3/28/2023 0 Comments Print saito osamu moku hanga![]() Saitô Kiyoshi: Kuratsuya (Beauty contest: 競艷), woodcut, 1973 (454 x 746 mm) Saitô said that for this design, he was influenced by Gauguin in the use of textured wood, and by Redon for the manner of personal expression. Early paper was obonai made in Echizen, while the later printings were made on kizuki hôsho. The applied colors were sumi and gouache mica was sprinkled on the white areas while they were still wet. The award-winning print was carved in 1950 for an edition of 30 and is known today as "Steady Gaze - Flower" 凝視 (Note: This design is different from a slightly earlier large print by Saitô depicting a black and gray cat against a dark streaked-red background titled "Steady Gaze.") Statler called the 1950 design "Staring" others refer to it as "Woman Gazing." The roughly 24x16 inch print required two blocks of solid katsura and four printing stages. That a self-taught printmaker could grab such a prize was an outrage in traditional art circles (Saitô did it again at the Ljubljana International Biennial in 1956), but he was a singular figure in raising the esteem for such works and in directly contributing to the survival and development of the modern Japanese print on the international stage. Saitô stunned the Japanese art establishment by sharing a special prize for Japanese artists (along with Komai Tetsurô for an etching/coarse-grain sandpaper print) at the Sào Paulo Biennial in 1951, beating out Japanese paintings and sculpture, still at that time considered to be superior arts. Saitô Kiyoshi: Steady Gaze (Flower), 凝視, woodcut, 1950 (600 x 412 mm) One senses here that Saitô was beginning to find his artistic voice with these highly stylized, deceptively simple images. Early papers were kizuki hôsho, while later printings were made on thicker papers. The shades of black and gray were achieved through various amounts of water added to dilute the sumi pigment (Japanese carbon black), along with altering the concentration of the pigment as it was brushed on the carved blocks. ![]() Two blocks of plywood faced with shina were used in two printing stages. below), 60 impressions had already been made. When Oliver Statler described it (see 1956 ref. The impression shown here was produced circa 1941 in an unnumbered edition. The blocks were carved in 1938, but prints were made over a span of years. The print illustrated above is one of his early Winter in Aizu scenes. These and other views of Aizu ultimately numbered around 138 designs from 1938 until 1994. ![]() When Saitô visited his childhood home in Aizu in 1938, it prompted a series of nostalgic images. He often used kizuki-hôsho ("genuinely-made hôsho," that is, the fine-quality paper made from kôzo, "Paper mulberry"). In some cases he used only one block for all the colors in a design, while for others he needed as many as 5 or 6 different blocks. Katsura, rawan, yanagi, keyaki, shina, or lauan, to obtain a wide range of textures. He carved his images into blocks of various woods, either solid katsura or plywood faced with ![]() ![]() Saitô worked primarily in the woodblock medium, while also producing works in collagraph, drypoint, and color and ink paintings ( suiboku ga). On display will be about 60 to 70 Saito prints, showing his favourite themes of landscapes, gardens, Buddhist and Shinto architecture and sculptures, portraits and views of foreign lands.Saitô Kiyoshi: Winter in Aizu (D), woodcut, 1938 (c. The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria has approximately 130 woodblock prints by Saito, which to the best of our knowledge is the second largest collection outside of Japan. The Order of Culture followed, in 1995, for his lifelong commitment to promoting Japanese modern prints around the world as well as for his efforts to teach neophytes the printmaking process In 1981 Kiyoshi Saito was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure, the highest civil honor issued by the Japanese state. Sure execution and expression reveal a confident artist. Compositions of clearly defined visual elements and areas of rich-textured earthy colors, seen in his prints, blend well with the realistic subject matter. Saito’s simple style shows great freedom and spontaneity, and there is an intentional avoidance of elegant refinement. The viewer is constantly challenged by Saito’s formal inventiveness.His prints display a remarkable integrity, and they will undoubtedly continue to be admired the world over for many years to come. His poetic works have remained timeless in spite of their foreign influences, they remain uniquely and unmistakably Japanese. Saito successfully combined Japanese aesthetic elements with modernist, cubist, abstract, and impressionist qualities,achieving a rare synthesis of East and West and of old and new. Kiyoshi Saito (1907–1997) was one of the grand masters of the twentieth-century Japanese print movement known as sosaku hanga, meaning “original creative print. ![]()
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