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Man for all seasons MASTER COLOURIST SACHIO YOSHIOKA Colour played a central role in courtly life The literature of the day comments the layered silk garments which were The five to twenty individual silk robes arranged in precisely chosen chromatic layers were known as irome no kasane. The colours of a particular ensemble announced the wearer’s court rank, impressed others with the sophistication of colour combinations, and acted as a visual commentary on the transient seasons. In Heian Japan the four seasons were divided into 24 ‘sub-seasons’, further broken down into 72 ‘subsub-seasons.’ Each incremental change of season, or every five days, was associated with a particular flower, poem, song and a distinct colour palette. To properly acknowledge the micro-metamorphosing of nature, and to gain attention at court, the Heian courtier’s kasane needed to be a delicate visual allusion to a particular moment in the natural world. For Sachio Yoshioka, a fifth-generation master dyer in Kyoto, Japan, it is this complex and profoundly poetic Heian Period aesthetic system – the weaving together of colour, literature, nature and persona – that serves as the platform and inspiration for utilizing ancient techniques to dye with botanical colours and natural mordants. Yoshioka’s expertise in traditional dyeing techniques is on par with his expertise in Japanese literature. At Waseda University in Tokyo, Yoshioka received a degree in ‘Literary Writing’ and he Tsuneh iiro Kobayash
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during Japan’s Heian Period (794-1192 AD). extensively on colour, describing in detail de rigueur for members of the Imperial court. has read Murasaki Shikibu’s Heian classic, ‘The Tale of Genji’ three times in its entirety, in the original language. From 1976 until taking over his family’s dyeing business, Yoshioka was a publisher of art books, mainly titles related to traditional textile art. His publishing house is aptly named, ‘Shikosha’, or ‘purple and red.’ In 1987 Yoshioka assumed control of the family dye works that dates to the early Edo Period (1603-1867 AD). He was determined to steer the business back toward tradition: Yoshioka would only dye with vegetal dyes and natural mordants in order to create a spectrum of colours that revived the courtly colours of the ancient Nara (710-794 AD) and Heian Periods. Yoshioka says simply, ‘when you think of colour, you think of the Heian Period – they used natural dyes and produced the finest colours.’ He adds, ‘The space that the (Heian) female authors devoted to the descriptions, and the attention paid to colours on paper, clothing and flowers, leads one to the conclusion that life at court was extremely colour conscious. In a single text, ‘The Tale of Genji’ there are more than 80 different names of colours.’ The arsenal of natural dyestuffs that give colour to cloth at Yoshioka dye works reads like an entry from Sei Shonagon’s ‘The Pillow Book’: safflower, gardenia seed, gromwell root, sappenwood, clove, walnut, betel nut 4

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Man for all seasons

MASTER COLOURIST SACHIO YOSHIOKA

Colour played a central role in courtly life The literature of the day comments the layered silk garments which were

The five to twenty individual silk robes arranged in precisely chosen chromatic layers were known as irome no kasane. The colours of a particular ensemble announced the wearer’s court rank, impressed others with the sophistication of colour combinations, and acted as a visual commentary on the transient seasons.

In Heian Japan the four seasons were divided into 24 ‘sub-seasons’, further broken down into 72 ‘subsub-seasons.’ Each incremental change of season, or every five days, was associated with a particular flower, poem, song and a distinct colour palette. To properly acknowledge the micro-metamorphosing of nature, and to gain attention at court, the Heian courtier’s kasane needed to be a delicate visual allusion to a particular moment in the natural world.

For Sachio Yoshioka, a fifth-generation master dyer in Kyoto, Japan, it is this complex and profoundly poetic Heian Period aesthetic system – the weaving together of colour, literature, nature and persona – that serves as the platform and inspiration for utilizing ancient techniques to dye with botanical colours and natural mordants. Yoshioka’s expertise in traditional dyeing techniques is on par with his expertise in Japanese literature. At Waseda University in Tokyo, Yoshioka received a degree in ‘Literary Writing’ and he Tsuneh iiro Kobayash

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