Shinsui | Snowy Night, from the series of Twelve Images of Modern Beauties
伊東深水 Ito Shinsui（1898-1972）
新美人十二姿之内 雪夜
Snowy Night, from the series of Twelve Images of Modern Beauties
1923
木版画｜纵绘大大判｜43.3cm×26cm
Woodblock-print ｜Large Oban tate-e｜43.3cm×26cm
限定200枚的30枚；品相非常好
200 limited edition, number 30; mint condition
百年前，飘雪的夜，一位身着玄色和服的女子肩倚和伞走入画中。低垂的夜幕已然足够灰黑，她的出现，顿时让夜的昏暗也具备了微妙的结构感。利休鼠色的伞面似华盖将她包围，细密交错的几何形伞骨放射环绕，精巧如手绘的穹顶图纸。美人乌黑的盘发油亮，映衬着凝脂般的面容，眼眸若有所思，淡淡望向一侧。许是夜雪的寒气过于冷冽，平日里莞尔微笑的绛唇，此刻已用衣袖掩蔽。于举手投足间绽放的优雅灵魂，温暖地装点了整个冬夜。
本作刊印于1923年1月，是极为珍稀的关东大地震前作品；加之限量发行仅200张（本作编号35），珍贵程度不言而喻，是深水最罕有亦最高值的美人画作品之一。全画品相几近完美，摺痕清晰分明，纵然世纪变迁，愈发历久弥新。
Mysterious. Elegant. Both warm and cold at the same time. A woman with secrets. And one striking, enticing, even sexy, touch of red…
Of all of his wonderful prints of women, this design – “Snowy Night” from 1923 -- is considered Ito Shinsui’s masterpiece; indeed, in the realm of Shin Hanga prints of beautiful women – bijin – this is among the most famous and beloved.
Produced just two months before the Great Kanto earthquake, it shows a beauty in a light snow beneath a wonderfully drawn traditional umbrella. Shinsui apparently based his prints on real women, but we don’t know who she is. The scholar Lawrence Smith posits that she’s a noted Geisha. By hiding half her face, the artist only adds to the mystery. She is like a dream, passing like a wisp of blown snow in the freezing night.
While sometimes male artists create sensual allure by removing a woman’s clothing, in this case Shinsui has done the opposite – we are attracted to her because she’s so completely covered up. Sometimes less is more. She looks away. What is she thinking? She seems somehow vulnerable and powerful at the same time, with control of her destiny.
The printing and somber palette of this print is extraordinary. Look at the delicate web design on her scarf and the intricate circle-upon-circle skeleton of the umbrella. And the tiny glimpse of her red inner sleeve.
Shinsui started with landscapes – there is a legend that his work inspired the great Kawese Hasui to go in that direction. But in time Shinsui find his true métier – portraits of women. With this print we are forever thankful that he did.
Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.
伊東深水 Ito Shinsui（1898-1972）
新美人十二姿之内 雪夜
Snowy Night, from the series of Twelve Images of Modern Beauties
1923
木版画｜纵绘大大判｜43.3cm×26cm
Woodblock-print ｜Large Oban tate-e｜43.3cm×26cm
限定200枚的30枚；品相非常好
200 limited edition, number 30; mint condition
百年前，飘雪的夜，一位身着玄色和服的女子肩倚和伞走入画中。低垂的夜幕已然足够灰黑，她的出现，顿时让夜的昏暗也具备了微妙的结构感。利休鼠色的伞面似华盖将她包围，细密交错的几何形伞骨放射环绕，精巧如手绘的穹顶图纸。美人乌黑的盘发油亮，映衬着凝脂般的面容，眼眸若有所思，淡淡望向一侧。许是夜雪的寒气过于冷冽，平日里莞尔微笑的绛唇，此刻已用衣袖掩蔽。于举手投足间绽放的优雅灵魂，温暖地装点了整个冬夜。
本作刊印于1923年1月，是极为珍稀的关东大地震前作品；加之限量发行仅200张（本作编号35），珍贵程度不言而喻，是深水最罕有亦最高值的美人画作品之一。全画品相几近完美，摺痕清晰分明，纵然世纪变迁，愈发历久弥新。
Mysterious. Elegant. Both warm and cold at the same time. A woman with secrets. And one striking, enticing, even sexy, touch of red…
Of all of his wonderful prints of women, this design – “Snowy Night” from 1923 -- is considered Ito Shinsui’s masterpiece; indeed, in the realm of Shin Hanga prints of beautiful women – bijin – this is among the most famous and beloved.
Produced just two months before the Great Kanto earthquake, it shows a beauty in a light snow beneath a wonderfully drawn traditional umbrella. Shinsui apparently based his prints on real women, but we don’t know who she is. The scholar Lawrence Smith posits that she’s a noted Geisha. By hiding half her face, the artist only adds to the mystery. She is like a dream, passing like a wisp of blown snow in the freezing night.
While sometimes male artists create sensual allure by removing a woman’s clothing, in this case Shinsui has done the opposite – we are attracted to her because she’s so completely covered up. Sometimes less is more. She looks away. What is she thinking? She seems somehow vulnerable and powerful at the same time, with control of her destiny.
