Designer: Karen Pittman | Date: 2024

Paper size: 18cm by 11.5cm | Enlargement | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: $ 70.00£ 55.50€ 64.75

Description: Nearly all of the prints in our shop are of the type known as 伝統的木版画 (dentoteki mokuhanga ‘traditional woodblock prints’), so described because they are produced by a team of people (publisher, designer, carver(s), printer(s)). This print is different; it can be described as 創作版画 (sosaku hanga ‘creative prints’), the term used since the early 20th century in Japan for those prints created entirely by one person from conception to finished product.

Given their desire to break with traditions and to be seen as ‘international’, many of the Japanese sosaku artists work in genres other than woodblock (etching, lithograph, etc.) but in recent years an interesting trend has developed - many westerners have begun making prints using the traditional Japanese woodblock methods. They are attracted by the inherent beauty of the materials - the wonderful washi, the transparent water-based pigments - and by the very sophisticated, yet fundamentally simple, tools and techniques. Traditional Japanese printmaking is very much a ‘low-tech’ / ‘high-touch’ medium, and as such is capable of extremely delicate levels of nuance.

Mokuhankan is glad to share space in our shop with a number of these artists, and we hope you will share our enthusiasm for the work they have produced. Japanese woodblock prints don’t have to be all about Mt. Fuji!

Karen Pittman's Note: Someone wasn't paying attention, and this clever crow got their takoyaki-on-a-stick! (I don't think crows would eat dango...)