Kaga Yūzen Silk Dyeing
Kaga yūzen is a centuries-old silk dyeing tradition in which artisans use hand-drawn designs and a distinctive palette of five colors to render vivid and realistic natural images on silk. Along with Kyō yūzen from Kyoto and Edo yūzen from Tokyo, it is one of Japan’s three major silk dyeing traditions. Today, the Kaga yūzen technique is used to decorate accessories, such as bags and scarfs, and to create Ishikawa’s luxurious Kaga yūzen kimonos.
In the sixteenth-century, Kaga domain (the area of present-day Ishikawa Prefecture) was a noted producer of silk. In the early eighteenth century, the groundbreaking methods of famed silk fan designer Miyazaki Yūzen (?–1758) were introduced to Kaga. His intricate resist-dyeing technique made elaborate, multicolored designs possible by allowing artists to hand-paint complex images while using water-soluble rice paste to protect certain areas of the fabric from absorbing unwanted dye. This process remains the foundation of Kaga yūzen dyeing today.
Kaga yūzen is known for realistic depictions from nature, such as leaves that have been nibbled by insects or touched by decay. Such imagery is called mushi-kui (insect-eaten), and it represents fragility and transience in nature. In addition, Kaga yūzen designs tend to avoid the gold and silver ornamentation favored in the more ornate Kyō yūzen style. And while Edo yūzen tends toward muted colors, Kaga yūzen uses a palette of five bold hues known as the kaga gosai: indigo, crimson, ocher, dark green, and royal purple.
Yūzen dyeing was designated an Important Intangible Cultural Heritage in 1955, and two Ishikawa residents have become holders of the yūzen technique: Kimura Uzen (1891–1977) in 1955 and Futatsuka Osao (1946–) in 2010.
