Inuki Tachihara, a 62-year-old self-taught woodblock artist, has devoted half his life to reviving the lost beauty of ukiyo-e masterpieces from the Edo Period (1603-1867) by printing them exactly as they would have been made then, with their original colors. Surviving prints have mostly faded over the years.
Tachihara has been doing this for more than three decades. His first effort was to reproduce the original, vivid colors of "Akafuji" (Mt. Fuji at sunrise), an acclaimed work by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849).
The beauty of that work in its original colors "would probably have blown me away," he said.