Kawase Hasui
1883-1957
Twenty Views of Tokyo: Shiba Zojo Temple
(Tokyo Nijukkei: Shiba Zojoji)
signed Hasui with artist's seal Kawase, the publisher's round Watanabe (Hotei 'A') seal within the composition above the signature, and rectangular (Hotei 'B') seal on the left margin, Hanken shoyu Watanabe Shozaburo (Copyright ownership Watanabe Shozaburo), followed by the print title Shiba Zojoji, and the date below, Taisho juyonen saku (Taisho 14 [1925])
oban tate-e 15 1/4 by 10 3/8 in., 38.6 by 26.2 cm
In recent years this print has vaulted from Hasui's most popular print, to the most famous shin-hanga landscape, and most recently, possibly one of the most recognizable Japanese woodblock prints of all, achieving its status as an icon of the genre in just under a century. This steady climb to fame began at its inception, it was a great success when Watanabe released it as the first print in the Twenty Views of Tokyo series which was published between 1925 and 1930.
A popular print in its own time which has reached near-iconic status in ours, differentiating between the quality of impressions is increasingly important but remains all the more challenging because of Watanabe’s incredibly high standards of production. An attempt to correlate numerous published images available in books in our library (which is large but by no means complete) and online from various sources including museums, galleries and auctions houses, has both clarified and undone our understanding of this print. Utilizing a large pool of images has resulted in the abandonment of most theories regarding which differences indicates earlier or later printings. Recognizing that Watanabe issued several print runs in a short period of time, a comparison of examples reveals remarkably few differences in impressions, a testament to the extraordinary skill of the carvers and printers. One detectable change to the blocks is that the pattern of snowflakes seen on the figure’s scarf changes at some point, presumably somewhat late in the lifetime of the blocks. That said, there are very subtle differences in how the blocks were handled by the printers which could be taken into consideration when evaluating an impression. The color of the figure's scarf ranges from purple to blueberry (possibly due to the loss of eosine pink from the original purple color), and the color of the figure's inner sleeve and hem range from rosy-pink to a red hue matching the temple, which ranges from brick red to a deep red. In addition, different impressions emphasize the contrast of the shadows in the background and employ more or less grey sujizuri (swirling baren marks) in the snow. Most variations are questions of connoisseurship and personal preference and cannot be relied upon solely as indicators dating of a specific impression.
This impression has perhaps the most interesting combination of seals, the much-coveted wide rectangular ‘A’ (Hotei ‘B’) seal in the left margin, and Watanabe’s 6mm round seal discretely placed beneath the window at the far left which departs from our general (and sometimes erroneous) understanding of their use. The 6mm seal is found on impressions of Hasui prints up until at least the mid-1920s, before changing regulations necessitated the introduction of a variety of longer copyright seals usually found in the margins. The round seal then returns to use around the time of the conclusion of the war (during which print production had dramatically decreased). Thus, if a design that was first issued in the late 1920s or 1930s has a 6mm round seal it has been usually identified as a post-war printing (in contrast, if the round seal is similar but slightly larger, approx. 7mm, it is usually regarded as posthumous). This impression, as well as an impression with the 6mm round seal in MFA, Boston which was purchased from a collector in 1935, belies that truism. What’s more, surely one of the earliest published images of this print in the West would be the full-page color illustration in the November 1927 issue of The Studio Magazine (London, Vol. 94, no. 416) which also has the round seal in the same location on the print. The image was included as a supplement to the magazine without any comment in the nearby report on the Tokyo art scene by the preeminent art critic and historian, Harada Jiro (1878-1963) who had written more extensively about Watanabe and his artists the previous year in the April 1926 issue. And curiously, we have yet to find an example with the combination of the round 6mm seal and the series title cartouche. As such, it seems very likely that Watanabe was using the round seal on some impressions of this print in the mid-late 1920s, before he decided to group it with other prints into the Twenty Views of Tokyo series.
References:
The Studio: A Magazine of Fine and Applied Art, London, Vol. 91, No. 397, April 1926, p. 253-259
The Studio: A Magazine of Fine and Applied Art, Vol. 94, No. 416, November 1927, p. 377
Dorothy Blair, Modern Japanese Prints, The Toledo Museum of Art, 1930, no. 81
Kato, Junzo, comp., Kindai Nihon hanga taikei, 1975-76, Vol. III, pl. 14
Narazaki Muneshige, Kawase Hasui mokuhanga shu, 1979, p. 56, no. 147
Irwin J. Pachter, Kawase Hasui and His Contemporaries, 1986, p. 55, no. 42
Kendall H. Brown, Kawase Hasui: The complete woodblock prints, 2003, p. 356, no. 147
Kendall H. Brown, Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces, 2004, p. 55, no. 19 (also cover)
Shimada City Museum, Kawase Hasui, The landscape woodblock prints of the Taisho and Showa periods, 2005, p. 60, no. 91
Folk Museum of Ota City, Hasui Kawase, 2007, p. 31, no. 17
Abe Publishing, Kawase Hasui Woodblock Prints, 2009, p. 68, no. 94
Chiba City Museum of Art, Kawase Hasui, 2013, p. 87, no. 81
Folk Museum of Ota City, Hasui Kawase, 2013, p. 58-59, nos. 56 & 57
Carolyn M. Putney, Fresh Impressions: Early Modern Japanese Prints, Toledo Museum of Art, 2013, pp. 140-141, cat. no. 85
Kendall Brown, Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2014, p. 41, no. III.9
Chris Uhlenbeck, Amy Reigle Newland and Maureen de Vries, Waves of Renewal: Modern Japanese Prints, 1900-1960, Selection from the Nihon no hanga Collection, 2016, p. 34, fig. 3
Ukiyo-e Modern, Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, 2018, p. 88, no.137
Chris Uhlenbeck, Shin hanga: The New Prints of Japan 1900-1960, Ludion, 2022, p. 184, no. 166
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession no. 35.1890 (round publisher seal; purchased from Mrs. Wilmot R. Evans, Boston, Dec. 5, 1935)
Mike Peters, States of Hasui's Zojoji Temple in Shiba, moku-hanga.org, 2023 (for detailed analysis of progression of printings)
(inv. no. 10-5786)
price: Sold
