Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Moonlight and the sea - woodblock prints by Yoshimune Arai II


Fishing at Night.

These prints are the work of Yoshimune Arai II (1873 - 1945). Sadly, I've been able to find nothing else about this artist. But I love these poetic nighttime scenes, truly deserving of the romantic term nocturne. And I also find it interesting to compare the different individual prints pulled from the same carvings - though, in at least one instance here, it looks like a new block or blocks were carved. I find the slight - sometimes nearly undetectable - variations in color and saturation and detail so interesting. (Some of the color variation is due to photographic reproduction, of course.) The prints shown here are circa 1910s - 1930s.

Fishing at Night.
Fishing at Night. (While nearly identical to the prints above, there are noticeable differences here, most obvious in the bridge support.)
Pine Beach.
Suma Beach.
Suma Beach.
Ferry Boat.
Salt Works by Moonlight.
Salt Works by Moonlight.
Kominato Bay.
Crescent Moon Over a Lake.
Suma Beach at Night.
Suma Beach at Night.
Cormorant Fishing.
Two Boats in Moonlight.
Two Boats in Moonlight.
Two Boats in Moonlight.
Fishing Boat.



at

5 comments:

  1. Chickadee GardensJanuary 6, 2016 at 7:15 PM

    Do you own this collection? Wow, they are gorgeous.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sharon JacksonJanuary 7, 2016 at 1:37 PM

    Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Grace | Fashion PlantsJanuary 11, 2016 at 4:40 PM

    Hiroshi Yoshida's prints were on Antiques roadshow the other day (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/roadshow/archive/201101A42.html), which were similarly mesmerizing. One thing about your post that caught my eye was the trees in Crescent Moon over the Lake. We're so used to "Japanese Gardens" and their pruning styles, yet we forget that the gardeners here in the Northwest were merely recreating the natural growth habits of the trees they were used to seeing at home. I'm looking forward to the Japanese Garden lecture on my Pro Hort Pruning class I'm taking this spring.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousDecember 26, 2023 at 6:35 PM

    I actually have the "fishing at night"
    And thank you for the info..
    I knew nothing about the artist or date, my print does have some inscriptions

    ReplyDelete