Hasui | Tsuchizaki, Akita from Souvenirs of Travel

$0.00

川瀨巴水 Kawase Hasui ( 1883–1957)

日本风景集(关西篇) 赞州多度津
Lighthouse at Tadotsu in Sanshu, from Collected Views of Japan, II

1936

木版画 | 纵绘大大判 | 39cm x 26cm
Woodblock-print | Large Oban tate-e | 39cm x 26cm

初摺;品相非常好
First edition; great condition

$5,500

《日本风景集(关西篇)》,是巴水于1933至1941年间创作的风景画系列。全套共计24幅,囊括了大阪、兵库、奈良、京都等日本关西多地的风景名胜,整体气质优雅而辽远。赞州,即赞岐国,旧日本南海道令制国,原国域位于今日本香川县。其内仲多度郡的多度津町是一处北朝濑户内海的小城,与我国上海市普陀区为友好都市。本作的取景地至今不可考,有一定可能是多度津港旧外港东防波堤的某处。青石板铺就的堤道上浪迹未干,石质系船柱上拴着几股粗麻绳。道中高高的石砌高灯笼造型简明有力,曲直线复合的几何设计使它看上去并不显得陈旧,在霞光的轻抚下似乎还萌生了几分超现实的宗教感。远山外,海面湛蓝无波,一面白帆划过,留下一张谜一般的画作,一个谜一般的旧梦。

Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.

Inquiry

Kawase Hasui (1883–1957)

Kawase Hasui is perhaps the single most recognized woodblock artist of the Shin Hanga – new print – movement in the early- to mid-20th Century. Because he specialized in landscapes, many would say he was a successor to Hiroshige, noting his enveloping portrayals of nature, and his thoughtful placement of humans within them. But that would be too easy, because Hiroshige and Hasui in many ways could not be more different.

Whereas Hiroshige played with flat plains of negative space, Hasui embraced Western painting styles – if not techniques – to display water reflections, shadows and shades of light in all its combinations. You can easily discern the time of day and season from the light. Signs of the 20th Century Japan are everywhere – rickshaws, cars, telephone poles, steamships, even western-style umbrellas and rain slickers. Yes, he embraced snow and rain scenes like Hiroshige, and many famous views, but they live in a three-dimensional, modern world.

His prints are hugely sought-after today, with condition being extremely important to collectors. Many of the original woodblocks were destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1923; finding examples of those pre-quake prints is challenging, indeed.

He was born Bunjiro Kawase in Tokyo in 1883, the son of a merchant. Hasui studied Japanese-style painting with Kiyokata and Western painting at the Hakubakai. He exhibited his first painting at 19. The publisher Shozaburo Watanabe – seeing the appeal of woodblock prints to the Western tourists then flooding Japan – took Hasui under his wing. The young man travelled widely to capture landscapes, making sketches as he went. Looking at the detail and perspective in some of his prints, one wonders: did he work from photographs as well?

Hasui’s Zojoji Temple in Snow – with a woman pushing against a furious blizzard with a traditional umbrella -- has been named an Intangible Cultural Treasure, the greatest artistic honor in postwar Japan. He died in 1957.

The publishers Doi, Kawaguchi, Sakai and others also produced some Hasui works. Learning to read the seals on the prints, and therefore dating them, takes time but is well worth it. If you can find this book at a reasonable price, go for it. It’s all there.