Hayase

The popularity of shin-hanga ('modern print') landscapes with foreign audiences had much to do with the contrivance of composite views to meet Western stereotypes of Japan. Here, Yoshida Hiroshi (1876-1950) has combined a picturesque river view at Hayase, in Shizuoka, with stone and dark timber architecture, a wooden arched bridge, male figures in Western dress and women in kimono, and the ubiquitous sakura (cherry) blossom into a single, rather glorious composition.

Yoshida adopted the device of viewing a middle ground landscape through a veil of foliage and blossom in several similar compositions. One of the foremost shin-hanga artists, Yoshida was a yoga ‘Western-style picture’ watercolourist. The delicate touch of the printers has enhanced the fluid transparency of colour and dainty brushwork of the original design for this print.

Yoshida had visited the United States early in his career and exhibited prints there in 1899, revisiting to market his works between 1923 and 1925. He designed prints for Watanabe Shozaburo, the great shin-hanga publisher, from 1920, and after 1925 began publishing his works independently, exhibiting in Japan and internationally with considerable commercial success.

Source: David Bell, 'A new vision: modern Japanese prints from the Heriot collection', Tuhinga, 31 (2020), forthcoming.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    May 2020