Hasui Kawase (1883–1957)

Sunset at Ichinokura, 1928.

Earlier I've collected some work by Japanese wood block print artists.  I stumbled upon this posting about Hasui Kawase by Brain Pickings blogger Maria Popova. Hasui Kawase's art was selected recently by someone on Twitter who often matches haiku and prints.  I'm grateful for learning more about Japanese prints and reading more haiku.  Popova says of Hasui Kawase, "after the First World War, a young Japanese man was embarking on a life of celebrating the inexhaustible consolations of nature in uncommonly poetic visual art."

Moon at Magome, 1930. 

Popopa says:

Born into a Tokyo family of rope and thread merchants, Hasui Kawase (May 18, 1883–November 7, 1957) grew up dreaming of becoming an artist. His parents pressed him to continue in their path, but he persisted in following his own, drawing quiet inspiration from the example of his maternal uncle — the creator of the first manga magazine.

He did take over the family business, but he was moonlighting in art while running it — sketching from nature, copying one master’s woodblock prints, learning brush painting from another.

Spring Moon at Ninomiya Beach, 1931. 

Over the next thirty-five years, Hasui became a master of shin hanga — the “new prints” movement fusing traditional Japanese art, the art of shadows, with the Western aesthetics of light and the European novelty of perspective. He went on to create several hundred consummate woodblock prints, watercolors, oil paintings, and hanging scrolls, animated by a tender reverence for the beauty and majesty of nature. One hundred of them are collected in the lavish annotated volume Visions of Japan: Kawase Hasui’s Masterpieces.   In the final year of his life, the Japanese government classified Hasui as a Living National Treasure. 

Snow on Lake, 1922. 

https://www.brainpickings.org/2021/03/22/hasui-kawase-prints/