Landscape to City: A Collection of 20th Century Japanese Prints
Landscape to City: A Collection of 20th Century Japanese Prints
Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) | Lugano (Rugano machi); together with a woodblock-printed colour block process set | Taisho period, early 20th century
Lot Closed
November 18, 02:30 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950)
Lugano (Rugano machi); together with a woodblock-printed colour block process set
Taisho period, early 20th century
woodblock print, signed in Japanese in black ink Yoshida with artist's red flower seal, and in Roman script to the bottom right margin Hiroshi Yoshida, titled in English and in Japanese as above, with artist's jizuri (self-printed) seal, dated Taisho juyonen saku (made in 1925); accompanied by a set of 41 proof prints of each colour block, showing the printing sequence for the print Lugano (Rugano machi)
Each: 26 x 39 cm., 10¼ x 15½ in.
From his series of European landscapes, here Yoshida depicts a warm, glowing view of the town of Lugano, located on the border between Switzerland and Italy. The red-tiled roofs graduate from orange to pale rose in the sunlight, while the white plaster facades scintillate in a euphony of shadow and light. Viewed from a high vantage point, the boats drifting in the waters of Lake Lugano are dwarfed in the great distance and are equally reduced in scale by the sight of towering rocks and their reflections to the upper right quadrant of the scene.
This process set illustrates the close involvement between Yoshida and his artisans during the printing process. Eschewing imitation of the traditional methods used in earlier ukiyo-e prints, Yoshida strove to develop several novel techniques in the print production. Along with the combination of ink with unusual pigment types for a greater breadth of palette, Yoshida employed a grey colour block (nezumi-ban) to better render shadow. For an impression of sharpness, he used zinc plates to affect the registration of the block on paper. Here, the artist’s devotion to the craft of woodblock printing extended to the use of forty-one colour impressions for a single print, an extremely laborious and costly mode of printing. By engaging in this multistep process, Yoshida propagated the invention of new effects and firmly rebuked the criticism that the Shin-Hanga movement was too entrenched in the traditional hanmoto system, where the artist was regarded simply as a designer.1
Although other publisher's, including Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), issued colour block process sets for the Western market in order to illustrate an artist's stages of printing, a set such as this by Yoshida is rare. It is thought that the artist created sets like this primarily for educational use and reference.
Although other publisher's, such as Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962), issued process sets illustrating their artist's methods of printing for commercial purposes, a set such as this by Yoshida is rare. It is thought that Yoshida made such sets for educational use and reference.
1. Kendall H. Brown and Hollis Goodall-Cristante, Shin-hanga: New Prints in Modern Japan, (Los Angeles, 1996) p. 40-42.
For a similar impression of the same print in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number 50.2950, go to:
https://collections.mfa.org/objects/255010
For another impression in the collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria (The AGGV), Canada, object number 1997.038.001, go to: