Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Rare print of Hokusai's 'Great Wave' sets new auction record
Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) was one of the most important genres of art between the 17th and 19th centuries in Japan. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna, and erotica. However, after the economic reform in the mid-19th century, the landscape genre came to a dominant category, which is also well-perceived by western art lovers because the Japanese landscape differed from the Western tradition. Hokusai (1760-1849) was one of the most renowned artists of that time, especially with 36 views of Mount Fuji, which includes The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of the world's most widely reproduced images. Ukiyo-e is not painting but printing and the process of making Ukiyo-e is painstaking, demanding utmost precision. The artist dampens the washi paper before applying paint and rice glue to the woodblock. Each side of every block represents a different color that will be layered into Ukiyo-e. In those days, labor cost was cheap so popular ukiyo-e works were printed as many as thousands of copies until the woodblocks wore out. Now, one of the well-preserved, early copies of the print was sold at $2.76 million at an auction in New York. Though the print is rare, it is still one of the mass-produced prints. This is no April-fool joke.
Enjoy reading the article and watching the video to learn about what Japan’s ukiyo-e is like.
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/hokusai-great-wave-auction-christies/index.html
Rare print of Hokusai's 'Great Wave' sets new auction record
Ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) was one of the most important genres of art between the 17th and 19th centuries in Japan. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna, and erotica. However, after the economic reform in the mid-19th century, the landscape genre came to a dominant category, which is also well-perceived by western art lovers because the Japanese landscape differed from the Western tradition. Hokusai (1760-1849) was one of the most renowned artists of that time, especially with 36 views of Mount Fuji, which includes The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of the world's most widely reproduced images. Ukiyo-e is not painting but printing and the process of making Ukiyo-e is painstaking, demanding utmost precision. The artist dampens the washi paper before applying paint and rice glue to the woodblock. Each side of every block represents a different color that will be layered into Ukiyo-e. In those days, labor cost was cheap so popular ukiyo-e works were printed as many as thousands of copies until the woodblocks wore out. Now, one of the well-preserved, early copies of the print was sold at $2.76 million at an auction in New York. Though the print is rare, it is still one of the mass-produced prints. This is no April-fool joke.
Enjoy reading the article and watching the video to learn about what Japan’s ukiyo-e is like.
https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/hokusai-great-wave-auction-christies/index.html
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