Kawase Hasui : Revitalizing Artist of Ukiyo-e Art

Kawase Hasui is considered one of the most important Japanese landscape painters of the 20th century. His prints, produced under the direction and stern eye of his publisher, Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962), are the modern continuation of the unforgettable works of Hiroshige and Hokusai , masters of the Ukiyo-e Art. With his art, Kawase was able to evoke the Japan of the turbulent interwar period.

Kawase Hasui was inspired by the breeze and spent his days traveling with the sun, clouds and rain, painting the landscape of Japan’s four seasons. I was also looking for landscapes of Japan from the old days. One of the main supporters of woodblock production was Shozaburo Watanabe, a woodblock publisher and leader of the shin-hanga (new printing) movement. Their strong desire to create something special led them to search for woodcuts that could also be appreciated abroad. Kawase Hasui ‘s landscape prints are admired for their calming effects and sense of tranquility.

Hasui’s work enjoyed great popularity from its first printing in 1918. Unlike his illustrious 19th-century predecessors, his work was immediately successful throughout the rest of the world. His publisher, Watanabe Shōzaburō, recognized the enormous potential of the American market, resulting in Hasui’s prints fetching high prices at New York auctions as early as the 1920s. After World War II, his prints were highly desired and sought after as collector’s items among the US occupation forces in Japan. Hasui’s work has always been highly regarded in Japan.

“I don’t paint subjective impressions. My work is based on reality… I can’t fake… (but) I can simplify… I take mental impressions of light and color when drawing. As I color the sketch, I already I am imagining the effects in a woodcut” – Kawase Hasui

Kawase Bunjirō, later known by the stage name “Hasui”, was born in Shiba, Tokyo, on May 18, 1883. From an early age, his mother encouraged his artistic and literary tendencies. She was the daughter of a master craftsman and the sister of Kanagaku Robun, a well-known literary figure from Meiji Japan. The family frequented the theaters of Tokyo and Kawase Hasui always remembered the enormous impression that the actors, the stories and the staging made on him.

As a young man he attended the school of the painter Aoyagi Bokusen where he collected designs and sketches from nature. He studied brush painting with Araki Kanyu and copied woodcuts from the masters. His father demanded that he go into the family business, which he reluctantly did. Business was not his forte and the company failed. In 1908 it passed into the hands of his sister’s husband and Kawase Hasui, at the age of twenty-six, was able to pursue an artistic career.

It was his teacher, Kaburagi Kiyokata, who gave him the name Hasui, which translates as “water that flows from a spring.” His surname Kawase itself means “river rapids”.

Hasui produced exceptional prints depicting moonlight, rain, rising and setting sun, ocean and river waters, rocks, mist, and mountains. But of all his works, the best and most original are the snow scenes.

Some of his loveliest snow prints are those that combine traditional Japanese convention with Western lighting and shadows. They are true 20th century successors to Hiroshige’s prints.

In his forty years as a print artist, he traveled the length and breadth of Japan to record the wonders of its landscape for posterity. He portrayed its wide views and its small alleys, its castles and temples and also its farmers’ huts. He depicted all kinds of weather conditions, all hours of the day and night, and all their moods, from deep gloom to cherry blossom spring.

Many of his images are devoid of people and those with more than two are rare. When it includes human figures, it is always ordinary people engaged in daily activities, whether they are farmers at work, monks on a pilgrimage, father or mother with a child, or simply individuals facing rain or snow or they lose themselves in their thoughts while contemplating the beauties of their surroundings.

Hasui figures are almost always viewed from behind. Frontality would make the viewer self-aware and thus break the spell. The few exceptions are the images of workers returning home at the end of the day, obviously so tired that they wouldn’t notice the viewer anyway.