<b>PAGODA IN MURO</b> / Hodaka Yoshida1954<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

Hodaka Yoshida was the youngest son of Hiroshi and Fujio Yoshida. Like his older brother Toshi, Hodaka displayed an early interest in art and woodblock prints but was encouraged to pursue science and higher education. After the war, Toshi became heir to the Yoshida Studio and Hodaka defied his father’s wishes—abandoning science for art, abstraction in particular, a style his father disdained. In 1953, he married Chizuko, a fellow woodblock print artist, and traveled the world together producing and exhibiting artwork influenced by their travels and the international artistic trends of the day. Hodaka’s body of work is diverse encompassing Shin Hanga–like designs at the onset of his career, which later progressed to encompassed fully abstract designs displaying Buddhist and primitive folkloric qualities. Hodaka also experimented with a pop surrealist style that incorporated elements of photography, advertising, and eroticism.

At first blush, this design appears composed and structured. Orderly stone stairs travel up to the famed wooden pagoda at Muro. The stairs are ordered in mathematic precision—their irregular ware and uneven moss cover are the only elements of spontaneity. And yet, as the eye moves up the stairs one receives a hint of what is to come in Yoshida’s work. The trees next to the pagoda and to the right of the viewer, and the branches extending at left, are rendered slightly differently. The colors are brighter representing new growth and the forms are geometric or more conceptual. The lines simplify the tree-forms to an essence and make a striking contrast to the others surrounding the composition, which are depicted in darker mature greens tones appearing stylistically coherent with contemporaneous works produced in Shin Hanga.

Though the design is firmly rooted in a representational style, elements in the work hint at Hodaka’s interest in simplification and abstraction. It’s interesting to note Hodaka was already working in abstraction at the time this design was produced. Clearly, the artist was interested in producing work for different markets and tastes concurrently but even his Shin Hanga–inspired designs bore witness to Hodaka’s growing fascination with abstraction. Chizuko, Hodaka’s wife produced a small print depicting a stone garden in Muro. It’s noteworthy how both designs use similar compositional themes and colors to carry their point across.

Connoisseur's Note

Hodaka Yoshida’s woodblock prints from this period are quite scarce, as he did not produce work in large quantities. Making this work even more desirable, 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.