Japanese Cherry Blossoms from the series: “In Praise of Shokei, the Kiln of Kawai Kanjiro by Shikō Munakata
£300.00
緋桜の柵
Truly one of our favourite Munakata prints. The scale of the woman on the paper creates astriking composition, only complemented further by the delicately illustrated cherry blossoms andbeautiful lilac and orange colour palette.
From the series: “In Praise of Shokei, the Kiln of Kawai Kanjiro 1945; printed 1969”
In 1936, The Life of Prince Yamatotakeru, the Japanese Hero greatly impressed the celebrated potter Kawai Kanjiro (1890-1966). Munakata later visited Kawai at his home and kiln, Shokei, in Kyoto; he spent forty days there, listening to Kawai’s lectures on Zen texts and visiting Kyoto’s many temples and shrines.
This was a revelatory period for Munakata, and it greatly influenced his work. In Praise of Shokei, the Kiln of Kawai Kanjiro, a series of twenty-four prints from 1945, was the first large-scale work Munakata created after the war. Depicted are three Buddhist arhat, the guardian deity Aō, and twenty female figures symbolic of the natural world. The twenty female figures are of two types: women with black bodies surrounded by floral patterns, and women with white bodies decorated with mostly floral designs. These two types alternate in a dramatic checkered pattern across the pair of folding screens on which they were mounted.
Munakata wrote in Hanga no michi (The path of hanga): “For the first time, with this hanga, I carved into a completely black figure and was able to grasp a way to express the human body.” Here, he used a gouge to carve white contour lines on a “black ground” of ink (inkoku, or intaglio carving) to convey the human figure. He also integrated intaglio carving and relief carving (vokoku) techniques into a unified whole. In the evolution of his technique, this was a major turning point in Munakata’s career.
This is an exquisite lithograph produced on a very textural Japanese ‘washi’ paper, published byYaskawa as part of their collaborative calendar project.
Dimensions: 31 x 39 cm approx. Original Printing Date: 1978 Medium: Lithograph
Shiko Munakata (1903-1975) was a Japanese artist, world-renowned for his woodblock prints and his role in popularising both the shin-hanga and mingei movements in the West. Munakata’s distinctive and harsh take on print making gained worldwide attention in the mid 20th Century: in the Eastern World, this was a result of his departure from more traditional production techniques whilst still maintaining the cultural subject matter of Buddha, flowers and similar everyday imagery. Whereas in the West, the prints were produced in a style not too dissimilar from the European abstract and modernist artists, which in turn gained Munakata the nickname of ‘Japanese Picasso.’ One can easily see the similarties between the two artists.
An interesting observation is noticing that Picasso and his French peers were influenced by the work of the earlier Japanese printmakers, notably Hokusai, which in turn influenced Munakata; the influence really travelled full circle within artistic circles in the 19th and 20thcenturies.
Japanese Cherry Blossoms from the series: “In Praise of Shokei, the Kiln of Kawai Kanjiro by Shikō Munakata
£300.00
緋桜の柵
Truly one of our favourite Munakata prints. The scale of the woman on the paper creates a striking composition, only complemented further by the delicately illustrated cherry blossoms and beautiful lilac and orange colour palette.
From the series: “In Praise of Shokei, the Kiln of Kawai Kanjiro 1945; printed 1969”
In 1936, The Life of Prince Yamatotakeru, the Japanese Hero greatly impressed the celebrated potter Kawai Kanjiro (1890-1966). Munakata later visited Kawai at his home and kiln, Shokei, in Kyoto; he spent forty days there, listening to Kawai’s lectures on Zen texts and visiting Kyoto’s many temples and shrines.
This was a revelatory period for Munakata, and it greatly influenced his work. In Praise of Shokei, the Kiln of Kawai Kanjiro, a series of twenty-four prints from 1945, was the first large-scale work Munakata created after the war. Depicted are three Buddhist arhat, the guardian deity Aō, and twenty female figures symbolic of the natural world. The twenty female figures are of two types: women with black bodies surrounded by floral patterns, and women with white bodies decorated with mostly floral designs. These two types alternate in a dramatic checkered pattern across the pair of folding screens on which they were mounted.
Munakata wrote in Hanga no michi (The path of hanga): “For the first time, with this hanga, I carved into a completely black figure and was able to grasp a way to express the human body.” Here, he used a gouge to carve white contour lines on a “black ground” of ink (inkoku, or intaglio carving) to convey the human figure. He also integrated intaglio carving and relief carving (vokoku) techniques into a unified whole. In the evolution of his technique, this was a major turning point in Munakata’s career.
This is an exquisite lithograph produced on a very textural Japanese ‘washi’ paper, published by Yaskawa as part of their collaborative calendar project.
Dimensions: 31 x 39 cm approx.
Original Printing Date: 1978
Medium: Lithograph
In stock
Description
Shikō Munakata 棟方 志功
Shiko Munakata (1903-1975) was a Japanese artist, world-renowned for his woodblock prints and his role in popularising both the shin-hanga and mingei movements in the West. Munakata’s distinctive and harsh take on print making gained worldwide attention in the mid 20th Century: in the Eastern World, this was a result of his departure from more traditional production techniques whilst still maintaining the cultural subject matter of Buddha, flowers and similar everyday imagery. Whereas in the West, the prints were produced in a style not too dissimilar from the European abstract and modernist artists, which in turn gained Munakata the nickname of ‘Japanese Picasso.’ One can easily see the similarties between the two artists.
An interesting observation is noticing that Picasso and his French peers were influenced by the work of the earlier Japanese printmakers, notably Hokusai, which in turn influenced Munakata; the influence really travelled full circle within artistic circles in the 19th and 20thcenturies.
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