Hasui 巴水: Kegon Falls, Nikkô 華厳滝 (Nikkô Kegon-no-taki)

Artist: Kawase Hasui 巴水 (1883-1957)
Title: Kegon Falls, Nikkô 華厳滝 (Nikkô Kegon-no-taki)
Date: 1931, autumn

The celebrated Kegon Waterfall flows past autumn foliage and highly textured cliffs. The water is dark blue at the top and transforms to mist at the bottom. There is blindprinting in the water, which is very unusual for a Hasui print. Falling water must be one of the most challenging effects to depict using woodblock printing. Narazaki wrote “...this is an excellent piece, in the depiction of the power and the volume of the water”. The contributions of the carver and printer cannot be underestimated, especially in such a relatively large work. Hasui created a number of prints with this waterfall as its subject. The one-hundred meter high Kegon Falls is located in Lake Chuzenji in Nikko National Park, and is especially popular during the autumn foliage months. Provenance: Formerly in the collection of the late Hasui scholar Hisao Shimizu. This is the exact print shown in the catalog "The Works of Kawase Hasui", published by Tokyo Bijutsu in 2013 and written by Hisao Shimizu, page 136.

Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition.
Dimensions: nagaban (49 x 23.5 cm)
Publisher: Watanabe ShôzaburIo
Literature: Narazaki #266; Hotei #262. Hisao Shimizu, Kawase Hasui, Folk Museum of Ota City, 2013, p 136, no. 68. The New Wave: Twentieth-Century Japanese Prints from the Robert O. Muller Collection, edited by Amy Reigle Stephens; Page 147, number 165.See National Museum of Asian Art.
Seal: Kawase
Signature: Hasui

SKU: HAC262K