Hasui 巴水: Hataori, Shiobara 塩原畑下り (SOLD)

Artist: Kawase Hasui 川瀬巴水 (1883-1957)
Title: Hataori, Shiobara 塩原畑下り
Date: 1946

A Japanese village is hunkered down against an evening snowstorm. A highly desirable evening snowscape, this work was created without any outline keyblock, a technique that must have challenged the carvers and the artist in new ways, as the artist was certainly involved in print production and color separation. The printing technique is fascinating and complex: Particles of blowing snow are depicted as slashes that streak across the landscape, sometimes showing as grey wisps and sometimes appearing as white streaks against the darker background, a brilliant mix of colors and textures for what is certainly a “white” and clumped substance (snow!). Indeed, we perceive the outlines of the homes only indirectly, as perhaps what we would experience if we were ourselves caught in a blizzard. Hasui has transported us to a village that was familiar to him, as Shiobara was one of Hasui’s favorite places, and he went  there to to live to escape the dangers of Tokyo during the war. As often has been seen by this dealer, although there are two color variants of this design  published in Brown/Hotei (482 & 482a), this work seems to land somewhere in the middle in terms of coloration, although blues seem to dominate in a way that makes it closer to 482.  The yellow in the windows retain their strong yellow pigment, indicating that no fading has occurred to this work. With the round Watanabe seal that is appropriate for the first edition of this work, lower right corner.

Condition: Excellent impression, color and condition.
Dimensions: ôban 39 x 26.4 cm
Publisher: Watanabe Shôzaburô
Literature: N#466; H#482. Narazaki Muneshige, Kawase Hasui mokuhanga shu, 1979, p. 141, no. 466; Kendall H. Brown, Kawase Hasui: The Complete Woodblock Prints, 2003, cat. no. 482; Kendall H. Brown, Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui's Masterpieces, 2004, p. 118, no. 82; Shimada City Museum, Kawase Hasui, The Landscape Woodblock Prints of the Taisho and Showa Periods, 2005, p. 110, no. 210a.
Seal: Kawase
Signature: Hasui with his seal

SKU: HAC482H