Port Festival (Minato matsuri), from the series "Folk Customs of Japan (Nihon minzoku zufu)"
- Date:
- 1946
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
$400–$3,000. Common subjects: $400–$1,000. Key value factors: Kawanishi's Kobe port scenes are his most distinctive and collected subjects.
Created in 1946, this color woodblock print belongs to the series Folk Customs of Japan (Nihon minzoku zufu), a project that documented traditional festivals and cultural practices from across the country. The port festival, or minato matsuri, depicts Kobe's annual harbor celebration with its decorated boats, lanterns, and waterfront crowds. The series format indicates an organized effort to preserve visual records of Japanese folk traditions, a concern shared by ethnographers and artists alike in the postwar period when rapid modernization threatened to erase regional customs. Kawanishi, as a Kobe native, was the natural choice to contribute the port festival subject. The 1946 date places the print in the immediate postwar moment, when documenting traditional culture carried particular urgency amid the sweeping social changes of the Allied occupation.
1940
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
Boshu Taikai
1925
Color woodblock print; oban
September 1931
Color woodblock print; oban
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Port Festival (Minato matsuri), from the series "Folk Customs of Japan (Nihon minzoku zufu)" was created by Hide Kawanishi (川西英) in 1946.
Yes — Port Festival (Minato matsuri), from the series "Folk Customs of Japan (Nihon minzoku zufu)" is part of the Folk Customs of Japan (Nihon minzoku zufu) series by Hide Kawanishi.
Port Festival (Minato matsuri), from the series "Folk Customs of Japan (Nihon minzoku zufu)" depicts seascapes and summer.
