Hokusai, hiroshige, hasui: japanese landscapes in print

A look at three masters of Japanese landscape prints from one of the world’s best collections of the genre In the 1830s, a new type of color woodblock print caused a sensation in the world of Japanese popular culture. The bestselling success of landscape series by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and his younger colleague and rival Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) suddenly made landscape prints as important as figure prints, and numerous other artists started to emulate these two masters. Beginning in the 1860s, these works entered the European market and influenced artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet; at the same time, Japanese artists began to study and take inspiration from Western art. As a result, artists such as Kawase Hasui (1883–1957) produced color woodblock prints that captured the beauty of the Japanese landscape by traditional production methods but in a new, Westernized drawing style. This publication examines the historical development of the Japanese landscape print through a comparison of these three major artists: Hokusai, the innovator; Hiroshige, the developer; and Hasui, who reinvented the field in modern terms. Featuring lavish reproductions of more than 100 artworks, as well as commentary by curator Sarah E. Thompson, this visual triptych underscoring the enduring appeal of these artists will delight and inspire readers.