Sōsaku hanga

also: 創作版画 · creative prints

movement c. 1904-1960 Japan

Sōsaku hanga - 'creative prints' - was the twentieth-century Japanese woodblock movement that handed every stage of the print to the artist alone: self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed (jiga, jikoku, jizuri). It broke decisively with the ukiyo-e workshop system, in which publisher, designer, carver, and printer divided the labor. Kanae Yamamoto's small print Fisherman (1904) is usually taken as the movement's beginning; organized from 1918 around the Nihon Sōsaku Hanga Kyōkai, it struggled in prewar Japan, where prints were still classed as craft, then flourished after the war and won international attention at the 1951 São Paulo Biennial. Influenced by German Expressionism and abstraction, sōsaku hanga prized personal expression over finish, and its often rough, experimental cutting leaves each print unmistakably its maker's own.

The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)
The Tribuna of the Uffizi (Zoffany)Public domain (credit: Johann Zoffany) · source

Defining characteristics

  • One artist's hand at every stage: self-drawn, self-carved, self-printed (jiga, jikoku, jizuri)
  • Rough, direct cutting and printing that leaves tool marks and texture visible
  • Abandonment of ukiyo-e's crisp outlined contours
  • Markedly personal, eclectic subject matter - landscape, portrait, abstraction - as self-expression
  • Expressionist and, after 1945, increasingly abstract imagery

Key figures

  • Kanae Yamamoto (1882-1946) — Made Fisherman (1904), the print that launched the movement, and co-founded its artists' association
  • Kōshirō Onchi (1891-1955) — The 'father of the creative print movement', leader of the wartime First Thursday Society and postwar abstraction
  • Un'ichi Hiratsuka (1895-1997) — Influential woodblock artist and teacher whose stark landscapes defined the prewar movement
  • Kiyoshi Saitō (1907-1997) — Printmaker whose prize at the 1951 São Paulo Biennial brought the movement international fame
  • Shikō Munakata (1903-1975) — Folk-tradition (mingei) printmaker whose Buddhist subjects won worldwide exhibitions

Example works

  • Fisherman (Gyofu) — Kanae Yamamoto (1904)
  • Portrait of Hagiwara Sakutarō — Kōshirō Onchi (1943)

Sources

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