The printing and somber palette of this print is extraordinary. Look at the delicate web design on her scarf and the intricate circle-upon-circle skeleton of the umbrella. And the tiny glimpse of her red inner sleeve.
Shinsui started with landscapes – there is a legend that his work inspired the great Kawese Hasui to go in that direction. But in time Shinsui find his true métier – portraits of women. With this print we are forever thankful that he did.
Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.
伊東深水 Ito Shinsui（1898-1972）
新美人十二姿之内 雪夜
Snowy Night, from the series of Twelve Images of Modern Beauties
1923
木版画｜纵绘大大判｜43.3cm×26cm
Woodblock-print ｜Large Oban tate-e｜43.3cm×26cm
限定200枚的30枚；品相非常好
200 limited edition, number 30; mint condition
百年前，飘雪的夜，一位身着玄色和服的女子肩倚和伞走入画中。低垂的夜幕已然足够灰黑，她的出现，顿时让夜的昏暗也具备了微妙的结构感。利休鼠色的伞面似华盖将她包围，细密交错的几何形伞骨放射环绕，精巧如手绘的穹顶图纸。美人乌黑的盘发油亮，映衬着凝脂般的面容，眼眸若有所思，淡淡望向一侧。许是夜雪的寒气过于冷冽，平日里莞尔微笑的绛唇，此刻已用衣袖掩蔽。于举手投足间绽放的优雅灵魂，温暖地装点了整个冬夜。
本作刊印于1923年1月，是极为珍稀的关东大地震前作品；加之限量发行仅200张（本作编号35），珍贵程度不言而喻，是深水最罕有亦最高值的美人画作品之一。全画品相几近完美，摺痕清晰分明，纵然世纪变迁，愈发历久弥新。
Mysterious. Elegant. Both warm and cold at the same time. A woman with secrets. And one striking, enticing, even sexy, touch of red…
Of all of his wonderful prints of women, this design – “Snowy Night” from 1923 -- is considered Ito Shinsui’s masterpiece; indeed, in the realm of Shin Hanga prints of beautiful women – bijin – this is among the most famous and beloved.
Produced just two months before the Great Kanto earthquake, it shows a beauty in a light snow beneath a wonderfully drawn traditional umbrella. Shinsui apparently based his prints on real women, but we don’t know who she is. The scholar Lawrence Smith posits that she’s a noted Geisha. By hiding half her face, the artist only adds to the mystery. She is like a dream, passing like a wisp of blown snow in the freezing night.
While sometimes male artists create sensual allure by removing a woman’s clothing, in this case Shinsui has done the opposite – we are attracted to her because she’s so completely covered up. Sometimes less is more. She looks away. What is she thinking? She seems somehow vulnerable and powerful at the same time, with control of her destiny.
The printing and somber palette of this print is extraordinary. Look at the delicate web design on her scarf and the intricate circle-upon-circle skeleton of the umbrella. And the tiny glimpse of her red inner sleeve.
Shinsui started with landscapes – there is a legend that his work inspired the great Kawese Hasui to go in that direction. But in time Shinsui find his true métier – portraits of women. With this print we are forever thankful that he did.
Interested in purchasing?
Please contact us.
Ito Shinsui (1898-1972）
Born into poverty in 1898, Ito Shinsui was forced to take a job with the Tokyo Printing Co. when he was just 12. This bad luck turned out to be good luck for him, and for anyone who loves art and Japanese woodblock prints.
Naturally talented, but also a determined hard worker, he continued his education and studied Nihonga painting in the evenings. His talent was recognized at work, and he was moved to the company’s drawing section, where he became an illustrator – a skill he used throughout his life. But fine art exerted an irresistible pull. He became a student of the Ukiyoe painter Kaburagi Kiyokata and began winning prizes.
Like so many Shin Hanga artists, his connection with the great publisher Watanabe Shozaburo cemented his career and reputation. His first print for Watanabe was “Before the Mirror” in 1916. But here’s the twist: we know Shinsui as the great artist of beauties – bijin. But his first love actually was landscapes, and his wonderful, atmospheric and tonalist “Eight Views of Omi” remains a highpoint of early Shin Hanga landscape designs.
In fact, those early views were so well received that they prompted Hiroshi Yoshida and another Kiyotaka pupil, none other than Kawase Hasui, to pursue landscapes themselves. This, in turn, contributed to Shinsui’s switch to female portraits. Perhaps the landscape genre felt too crowded. But this became his true fame. His women were often caught at private moments, at the mirror or after the bath, gazing introspectively, deep in thought. Other times, they were out in the world, dressed elegantly, beautiful in the pouring rain or in the swirling snow. They are captured for all time in his greatest collections — the first and second, “Series of Modern Beauties" and "Twelve Images of Modern Beauties."
In the end, he and Watanabe executed 60 landscape prints and 100 portrait prints together, in addition to the occasional work Shinsui did for others. Throughout it all, he continued to paint. In his later years was acclaimed as a national treasure, his work embraced around the world. A long journey from the day that little 12-year-old boy started his first day in the noisy, dirty printing shop.