Posted by Richard Parks on August 23, 2001 at 11:58:34:
In Reply to: Re: Hiroshi Yoshida "toku" (literally special) seal posted by Laurie Petrie Rogers on August 23, 2001 at 11:33:20:
Laurie, thanks for that information. It's definitely interesting. I was leaning toward the prints being perhaps part of a special edition that Toshi Yoshida did fairly recently, but this suggests otherwise. I'll keep digging.
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: Richard, This morning, I discovered that Hiroshi Yoshida's own written contribution to the "Baren Encyclopedia of Woodblock Printmaking" contains an interesting section on his production of "betsu-zuri" (special prints). The ideographs "toku" and "betsu" are typically used together to mean "special." Coincidentally, Yoshida uses Hirosaki Castle (referred to as "Cherry and Castle") and the "Sailing Boats" series as his examples of this special printing technique. There may be something to this. You can access Yoshida's writings on this subject on the Internet at: http://www.woodblock.com/encyclopedia/entries/011_07/chap_4d.html