One Hundred Scenes of Kobe

One Hundred Scenes of Kobe refers to Kobe Hyakkei, the extended series Kawanishi worked on through the 1930s that constitutes the central project of his career. Following the Edo-period precedent of hundred-view series such as Hiroshige's Meisho Edo Hyakkei, Kawanishi systematically surveyed his home city: harbor and shipping, hillside foreign settlements, streetcars, cafés, shrines, parks, sport, weather and seasons. Each print stands alone but accumulates with the others into a sustained portrait of a particular place at a particular moment in its history—Kobe in the years before the Pacific War. The plates show the consistent visual language Kawanishi developed for the series: high-keyed color drawn from his engagement with Fauvism, simplified planes, confident registration across multiple blocks, and the autographic sosaku-hanga method in which the artist himself designs, carves and prints. The series remains the work for which he is principally remembered.