Summer Grass
by Ansei Uchima
- Date:
- 1962
- Medium:
- Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
- Dimensions:
- 44.8 × 60.3 cm
- Edition:
- Self-printed
- Source:
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
by Ansei Uchima
$500–$4,000. Common prints: $500–$1,500. Key value factors: Uchima's luminous landscape prints appeal to collectors of both Japanese prints and modern American art.
Summer Grass (1962) is a woodblock print in ink and color on paper that takes as its subject the dense, heat-saturated vegetation of high summer — grass grown tall enough to brush the waist, heavy with seed heads and alive with insects. The subject carries powerful literary resonance in Japan, most famously through Basho's haiku at Hiraizumi: "Natsukusa ya / tsuwamono-domo ga / yume no ato" (Summer grasses — all that remains of warriors' dreams). Uchima's abstract treatment compresses the visual density of midsummer growth into layered green forms, the ink and color building up on paper the way grass itself builds up from the earth in overlapping blades and stems.
広隆寺牛祭
Woodblock print
二月 (伏見稲荷大社祭)
second half 20th century
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
七月 (祇園祭山鉾巡行)
second half 20th century
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
八月 (三条大橋より大文字)
second half 20th century
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Summer Grass was created by Ansei Uchima (内間安瑆) in 1962.
Summer Grass depicts summer.
Summer Grass measures 44.8 × 60.3 cm.
