Edutainment > Sosaku Hanga

Sosaku Hanga I

Sosaku Hanga
Click for Video

The traditional Japanese woodblock print was the result of a cooperation of several persons with very different skills - the artist, the block carver, the printer and the publisher. The sosaku hanga ("creative prints") art movement was formally established with the formation of the Japanese Creative Print Society in 1918.

It followed Western ideals in believing that the artist should be involved actively and in person in the printmaking process from the design to the finished product.

The images on this page are link-sensitive and take you to other articles or web sites in which you might be interested.

The Great Ukiyo-e Crisis

At the beginning of the twentieth century the tradition of Japanese woodblock printmaking was in crisis. Until the end of the nineteenth century Japanese woodblock printmaking was seen as commercial art. Woodblock printmakers got their commissions from kabuki theaters, restaurant owners and from newspaper and book publishers. The main purpose of traditional printmaking was advertising, decoration and illustration.

With the swift modernization of Japan and especially with the use of photography for newspaper illustrations and advertising, the tradition of ukiyo-e had become an endangered species within a few years.

Shin Hanga versus Sosaku Hanga

Sosaku Hanga II

Shin Hanga
Peonies
copyright Junichiro Sekino, 1914-1988

From around 1915 on two new art movements in printmaking came out of the ashes - the shin hanga "new prints") and the sosaku hanga movement. The shin hanga art movement was basically a modernization of the traditional Japanese printmaking - cautiously adding some Western elements like the effect of light and Western perspective. Shin hanga used the same subjects as before - beautiful women, actor portraits and landscapes.

Shin hanga artists tried to transform what used to have been a cheap commercial product for the masses to an expensive product of art for a few collectors and art enthusiasts. The funny thing was that shin hanga sold well - but not in Japan. The prints were exported mainly to North America. And the Japanese artists undoubtedly targeted the taste of the export market by using pleasing, "typical" Japanese subjects and soft colors.

The Do it Yourself Guys

Sosaku Hanga III

Japanese Prints
by Umetaro Azechi
copyright Umetaro Azechi, 1902-1999

The sosaku hanga prints were a product of the westernization of Japan which had set in with the Meiji period (1868-1912). Japan had called for Western scientists, scholars and artists. Many taught at Japanese universities. And Japanese students had been sent abroad with state scholarships on official missions to study Western methods - also in the field of arts.

The sosaku hanga movement had adopted the concept of the Western ideal of art as the product of the creativity of a genius - the artist. Creative prints versus artisan prints!

The subjects and looks of sosaku hanga followed modern Western trends in art with a few exceptions like Sekino Junichiro.

Sosaku Hanga Artists

Here are some names of sosaku hanga artists. By the way, the list looks like the answer to the secret of a long life.

• Azechi Umetaro 1902-1999
• Fumio Kitaoka born 1918
• Hiratsuka Unichi 1895-1997
• Masao Maeda 1904-1974
• Onchi Koshiro 1891-1955
• Saito Kiyoshi 1907-1997
• Sekino Junichiro 1914-1988
• Shiko Munakata 1903-1975
• Tomikichiro Tokuriki 1902-1999
• Toshiro Maeda 1904-1990
• Watanabe Sadao 1913-1996
• Yoshitoshi Mori 1898-1992

Collecting Sosaku Hanga

Sosaku Hanga IV

Japanese Prints - Intro
by Masao Maeda
copyright Masao Maeda, 1904-1974

While shin hanga became quite successful, the sosaku hanga art movement had a hard time to gain public popularity. Every ukiyo-e newbie collector is familiar with the names of shin hanga artists like Hasui Kawase, Hiroshi Yoshida, Toshi Yoshida, Ohara Koson, Natori Shunsen or Ito Shinsui. But few are familiar with sosaku hanga artists. This does not mean that sosaku hanga prints are cheap and easily available. Collecting sosaku hanga prints is a small but fine and often expensive market niche. The reason are the usually small edition sizes of sosaku hanga versus shin hanga.

The situation is best characterized by the artist Tomikichiro Tokuriki. He was a passionate sosaku hanga artist. But he made his living with shin hanga style prints, which he contemptuously called publisher artisan prints. He once said in an interview:

"I'd rather do nothing but creative prints, but after all, I sell maybe ten of them against two hundred for a publisher-artisan print."

Dieter Wanczura
(April 2002, updated April 2009)

Sosaku Hanga on the Internet

• Sosaku Hanga Net

Literature sources

• Helen Merritt, "Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints - The early years", published by University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990, ISBN 0-8248-1200-X
• Oliver Statler, "Modern Japanese Prints: An Art Reborn", C. Tuttle, Tokyo, 1956, ISBN No. is 0-8048-0406-0

	Web www.artelino.com

The images on this web site are the property of the artist(s) and or the artelino GmbH and/or a third company/institution.  Reproduction, public display and any commercial use of these images, in whole or in part, require the expressed written consent of the artist(s) and/or the artelino GmbH. .