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- hanga included not only woodblocks, but also lithographs, mezzotint, aquatint, copper etchings, silkscreens or any other technique of repro�duction. Many of the modern print artists are able to roam freely among the different techniques, and continue to experiment with an infinite range of images and effects, as they push forward the frontiers of the modern print in Japan. They have used just about any material and technique that they feel gives a good impression, such as concrete, paper stencil, glass, cardboard, leaves, string, shoe heels, hand rubbing, waxed paper and modern plywood. A great many modern Japanese printmakers are now using plywood as it is much easierto obtain than the traditional block of cherry wood, which is extremely expensive and re�strictive in size. The high quality handmade paper used by the Japanese print artists is also an important factor which allows them to produce fine textured prints.
In contrast to the traditional ukiyo-e prints, which were small and stored away between viewings, the modern prints were often large and intended to be hung on the wall to be looked at and appreciated from a distance like paintings.
Since the early part of the twentieth century, the modern Japanese print movement has received wide recognition and support from abroad, especially in Europe and the United States. However, it took a long time for it to be accepted in Japan.
At first, the print artists were criticized by the Japanese government for their revolutionary views, and were largely ignored by the Japanese art world, but finally in the mid-1950�s several international awards forced official Japanese acceptance and recognition. In short, the modern print movement in Japan may never have got firmly established without the interest and support shown by foreigners.
No other modern Japanese art form has had such a tremendous impact on the international scene since 1945 as the print. The creative freedom, the aesthetical sensibilities and the concepts of form of the modern artist in Japan seem to be more attuned to the printmaker�s medium than to the arts of painting and sculpture. Instead of being caught up with the in�fluence of Western art as Japanese painters and sculptors seemed to be, the Japanese print artists showed superior adaptability by assimilating the foreign elements and turning them into a style distinctly their own.
It is very ironic than many modern Japanese print artists were influenced by the ideas and techniques of nineteenth-century European Impres�sionists and Post-Impressionists, who in the first place had derived much of their inspiration from the traditional Japanese ukiyo-e print. The Japanese artists also received much stimulation from Western Expres�sionists, Cubists, Futurists, Surrealists and Abstractionists of the twentieth century. From this we can see that there was a lively exchange of ideas and influences in progress between the East and the West, and the old and the new. From this connection some of the most remarkable and appealing prints of this century have developed, and the continuing
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