Presenter: Michelle M. Damian
East Carolina University
Program in Maritime Studies

This paper will examine the technological accuracy in depictions of wooden boats in Japanese woodblock prints of the late Edo period (1603 – 1867). Woodblock prints were an important artistic and cultural medium of this time period, encompassing a range of roles from teaching the public about popular figures and personages to commemorating important scenes and views of the countryside. Artists took pride in the detail of their work, and went to great pains to create scenes that were as accurate as possible.

That being said, these artists were not themselves shipwrights, and were known to take liberties with some renditions of popular scenes. Straight rivers became curved to show a greater perspective, a lake-surface reflection of Mount Fuji was depicted as leaning the opposite direction to create a parallelogram symmetry, all for the sake of aesthetics. Although there was great technical detail in many of the woodblock prints, it cannot be assumed that the artists were always faithful to the original scene.

Woodblock prints depicted the rivers winding through the major cities of Edo (Tokyo), Osaka, and Kyoto as often as they did coastal waypoints. The variety and number of wooden watercraft in these prints are representative of the myriad of vessels sailing in Japanese waters at this time. This project will look at construction details and regional variations visible in the prints as compared with contemporary models and treatises as well as modern boats built using traditional construction methods in an effort to assess the accuracy of the artistic renditions.