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- After the death of the last great masters, chiefly Hokusai and Hiroshige, the traditional art no longer possessed any potential drive, and the publisher-artist- artisan system of print making became nothing but a barrier restricting the freedom of the artist. . . .It may be said that the modern print fsosaku hanga) movement started as a drastic reaction to the decadence of the ukiyo-e, which had become over�ripe in technical skill but quite impoverished in artistic value.1
Between 1952 and 1975, he made nearly three hundred abstract prints, but would end his career working in a realistic style.
The other great landscape artist of the first generation of shin hanga artists was Hasui Kawase. He was a shy but hard working pupil of the Japanese-style artist, Kiyokata Kaburagi. In 1918 Hasui was persuaded by Watanabe to turn his paintings into woodblock prints. This venture was immediately successful. Hasui showed great sensitivity and skill at depict�ing snow, rain, sunrise and sunset. His architectural studies were excellent as were his depictions of water scenes. He was most admired for his quiet snow scenes and indigo night views. Hasui combined traditional ukiyo-e elements with Western aesthetics to create original prints which had West�ern perspective, but were distinctly Japanese. His prints were exceedingly complex and his overprinting sometimes involved as many as twenty-five blocks per print.
While painting, Hasui was aware that he was designing it to be turned into a print. He said he actually began visualizing his prints while he looked at the landscape even before he put brush to paper. He wrote of his print production as follows:
I draw the original thinking of the final product. There are occasions when the final prints do not measure up to original expectations. There are also happy occasions when the prints turn out to be superior to original paintings because they are prints.
As true with any occupation, it requires training. One must try hard constantly. There can be no relaxation at anytime. One must work diligently throughout life.
Woodblock prints in particular involve the work of more than one person. It is like gidayu�Japanese puppetry�with puppet handlers, singers and musicians.
There is no problem if the carver carves faithfully in accordance with the artist's design. It is quite troublesome if the carver tries to express his own individuality. Carving faithfully requires experienced technical hands.
In the case of printing we must interact very closely. A less experienced printer might waste seven or eight trial prints before a most talented one is made. If someone is experienced we can decide on the final print after two or three trials. It occurs occasionally that, despite best efforts, a successful print is still not produced. This is
1 Yoshi Toshi and Yuki Rei, Japanese Printmaking: A Handbook of Traditional and Modern Techniques, Rutland and Tokyo, 1966, 6.
16 AGGV COLLECTS/SHIN HANGA
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