Lost Hokusai Drawing Acquired by the British Museum

[stlukesguild]

Lost Hokusai Drawings Acquired by the British Museum

 

[musket]

They're drawings in their own right, but what they really are are designs for prints. There is a Japanese name for this--hanshita, the outline drawing for the key block.

hanshita

 

[Desforges]

this is lovely. I really love all Hokusai's work.
At a garage sale in Canada , I picked up this piece by J. René Paulz, done from a work by Hokusai ( wild Geese). It is an engraving done on a tile of graphite.
Here is the original by Hokusai.
Then, the piece that I bought. I found out that the piece was originally sold in France at an auction.
I only paid $20.
I did a search and found that J. René Paulz had been a prisoner in a concentration camp (Hohenstein in 1940 in Poland.
The first coloured photo is from the auction on the internet, the second is my piece on the balcony

 

[musket]

Actually, if you love Japanese woodblock prints, you really love a lot of people's work. But you'll never know their names.

 

[Artyczar]

I love a lot of Japanese woodblock printing too. Some of it is absolutely mindboggling.

 

[musket]

I know a good deal about the process now. Until the advent of sōsaku-hanga, the "creative print" movement in the early-20th Century, woodblock prints were the combined work of specialists. Creative prints were all the work of one artist. Shin-hanga, "new prints," starting at around the same time and lasting until the mid-20th Century, retained the older way of doing things.

Sōsaku-hanga were about all about the self, but the method is now in use for any kind of subject. Very, very few individual artists are capable of producing prints of the quality of ukiyo-e or shin-hanga.

These shin-hanga prints are by Ohara Koson (1877-1945), the master of kacho-e (birds and flowers). They may look simple compared to many ukiyo-e, but there is much in them that I don't understand at all. I don't know how these effects were produced. The delicacy and fluidity of the keyblock carving is almost incomprehensible, and a great deal is not outlined, not part of the keyblock, as everything is in ukiyo-e. No one is doing anything like this now. It requires too many years just to learn how to do one aspect of the work.

 

[Desforges]

Thank you, musket. Interesting, making me curious.

 

[Artyczar]

So incredible. Thanks Musket. ❤

 

[musket]

Another fave by Koson, such beautiful restraint...

 

[musket]

This heron in the rain by Koson is embossed, a technique often used for kimono in ukiyo-e. If there is a keyblock outline in this one, it is so perfectly registered with the black background it's invisible.

 

[E.J.H.]

Beautiful works in this topic, especially the birds.

 

[Trier]

Hey musket -
These are incredibley beautiful. I have long admired Japanese prints and don't know how I could have missed these.
Thanks for posting these.
If there is a best source , or sources, for finding these, besides generic net searching, I would like to know.

 

[musket]

Everybody is welcome.

There's a book on Koson, called Crows, Cranes and Camellias, but I don't have it-- lotta money, even used.

Many ukiyo-e and shin hanga prints can be seen here--

Ukiyo-e Gallery

Koson was also an accomplished watercolorist, and many of his designs were influenced by this. Many of his prints were in this narrow format, which I'm sure has a Japanese term, but I don't know what it is offhand.

 

[Trier]

Thanks musket, lookin up right now.

 

[viridian2020]

Thanks.

 

[musket]

I greatly desire to own a print by Koson. Most were published by Watanabe and sent to the west. Though relatively inexpensive compared to Edo prints, they're still above my means.

 

[joe1It]

thanks stlukesguild.
Musket, thank you very much for your precious thought and for all the information on these works.

A few months ago I saw a documentary on Van Gogh and Japan. a nice documentary that this art I think is wonderful

quickly they showed that they were preparing woodcuts, talked about the prints and talked, hinted at it (about the wave, about the wave they talked and showed a little bit of the process, they then said that Van Gogh bought a lot of them, he admired them and he wanted for a commercial period, to resell them but perhaps that project did not take off, however he liked them, he was inspired by them, and they said that he loved Japan very much and had an idealized vision of it they said,) and to those who do it currently, they are fantastic works and not I had an idea of everything behind it, very nice to read this and see these wonderful images. thank you.