<b>PINES NEAR YOTSUYA MITSUKE</b> / Fritz Capelari1920<b>SOLD</b></em>

Details

The publisher Watanabe Shōzaburo started his enterprise reproducing well-known Ukiyo-e designs during the late Meiji period. Seeing an opportunity to produce original work and revitalize the art of woodblock prints, he first hired the Austrian artist Fritz Capelari. Producing more than a dozen designs for Watanabe, Capelari is credited with being the first Shin Hanga artist and thus creating a blueprint for combining Western aesthetic concerns with Japanese motifs that influenced both Watanabe and his future stable of artists.

A group of towering pines stretches out across the visual plane, occupying most of this design. Its composition is risky. A lesser artist would present us with a busier piece, where the eye is left trapped within the crossing highways of trees. Capelari, however, masterfully balances an active composition by presenting this scene at a slight distance, slanting the tree forms to stretch upward, freeing the eye, and opening the design with portions of blue sky. The artist incorporates oval-shaped clouds echoing the pine trees’ forms, which further untether the composition and provide a sense of movement and expansion. These subtle but vital compositional elements free the viewer to move independently and grant the ability to gaze upward, as the artist did, and admire this beautiful view.

Connoisseur's Note

Pines Near Yotsuya, Mitsuke, 1920, is an exceedingly rare work. The great Kanto earthquake of 1923 destroyed the original Watanabe print shop and studio, including the printing blocks and unsold inventory of this design. Only impressions of this design sold and removed from Tokyo survived the earthquake and ensuing fires that consumed the city. This print is a variant state with a lighter coloration and more pronounced use of bokashi, making it even scarcer than standard copies. We are fortunate enough to have the standard version of this design, offered in this exhibition.