Studio blog of Annie Bissett, an artist working with traditional Japanese woodblock printing (moku hanga)
04 August 2005
Azechi Umetaro
One of my favorite Japanese moku hanga artists is Azechi Umetaro. I love the simplicity and boldness of the colors and the shapes and the quirky characters he invents. You can read about his life here.
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Hi Annie,
Beautiful print, and it would be a pretty complicated image for Azechi. It has a mountain in the background which was his main love. Most of his prints were of mountaineers. I have a really useful book of his; Japanese Woodblock Prints, Their Techniques and Appreciation. It has lots of really good tips for getting some of those Sosaku hanga textures. This print is also remarkably similar to one I have by Maseo Maeda. Maybe these are special trees - Japan has lots of revered trees that strike weird and wonderful poses.
Thanks, Tom, that sounds like a book I need to have for my library! I'll look around for it. The print I posted here was at the sosaku hanga exhibit I went to in Tokyo in June. They had three of Azechi's works, all landscapes, and all seemed atypical in the way you've described - fairly complicated, more "realistic," and not about mountaineers.
wonderful link, Annie, thank you for the introduction to this artist, I liked very much what little I saw, for the same reasons you stated, especially the quirky characters! Looks like you're going to be the cause of another book purchase!
3 comments:
Hi Annie,
Beautiful print, and it would be a pretty complicated image for Azechi. It has a mountain in the background which was his main love. Most of his prints were of mountaineers. I have a really useful book of his; Japanese Woodblock Prints, Their Techniques and Appreciation. It has lots of really good tips for getting some of those Sosaku hanga textures. This print is also remarkably similar to one I have by Maseo Maeda. Maybe these are special trees - Japan has lots of revered trees that strike weird and wonderful poses.
Thanks, Tom, that sounds like a book I need to have for my library! I'll look around for it. The print I posted here was at the sosaku hanga exhibit I went to in Tokyo in June. They had three of Azechi's works, all landscapes, and all seemed atypical in the way you've described - fairly complicated, more "realistic," and not about mountaineers.
wonderful link, Annie, thank you for the introduction to this artist, I liked very much what little I saw, for the same reasons you stated, especially the quirky characters! Looks like you're going to be the cause of another book purchase!
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