@article{oai:tobunken.repo.nii.ac.jp:00006836,
 author = {秋山, 光和 and Akiyama, Terukazu},
 issue = {208},
 journal = {美術研究, The bijutsu kenkyu : the journal of art studies},
 month = {Jun},
 note = {We frequently find the term sumi-gaki (sumi meaning Chinese ink and gaki, drawing or writing) in literary works of the Heian Period (ninth-twelfth centuries). Because this term has an unexpectedly delicate meaning and is important for study of painting, notably secular art, of the period, the writer herein discusses what it actually means through researches on literature and existing painting of the time. 
     Of course the term is one originally used in reference to painting. In the regular process of painting at the time, the artist first laid out his composition in Chinese ink drawing; after showing it to his orderer and making amendments at the latter's request, he copied the drawing on paper or silk base and added detailed parts; over this drawing he subsequently applied the pigments. There were two different methods of colouring. One was to apply a thick coating of pigments so that the first drawing was concealed, and black lines were drawn anew over the colouring. (This method was called tsukuri-e at the time.) The other was to apply the colour thinly or avoiding the drawing, so that the first drawing remained the final contours. In both methods the drawing for the general composition and the description of details is the fundamental and most important part of the whole work, and is the part in which the artst's characteristics are displayed. “Sumi-gaki” as a technical term in painting refers to this process. Sometimes the under-drawing itself was referred to as sumi-gaki. (Painting in China ink monochrome, in which the use of colour was not expected, was called sumi-e or ink painting. The term sumi-gaki was never or seldom used to denote ink-painting.)
     The sumi-gaki, being an importent portion of the work, must have naturally been done by the chief artist himself. It is actually known that when several artists worked jontly on such large-scale paintings as screens for use in a Court ceremony, the leading one of them took charge or the sumi-gaki. Even in cases of smaller-scale works for a single artist and his atelier, the artist chiefly worked on the sumi-gaki and employed an assistant for the colouring, as is evidenced by statements in diaries of contemporary court nobles (for example, the Shōyō-ki, a diary of Fujiwara. Sanesuke in 1023 and '24).
     The importance of sumi-gaki led to a new usage of the term in which it also meant the ability of artists in this field and also one of the grades of the eshi (professional painters in service of the court). It was during the second half of the ninth century that an official institution of artists, called E-dokoro, was established in the Imperial Court The organizastion of this art academy is described in the Saikyū-ki, a manuscript recording rules, manners and customs in the court written by Minamoto Takaaki in about the middle of the tenth century, according to which it was as follows. The head of the institution was the Betto (administrator); the next position was the chief of the artists (Azukari); and directly under him were artists of the position named Sumi-gaki, who were practically in charge of executing the painting with the assistance of minor artists. Because the Sumi-gaki was an important position for artists, it was regulated that when there were too many candidates the appointment to the position was to be made arfter contest. The second chapter, Hahakigi, of the Genji Monogatari (Tales of Genji), a romance story written in the early eleventh century by the court lady Murasaki Shikibu, has a passage stating that a certain artist was selected as a Sumi-gaki out of the many distinguished painters in the E-dokoro. The term Sumi-gaki used herein has heretore been inteterpreted to mean ink under-drawing or ink-painting, but judged from the context of this paragraph it is more reasonable to understand it as referring to the post of master artists in the E-dokoro Academy.
     The fact that the term sumi-gaki, originally denoting one of the techniques of paintng, came to mean a high grade of artists, proves how highly the skill in black under-drawing was esteemed as the fundamental requirement for painters. The skill in drawing was trained and polished among professional painters ever since the ninth century, until it gave birth to such great masterworks as the Shigisan Engi scroll-painting in the second half of the twelfth century. The drawing of figures, discovered in 1957 on that part of a door-leave of the Phoenix Hall at the Byōdō-in Temple in Kyoto which had previously been concealed under border planks, evidence that the technique of sumi-gaki had achieved full progress by about 1053, the year in which the Phoenix Hall was constructed.},
 pages = {37--49},
 title = {平安時代の「すみがき」について},
 year = {1960}
}