<b>VENICE</b> / Hiroshi Yoshida1925<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Hiroshi Yoshida started his career as an oil and watercolor painter. He traveled to Europe at the onset of his printmaking career to sightsee and to work. An avid outdoorsman and hiker, Yoshida took full advantage of his travels and painted the important natural treasures he visited—all executed in the field, utilizing the plein air painting technique. Yoshida’s nine European series woodblock prints were all conceived on one of his early travels to the Continent 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.

The Great Canal is abuzz with activity. Gondolas meander and negotiate paths among vessels and the choppy waterway. The scene Yoshida provides the viewer is from on high, taken from the perspective of an elevated bridge or a nearby hotel window. The colors of the print are soft and impressionistic with a watercolor-like feeling echoing the fluidity of the city built on water as the constant stream of activity by the city’s inhabitants unfolds.

Connoisseur's Note

This impression is a rarely seen trial printing executed prior to the standard edition, bearing the shizuri (trial) seal at the upper left margin, just below the early large red jizuri seal. In addition to the jizuri seal, the print has brush and pencil signatures indicating it was produced under Yoshida’s strict supervision. The large red Jizuri seal and the title at the left margin further suggest this is one of the earliest printings of the design.

This trial impression differentiates itself from other known impressions by its brighter coloration, particularly in the sky at top, the buildings at center, and the various splashes of colors representing the figures’ clothing. This printing also has a strong atmospheric quality suggesting fog, which is absent on the standard version. Unlike the standard version, this trial print required the use of several additional printing blocks to produce the intensity of colors as well as striking contrasting bokashi, or color gradation, evident throughout the work. This impression is a rare glimpse of the artist at work in the start of his printmaking career. At this time, Yoshida was carefully deliberating on how to best produce prints with the highest artistic quality while hammering out the economic viability of his production methods. The rarity and expressive quality of this early experimental impression are exceptional.