How Did Japanese Artists Print Fish Without a Camera?
They inked the fish itself. Sumi ink went onto the body, washi paper was pressed on top, and the fish left a life-size impression of its own scales and fins. In nineteenth-century Japan that print worked as a catch record — date, place, angler, witnesses, tackle — and only later as art.
The earliest fish prints were records of a catch
The oldest surviving gyotaku is usually dated to late February 1839: a crucian carp from the Kinshibori canal in Edo, caught by Sakai Tadaaki, ninth lord of the Shōnai domain, and now kept at the Tsuruoka City Museum of Local History (Nippon.com 2026); the 2020 survey lists that 1839 material under the Tsuruoka City Library (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). Prints from the 1850s and 1860s survive at the Chidō Museum in Tsuruoka and the Homma Museum of Art in Sakata (Hyperallergic 2020). The identity of the first print is still argued; specialists agree that the earliest examples belong to the 1800s (Smithsonian Magazine 2020).
The Shōnai link explains the form. In the Edo period the domain encouraged its samurai to fish the rocky coast as training for body and mind, and called the pursuit shōbu, a contest; a gyotaku preserved the result the way a photograph or filed record would today (Nippon.com 2026). The same print also served anglers advertising a trophy catch (Smithsonian Magazine 2020).
What makes it a document is the information written around the fish: the date and locality of the catch, the fisher's name, a witness, the species — often under its local name — and the tackle used (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). Colour prints made as art rarely carry any of it. That contrast is the whole history in miniature: data first, colour later.
Ink, paper, and two ways to press them
The materials are ordinary: sumi, the black ink used for writing and painting, and washi, thin Japanese paper. The ink had to be harmless enough that the fish could be rinsed and then sold or eaten (NPR 2015; Smithsonian Magazine 2020).
The direct method (chokusetsu-hō) is the older and simpler one: ink or paint goes on the fish, paper is laid over it, and the image is taken by rubbing the sheet by hand. Like a woodblock print, it comes out reversed left to right (Nippon.com 2026; Miyazaki & Murase 2020).
The indirect method (kansetsu-hō) reverses the order. Thin washi is laid on the prepared fish, dampened, pressed into the contours and smoothed; the paper is glued down and colour is tamped through it with a tanpo, cotton wrapped in silk. Nothing is reversed, and each fin can be worked separately (Nippon.com 2026; NPR 2015).
| Direct method (chokusetsu-hō) | Indirect method (kansetsu-hō) | |
|---|---|---|
| Materials | Sumi ink and washi paper | Washi paper, colour paints and a tanpo |
| Steps | Ink the fish, lay paper over it, rub by hand | Lay paper on the fish, dampen, mould, glue, then tamp colour |
| Orientation | Reversed left to right | Reads the same way as the fish |
| Detail | Outline, scale rows and fin spines in one pass | Each spine and each colour layer worked separately |
| Usual job | Quick record of a catch; the traditional black-ink print | Colour art prints and teaching prints |
Why a print can hold a scale
The printing plate is the animal. Scales, the ridge of the gill cover and each fin spine are relief on a real surface, so every point where inked relief meets paper takes a mark; fins have to be done by shifting the paper and tapping out individual spines (Nippon.com 2026). No lens, no focus, no depth of field: the impression is the size of the fish because the fish is the original.
Two consequences follow. The eye does not print, because no pigment sticks to it, so it is painted in with a brush at the end; the face of a gyotaku is always partly drawn (Nippon.com 2026; NPR 2015). And the paper records a fish as pressed: wet washi moulded onto a soft body. The outline, scale rows and fin rays are faithful; soft parts are an impression, not a measurement.
In 2020 two biologists photographed 261 rubbings carrying 325 printed specimens in Japanese tackle and boating shops, extracted locality and date data for 218 individuals, and found records of threatened species: seven prints of the Japanese huchen from Hokkaido, three of the Japanese lates from Miyazaki Prefecture (Miyazaki & Murase 2020; Smithsonian Magazine 2020).
