From Yoshida's later career (1935–1950), these prints show his technical mastery at full maturity. Later-decade prints slightly trail peak-period 1920s works at auction, but jizuri impressions of desirable subjects still command strong prices. Standard jizuri Japanese landscapes follow the dealer benchmark of approximately $2,149; Sacred Bridge, Nikko (1937) sold for $800 at Schmidt's Antiques for a pencil-signed example.
The cryptomeria — Japan's towering native cedar, sugi, planted in long formal avenues approaching shrines and along historic highways — provides the subject for this 1937 print, which captures the cathedral-like corridor of a cryptomeria avenue in full, mature growth. These trees, which can live for a thousand years and reach heights of fifty meters, create an almost architectural enclosure of trunk and canopy that Yoshida renders with dramatic recession into depth. The famous cryptomeria avenue at Nikko — planted in the seventeenth century to line the approach to the Toshogu Shrine — is a likely subject, though Yoshida depicted similar avenues at Takinoura and other sites. The verticality of the composition is rare in his landscape work.
Woodblock print
1928
Color lithograph
1930
Color lithograph
1948
Woodblock print, ink and color on paper
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Cryptomeria Avenue was created by Hiroshi Yoshida (吉田博) in 1937.
Cryptomeria Avenue uses Bokashi, Nishiki-e, and Moku-hanga, on color woodblock print.
Cryptomeria Avenue was published by Yoshida Studio (1937).
Cryptomeria Avenue depicts urban scenes and trees.
Cryptomeria Avenue measures 27.2 × 40.3 cm (Oban format).
