THE LOTUS POND HASUI

This pond is near a Benten Shrine.  

#lotuspond #japaneseprint #hasui 

This is a masterwork in how to have one dominant tone or color and use it to make the details in other colors stand out. There's a blueish gray green or 3 print plates of blue gray gray and mid green with the colors blending to create a dominant middle tone which emphasizes the bridge the flowers and the kimonos.

Kawase Hasui's Lotus Pond

#KawaseHasui #Hasui #shinhanga #japaneseprints

Some people regard Hasui's works as sentimental or sweet or merely charming so I want to tell you a short story about him. His family at first willn't let him study art, Western or traditional, but he finally as an adult got training in both and went to work for a company that supported the #ShinHanga style.

During the Great Kanto Quake most of his sketch books and the wooden printing blocks for all the major series he had done so far were destroyed. Hundreds of images of pre Quake Tokyo and Japan lost!

What did he do?

He got new sketch books as soon as possible and created a new series from memory and observation.

His work once dismissed as catering for tourists and nostalgia is more popular now.