Shin Hanga

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New prints

Shin hanga was an art move­ment to renew Japan­ese wood­block print­ing that last­ed from about 1915 to about 1960. In addi­tion to beau­ties (bijin-ga) and land­scapes, all the oth­er major sub­jects of Japan­ese wood­block prints, famous actors, depic­tions of birds and flow­ers, and scenes from mod­ern urban life, are also rep­re­sent­ed. Along with the ancient val­ues of tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese wood­block print­ing, the Shin hanga move­ment inte­grat­ed ele­ments from West­ern paint­ing. Inspired by French Impres­sion­ism, the move­ment picked up effects of light and the expres­sion of indi­vid­ual moods. Wood­block prints of the Shin Hanga move­ment are char­ac­ter­ized by great tech­ni­cal perfection.
The dri­ving force behind the com­mer­cial devel­op­ment of the shin hanga move­ment was the pub­lish­er Watan­abe Shõz­aburõ (1885–1962). He suc­cess­ful­ly focused on export­ing the wood­cuts to the Euro­pean and Amer­i­can mar­kets. Among the most impor­tant rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Shin hanga move­ment are Hiroshi Yoshi­da (1876–1950), Hashiguchi Goyõ (1880–1921), Hasui Kawase (1883–1957), Natori Shun­sen (1886–1960), Shin­sui Ito (1898–1972), Koton­do Torii (1900–1976) and Tõshi Yoshi­da (1911–1995).
After a dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake in Tokyo on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1923, firestorms dev­as­tat­ed the city, destroy­ing Watanabe’s store and the print­ing blocks stored there. Par­tic­u­lar­ly sought after are wood­block prints of the Shin hanga move­ment edit­ed before the great earth­quake of 1923.