After the camera, the print became a picture
Photography did not end gyotaku; it reassigned it. Once photography spread in the postwar period, the gyotaku world moved toward colour — shikisai bijutsu gyotaku, colourful art fish prints, in which fish become one element of a composition rather than proof of a catch (Nippon.com 2026).
The practice left Japan through museums and a book. In 1956 the American Museum of Natural History showed thirty prints by Gyotaku-Kai, an organisation of artists and ichthyologists led by Yoshio Hiyama of the University of Tokyo, curated by the museum's curator of fishes, Francesca LaMonte (AMNH Research Library). Hiyama's Gyotaku: The Art and Technique of the Japanese Fish Print then appeared in English, from the University of Washington Press in 1964 (Hiyama 1964).
The documentary habit survived too. In the shops surveyed in 2020 the largest share of stock was printed in 2002, with very few from before 1985 and a recovery after 2011-2012 (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). Anglers kept printing fish long after they owned cameras; what changed was who the print was for.
The misunderstanding: a print is not a specimen
Gyotaku is often called photography's forerunner. It is not one: the image is taken by contact, not by light. Nor is a print a specimen record. It shows a fish that was handled and pressed, with an eye painted in by hand, and the species written on it still needs a taxonomist to confirm (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). A colour art print usually drops the date and place that would make it evidence at all (Miyazaki & Murase 2020).
The archive is fragile too. Prints stored in shops fade under smoke, sunlight and moisture, and owners have thrown damaged ones away (Hyperallergic 2020).
Frequently asked questions
How is gyotaku made?
Ink goes on the fish and paper is pressed over it, or paper is laid on the fish and ink tamped through it. Both use sumi ink and washi paper (Nippon.com 2026; NPR 2015). The direct method is reversed left to right; the indirect method is not, and is what most colour art prints use.
When did gyotaku begin?
The oldest known print is dated to late February 1839, a crucian carp from the Kinshibori canal in Edo (Miyazaki & Murase 2020; Nippon.com 2026). The first print is still contested, and prints from the 1850s and 1860s are held in museums in Yamagata Prefecture (Hyperallergic 2020).
Can a gyotaku print be used as scientific data?
Partly. Taken straight from the body at life size, it preserves outline, scale rows and fin rays, and the 2020 survey mined locality and date data from 261 rubbings for 218 individuals (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). It is not a measurement-grade specimen: soft tissue deforms, the eye is drawn in, and identifications still need taxonomic validation.
Sources
- Miyazaki, Y., & Murase, A. (2020). Fish rubbings, gyotaku, as a source of historical biodiversity data. ZooKeys 904, 89-101. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.904.47721
- Iwamoto, E. (2026, September 17). Experiencing the Art of Gyotaku Fish Prints. Nippon.com. https://www.nippon.com/en/guide-to-japan/g02636/
- American Museum of Natural History Research Library. Gyotaku: The Impression of a Fish (exhibition record, 21 June - 4 September 1956). https://data.library.amnh.org/archives-authorities/id/amnhc_5000744
- Hiyama, Y. (1964). Gyotaku: The Art and Technique of the Japanese Fish Print. University of Washington Press. https://archive.org/details/gyotakuarttech00hiya
- Smithsonian Magazine (2020). Traditional Japanese Fish Art Could Be a Boon for Conservation. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/traditional-japanese-fish-art-could-be-boon-conservation-180974341/
- NPR, The Salt (2015, August 30). How Fishermen's Bragging Rights Gave Birth To Fine Art. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/08/30/435248291/how-fishermen-s-bragging-rights-gave-birth-to-fine-art
- Bishara, H. (2020). Historic Prints Made by Japanese Fishermen Help Track Endangered Species. Hyperallergic. https://hyperallergic.com/gyotaku/
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