Detail View: Louis Black Collection of Japanese Prints:

Louis Black Collection of Japanese Prints, Art History Dept, Cummings Arts Center, Connecticut College, New London

HASUI

Japan

Kintai Bridge on Spring Evening, Yamaguchi

Woodcut

36 x 24 cm

landscape

water

boats

Louis Black, 1955

boat emerging below wooden arching bridge, pink flowered plant in foreground “As a relatively inexperienced print designer, Hasui showed his sketches to the prominent publisher, Watanabe Shōzaburō. Impressed by Hasui’s natural talent, Watanabe encouraged the artist to concentrate on landscapes, particularly traditional scenes of Japan. Hasui’s extensive travels to remote parts of the country allowed him to create the tranquil and partly idealized landscapes for which he became well known.6 The prints produced out of Hasui and Watanabe’s collaboration captured the Western eye because they provided foreign buyers with the fantasy of an exotic, still feudal Japan. Indigenous to Japan, cherry blossoms add to the traditional nature of most shin-hanga prints. In Kintai Bridge on Spring Evening, Hasui forces the viewer to observe the print through a sea of pink cherry blossoms. What might otherwise be a stereotypical image of either a Japanese bridge or cherry blossoms, the bridge set against the iconic flowers, boldly depicted in the foreground, infuse the scene with energy, color, and perspective. While the cherry blossom may simply seem like a beautiful flower to Westerners, it holds special meaning in Japan. Called sakura, the cherry blossom often symbolizes life, death, and rebirth. Cherry blossoms are particularly poignant during times of war due to their nationalistic symbolism. While many Western buyers may have simply liked the beauty of the idyllic cherry, in reality, sakura infused prints of this period with a strong patriotic sentiment.” --Sydney LaBlonde ‘08