<b>BATTLEDORE AND SHUTTLECOCK</b>Ito Shinsui1938<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Though abstraction captured Koshiro Onchi’s imagination, he turned to representational subjects in the late 1920s in earnest as a means to promote Sosaku Hanga and gain more public acceptance for this misunderstood genre. Onchi believed abstraction best suited him, as the style was ideal for conveying the wide range of the artist’s emotional experience. However, abstraction was not understood in Japan at this time, and Onchi knew he had to take another avenue in the struggle to legitimize this art form. Turning away from abstraction posed a problem for Onchi. The obvious question must have plagued him—how does one charge representational woodblock prints with emotions? Onchi resolved this problem by developing a highly creative style where the emphasis was on both the design and the method in which the print was executed. This style had a strong painterly effect, which also helped Onchi exhibit hanga in the chief art exhibitions sanctioned by the conservative government, whose taste was primarily Western-style oil painting.

Bathing is an early transitional work Onchi produced that straddled the line between his earlier foray into abstraction and his decision to move towards representational subjects. The design showcases two central figures next to a pool at the center of the design. The entire composition is executed in a highly expressive and wet-like printing style. Although the figure’s forms are discernable, they are rendered in soft applications of pink and yellow without the typical keyblock black outline seen in Ukiyo-e or Shin Hanga. In this period, Onchi was quite taken by the French impressionist Paul Cézanne. The print’s subject, coloration, and impressionistic quality owe much to this influence.

Connoisseur's Note

Bathing is a rare self-printed work executed by Onchi. Although this design was included in various Sosaku Hanga “do-jin” magazines sold via subscription, those impressions were executed on lesser-quality paper and printed by a machine. The do-jin impressions lack the expressive and spirited quality of self-printed impressions such as this work.