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Post by Fukumitsu Noriatsu on Dec 8, 2014 18:38:56 GMT -5
Greetings all,
Has anyone ever seen or heard of waraji being dyed at all?
-Noriatsu
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 8, 2014 21:31:14 GMT -5
Has anyone ever seen or heard of waraji being dyed at all? Mostly, waraji seem to be consumable items. Like, a military march would be counted in the number of waraji an average soldier would wear through. Seems like nobody would bother to dye something that disposable. Now, zori and tabi can get pretty gaudy, though. I'd go for gaudy tabi, boring waraji. |
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Post by Fukumitsu Noriatsu on Dec 12, 2014 20:18:36 GMT -5
I have been looking through the book 101 great samurai prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi and noticed that the samurai depicted in the first 50 prints, which are concerned with the warriors of the last phases of the civil wars of the 16th century are wearing waraji in a wide range of colors.    This bright blue is a very nice color in my opinion.  While the samurai in the last 50 prints which cover the tale of the 47 samurai are depicted wearing waraji of all the pale straw color. Could the undyed waraji actually be a later trend? Or were the artists taking license with the differently colored waraji? |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2014 9:58:59 GMT -5
I have been looking through the book 101 great samurai prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi and noticed that the samurai depicted in the first 50 prints, which are concerned with the warriors of the last phases of the civil wars of the 16th century are wearing waraji in a wide range of colors. Given that Utagawa Kuniyoshi wasn't born until 1797, these paintings of events 2 centuries before his birth probably employ a lot of artistic license. That's not to say nobody ever dyed waraji. Sometimes even paintings that seem to be mostly artistic license are found to have factual bases. It just seems unlikely to me anybody would bother. Then again, people decorate some of the most absurd things imaginable. |
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Post by Fukumitsu Noriatsu on Dec 13, 2014 10:41:31 GMT -5
It just struck me as odd that the prints depicting the 47 samurai were all wearing the same colored waraji, while in the earlier prints the waraji were all different colors.
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Post by Please Delete on Dec 14, 2014 0:22:49 GMT -5
I would be cautious about colors in Edo period woodblock prints, as they don't always appear entirely accurate. For instance, just like comics would sometimes use blue to indicate black hair, Japanese woodblock prints will often use blue to depict a samurai's shaved head (apparently depicting the gray stubble), and, given what I've seen, I would not assume those waraji are dyed, just that the artist was attempting to possibly depict them as dark. Different colors could be an attempt at shading foreground, background, or in shadow. Take a look at the depictions of clothing and armor in general and you can often see the differences between the prints and reality. I tend to treat these Edo prints as historical manga or comics, rather than a strictly true depiction of life.
Ii
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