Yamaguchi Gen
Japanese, 1896-1976
Poetry of Early Autumn (B)
INV-1619
Yamaguchi Gen
Japanese, 1896-19761947
Poetry of Early Autumn (B)
Yamaguchi Gen Japanese, 1896-1976 →Japanese (culture or style)woodblock printprint
Date
1947
Medium
Color print with leaves
Dimensions
32.6 × 32.2 cm (12 13/16 × 12 11/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert L. Arenberg
Yamaguchi Gen was one of the first Japanese print artists to embrace abstraction. These two prints may look similar at first, but this print exhibits much brighter colors. Notice also how the spacing of the leaves and other elements changes between the prints. This reveals that the various shapes were manipulated separately by the artist. He produced the images by placing each leaf on cardboard, laying paper over it and printing before moving on to the next leaf or element. There were 23 different printing stages involved in the making of the final image.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
Komurasaki of the Miuraya and Shirai Gompachi (Miuraya Komurasaki, Shirai Gompachi)
Kitagawa Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿 Japanese, c.1753-1806
Hamamatsu, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 Japanese, 1797-1858
Mitsuke: Ferries Crossing the Tenryu River (Mitsuke, Tenryugawa funawatashi), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 Japanese, 1797-1858
