a genuine connection with the Japanese traditions that inspire them. Finding this beni has given me one small, tangible link to that history.
Everyone talks about Hokusai's or Hiroshige's blue.
For me, Edo begins with red.
You can buy from the website here:
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