Dissecting a print - Kawase Hasui (Mount Fuji(?), 1847)

Woodblock breakdown of a Shin-Hanga print by Kawase Hasui

Kawase Hasui's prints are the reason I became interested in Japanese woodblock printing in the first place. Until I'd seen them, I was unaware that there were any artists creating things different than the traditional Ukiyo-e artworks or portraits of attractive ladies and stars of the stage. I'd seen a few more modern ones, but to be honest, whilst they're all very good, skillfully made, wonderfully printed, etc etc, they didn't do much for me. Hasui's art, however, was different, and through exploring his output I discovered the whole Shin-Hanga art movement that existed in Japan between 1912 and 1962 - or thereabouts. The reportage aesthetic, the considered design, the mashup of Western influence with traditional Eastern skills, the luminosity of colour, and particular to Hasui's style, the idea that you're looking in on a polaroid snapshot of a time and place that no longer exists. Reminds me of Hopper's painting of the Nighthawks - looking in on place of warmth whilst the elements exist outside. Possibly a little bit of a theatrical description, but needless to say, I found them very interesting.

Kawase Hasui print from 1947

I figured it'd be a useful and interesting exercise to breakdown one of his prints and work out how many woodblocks were used to create it. I'm basing this on a photo of a print - I sadly don't own any originals, and it's just an approximation. I think I'm probably quite a long way off the final nuanced woodblock count as I was reading that he'd regularly use 20 or 30 blocks or more in a single image.

Here's the original image from a book of Shin-Hanga prints.

Looking at Mount Fuji (?) through some trees. Kawase Hasui, 1947

 And here are my guess's as to how it's built up.

 

 

I've found this to be a useful thing to do as it's giving me a logical set of parameters to work to. Whether it's correct or not, I don't know, but it's certainly a start in the right direction. I'm probably missing a number of things, and I'm certain there's a lot of over-printing going on. Somewhere. Somehow.