<b>HODAKAYAMA AFTER RAIN</b> / Hiroshi Yoshida1927$45,000</em>

Details

Hiroshi Yoshida was an accomplished hiker and mountaineer as much as he was an artist. Yoshida took full advantage of his travels and painted the important natural treasures he visited—all executed in the field, utilizing the technique of plein air painting. Most of Yoshida’s mountain designs were inspired by his expeditions and are based on oil or watercolor paintings he produced onsite, which accounts for the strong realism in the designs, a quality rarely encountered in Japanese prints.

Hodakayama is one of a handful of oversized prints produced during Yoshida’s prolific career and is one of the most successful. The design features Mt. Hodaka clad in deep purples and blues—the light of the aging day after a storm. The mountain is rendered in such photographic quality that it appears surreal set against the foreground, done in a more traditional Yoshida-watercolor-esque style. The bokashi, or color gradation, that surrounds the mountain breathes life into the design.

Connoisseur's Note

This print is a rarely seen early impression of the design. The print bears an early small brown jizuri seal with a pencil signature, indicating it was produced under Yoshida’s strict supervision. The printing of this work differentiates itself from other known regular-issue impressions by its brighter coloration and bolder use of bokashi, or color gradation, in the mountain. This print required the use of several additional printing blocks, compared to the standard version, to produce the intensity of colors as well as striking contrasting bokashi. The Yoshida family has confirmed that the artist produced fewer than 30 impressions.

The rarity and expressive quality of this early experimental impression are exceptional. It also should be noted that the vast majority of oversized Yoshida prints were framed and displayed over the years. As such, many have lost the original intensity of their colors. This impression was never framed or displayed for extended periods of time ensuring the colors are in a pristine state of preservation, appearing as vivid today as they were the day the work was produced.