modern prints (shin hanga - 新版画) (genre )

Links

Biography:

"Shin-hanga (new prints): Japanese prints of the twentieth century made by the traditional system, centered on the publisher who commissioned designs from artists, then employed professional carvers and printers to make fine prints. The term was coined in 1915 by Watanabe."

Quoted from: Shin-Hanga: New Prints in Modern Japan, Kendall H. Brown and Hollis Goodall-Cristante, Los Angeles Country Museum of Art with the University of Washington Press, p. 9.

****

"The four central genres within the shin hanga tradition were, in order of significance, landscapes, beauties, actors and flower-and-bird designs.The genre of warrior prints, so dominant in the late nineteenth century, disappeared completely. This can perhaps be explained by the shift to a largely foreign clientele that was generally ill equipped to understand the historic content of the designs. Publishers may have also seen these subjects as out of step with the international image they wished to project: innocent nostalgia of the days before modernisation was acceptable but reference to historical events less so."

Quoted from: 'Waves of Renewal, Modern Japanese Prints 1900-60: Selections from the Nihon no Hanga Collection, Amsterdam'.

Loading...