#woodblock
Lone wanderer treading silently through the snow.
The main fruit of last year’s (okay, the year changed, so it was technically two years ago, the end of 2016) printmaking course!
It’s a multicolour single plate woodblock print, meaning the whole picture is made with a single plate altered a little bit for each colour layer. So, first I carved out the snow flakes and some of the closest snow mounds, and then gradually carved out more and more and printed with darker and darker colours until the piece was finished. If I recall correctly there’s seven layers in total.
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Lake at Hakone from the Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji series, Hiroshige, 19th century
Woodblock print
33.5 x 21.5 cm (13.19 x 8.46 in.)
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Lake Suwa in Shinano Province from the Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji series, Hiroshige, 19th century
Woodblock print
33.5 x 21.5 cm (13.19 x 8.46 in.)
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Autumn at Oirase, from the series Collected Views of Japan, Eastern Japan Edition, by Kawase Hasui (ca 1933).
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Happy Autumn all! We are going to start our Halloween festivities out early with art and art objects centered around autumn and all things spooky. Let us kick it off celebrating the month with Theodorus van Hoytema’s Swans in Autumn Pond (1902 Calendar: October).
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Folio from Uta makura (The Poem of the Pillow)
Kitagawa Utamaro
1788 (Edo Period)
The British Museum, London, UK
The album ‘Poem of the Pillow’ is a masterpiece among the erotic works by Utamaro (died 1806), and indeed, among the entire erotica of the Ukiyo-e school.
Utamaro has avoided the stereotypical scenes of love-making that were often produced at the time, and instead created an innovative and powerfully sensual design. He uses a very low viewpoint and places the unusually large figures so that they seem to expand beyond the frame of the picture. The eye is shocked by the white of the woman’s skin against the bright scarlet under-kimono, and the transparency of the gauze fabric that covers the couple’s entwined legs only heightens the sensuousness. Finally, however, the viewer focuses on the heads and shoulders. The details emphasise the emotion of the moment: the man’s eye as he gazes intently at his lover, the tender touch of their delicate fingers and the exquisite nape of the woman’s neck. (britishmuseum.org)
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Bookplate for Oliver Wendell Holmes
Per ampliora ad altiora
The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,–
The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
And coral reefs lie bare,
Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;
Wrecked is the ship of pearl!
And every chambered cell,
Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed,–
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!
Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil;
Still, as the spiral grew,
He left the past year’s dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,
Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,
Child of the wandering sea,
Cast from her lap, forlorn!
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn;
While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:–
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!
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“Made to punish men for their sins
The smoothest skin
The longest black hair…
All that
Is me!”
- 与謝野 晶子Yosano Akiko
(1878-1942)
Art - 橋口五葉 Hashiguchi Goyō (1880-1921)
Credit for poem translation: Yosano Akiko and Roger Pulvers, “Yesterday Is Another World,” The Asia-Pacific Journal, 5-3-10, February 1, 2010
Kobayakawa Kiyoshi (1899 - 1948)
Dancer, or “Curved Line of the Instant” (Dansā, or Setsuna no kyokusen), 1932, ink and color on paper
I just love the movement and detail in this one! ^-^
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on the sixth anniversary of the day we both died
Untitled (2013) Digital Collage by CUTS.
Made using 19th century japanese woodblock prints. Two more also in that series - Third Eye and Cyclothymia.
With several framing options from my Society6 shop. Current free shipping ends today (Sunday).
FollowCUTSon Tumblr for more surreal collages
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i carved a woodblock of a jackalope and made some prints- the gold on black didn’t turn out too well, so that one’s a bit digitally edited, but i’m pretty happy with the results.
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