Itō Shinsui 伊東深水: Sunset at Akashi (Sold)

Artist: Itō Shinsui 伊東深水
Title: Sunset at Akashi
Date: 1916
Shinsui’s first landscape print, created at the astonishing age of 18. A solitary monk gazes out of the Akashi Strait, which connects Seto Inland Sea and Osaka Bay, in Hyogo Prefecture. The water and sky reflect the deep orange of sunset. The monk is bracketed by a lighthouse to his right and a sailboat to his left, and somehow we feel his aloneness very acutely. Shinsui is best known for his prints of beautiful women, so this pre-earthquake design shows his talent with landscape prints from a tender age. Dated and signed upper right "Taisho gonen junigatsu nijunichi Shinsui" (Taisho 5, 20 December, Shinsui). As a teenager Shinsui wrote that during his night training "I would entirely forget my fatigue and in my dreams I would even carry a brush..."

Condition: Very good impression, color and condition. Light crease in center.
Dimensions:  25.7 x 37.5 cm
Publisher: Watanabe Shozaburo
Literature: The new wave (Leiden, 1993), page 180, number 228.
Seal: Tatsumi (artist's seal)
Signature: Shinsui

SKU: SNC100S